Is my motherboard short-circuited?

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Mistajayd

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Jun 11, 2014
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Hi everyone, so basically I had just built my first computer about 2 days ago but had some problems on the way, I heard no post beep and the monitor wasn't catching any signal from the PC motherboard. I removed the case and took a look inside replugging all the wires and accidentally left my 2 sticks of ram on top of there slots but not locked down by the 2 latches on opposite sides. I started up my PC and a huge spark or pop came from the ram area and a little bit of smoke came out. Now, I removed the sticks of ram and tryed starting it up. It starts up for a quick 5 seconds and then it just turns off. All the fans are spinning and the light on the mobo is on but it just turns off. I can get it to run for about 45 seconds if I'm lucky but if it goes off, it won't turn back on and I have to wait again until it can boot back up. What could the problem be? I was guessing it was the motherboard because all the parts seem fine to me. No burn marks on mobo, no burn marks on the ram sticks, no burn marks on the cpu and all the other parts. What could it be?

Motherboard: Asus z77-a
Cpu: Intel i5 3570k
Psu: thermaltake 700w
Graphics card: PNY GeForce gtx 650ti
Optical drive: LG
 
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damric

damric

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Sep 17, 2010
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Stop. Turn off your computer. Either inspect this yourself or take it to a professional. I assume you would rather do it yourself.

Remove EVERYTHING from the case. Inspect every inch of the PCBs for burn marks. Replace your PSU.

Then Breadboard your rig to test things by added in one component at a time.
 
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notherdude

notherdude

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Jul 18, 2006
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My guess is that you fried that RAM slot and maybe the rest of the motherboard. I had something similar happen years ago, I had some RAM in backwards!, anyway the slot was fried but the rest of the system was OK, even the RAM stick. If the RAM was not even making electrical contact with the slots then maybe it's something else.
 
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dvs_xerxes

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Sep 7, 2013
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Once you see a spark comes out your done, stop messing with it or risk ruining more components. Get the mb replaced. If your lucky your ram and other components may be OK but i wouldn't count on it.
 
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dvs_xerxes

Honorable
Sep 7, 2013
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Doubt it is the power supply that caused his problems even though tr2 are on the cheap end and i wouldn't use it on a higher end setup. It is Adequate for a mid range PC. He did said he didn't properly latch his 2 sticks of ram before turning on the PC, which is obviously the source of his problems. Again the best thing for him to do is to get the mb replaced and the ram checked by a shop.
 
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bignastyid

bignastyid

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Jun 19, 2011
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I have seen it happen before. It's not uncommon for cheaply made PSU's(like the TR2) to take other hardware with it when it fails. I have seen 2 TR2 PSUs that completely took out everything that was plugged into them when they died. I wouldn't ever suggest using a PSU such as the TR2 in any build no matter what range it was in.
 
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