PC won't post, I think I smell smoke from the PSU

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fruth77

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Jun 4, 2017
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A few months ago, my custom PC shut down and wouldn't even post and all I heard was a flicker from the PSU or the mb header (most likely PSU) and me and my friends found out that the PSU is gone. So fast forward to now, I install a new PSU and leave the drives unconnected with only the cpu and mb connected to the PSU, and now I think I smell smoke when I turned it on for the first time. Any solutions guys? Thanks.

I probably should note that before today when me and my friends were trying to figure it out, we used his dad's psu and it would boot to the bios but wouldn't continue and we enabled fast boot/secure boot and it would turn on but shut down a few seconds later.
 
Solution
Karadjgne
Pull the mobo out of the case, inspect both the case interior behind the mobo and the front/back of the mobo really well, look for any brown spots or scorch marks.
You can try breadboarding, that just the mobo on some cardboard, 1 stick of ram, cpu+cooler and the little speaker. Only thing that actually gets hooked up is the 2x power leads to the mobo, that's it. No hdd, no case no nothing else. Look at the lower right side of the mobo for where the power button goes and give it a quick shorting with a flathead screwdriver. If the cpu cooler kicks on and then you get a beep, you have no issues there. Bunch of beeps and the ram isn't seated right. If exactly nothing really happens or even holding the screwdriver for a second longer...
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fruth77

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Jun 4, 2017
3
0
510


Old PSU was a Corsair CX650M 80+ Bronze 650 watt
New PSU right now is a Corsair CX750M 80+ Bronze 750 watt
Motherboard is a Gigabyte B150M-DS3H LGA 1151
CPU is a i5-6500
GPU is a Zotac GTX 1050 TI that only needs to be connected via PCI-E
RAM is Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR4 2133MHz CL14 (single stick)
 
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fruth77

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Jun 4, 2017
3
0
510


Tested, psu still intact, it's the motherboard, or atleast something within it. Would that mean I'd have to replace the motherboard or are there anything else I can test?
 
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Karadjgne

Karadjgne

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Dec 26, 2012
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Pull the mobo out of the case, inspect both the case interior behind the mobo and the front/back of the mobo really well, look for any brown spots or scorch marks.
You can try breadboarding, that just the mobo on some cardboard, 1 stick of ram, cpu+cooler and the little speaker. Only thing that actually gets hooked up is the 2x power leads to the mobo, that's it. No hdd, no case no nothing else. Look at the lower right side of the mobo for where the power button goes and give it a quick shorting with a flathead screwdriver. If the cpu cooler kicks on and then you get a beep, you have no issues there. Bunch of beeps and the ram isn't seated right. If exactly nothing really happens or even holding the screwdriver for a second longer results in a quick bump and stop by the cpu fan, then your prior psu fried the mobo, or a short in the mobo fried the psu. Either way, the mobo is toast.
If it all works, you get the single post successful beep, then put it back in the case, as is, connect nothing. Try again. If it fails, there's an issue with the ground somewhere, the case is somehow in contact with the mobo. Just keep rebuilding the pc, restarts at everything new. Add the power button restart. Add the HD audio cable, restart. Add a fan, restart. Do this until it fails. Save the ssd/hdd for next to last, with the gpu being the absolute last.

Doubt you'll get that far, but it's a hope. Honestly looks like the mobo is fried at this point.
 
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