Not sure what I fried =[

[spledang]

Okay so, I bought a new video card (ATI 4830) and a new power supply (ROSEWILL 600w) from newegg. Installed both carefully and safely (first installation alone). I came out successful. Worked perfectly. Stupidly as i was putting the screws on the tower to close it up... I DROP one of the screws on the mobo i believe and had caused a spark (i didnt smell anything burn). I then tried to reboot and all the fans (gpu, tower, cpu, psu) would turn on, but nothing appeared on the monitor - also no beeps, but everything sounded healthy working.

Now after this had happened I waited till the next morning to get a new mobo compatible at frys. I just wanted to see if my mobo was the problem. I connected everything and now when i try to turn it on, you see the power supply light up, cpu fan, and tower fan go for like a quick second...

I dont want to get to hesitated to try something dumb so please help me cancel out the problems.

Things I have tried already...
1. Took out lithium battery on first mobo to check if it would reboot it
2. Switched new graphics card with old one and got same results (fans just keep going with nothing appearing on screen)
3. Checked all cables were properly connected
4. Switched monitors to see different results (nothing happeed =[)
5. Tried having one stick of memory or none (still nothing =[)
6. Re-plugged gpu, cpu, and psu connectors.

Random question: If I plugged in the LEDs for the front panel on the F-Panel, but WRONG could that do anything to my motherboard? I plugged it in the first time wrong i believe, then fixed it. I was told by a friend that the only technically that would matter is the one for the front switch to boot it up.

What's weird is that the first mobo i used at least had the gpu, cpu, tower, and psu fans running. New mobo I bought doesnt... either something i connected was wrong (probly not) or DOA? idunno what to do. Please help. Any suggestions would make me feel better since im just thinking of returning all the parts i got from newegg for a refund even though they worked like a beast (before i screwed up).

Well any suggestions will be appreciated because I am out of ideas. First time i posted was last week on the forums, I got great feed back so i hope to get the same for this thread.

P.S. I am going to reconnect everything on my first mobo slowly and safely to see if I get the same results or better than before.

 

[badge]

If you installed a new MB, power on and the system powers up for a second then shuts down, you likely have a short causing the system to shut down. Try powering on with the basics. CPU/HSF, video card and 1 DIMM RAM. Unplug EVERYTHING else including hard drives, optical drives, case fans everything. If the system still powers up then shuts down instantly, the new MB is likelly shorting out to the case. Reinstall the MB carefully and with the brass risers that hold the board up from touching the case.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

This checklist should have a few more troubleshooting ideas:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-build-post-checklist

 

[marco324]

try to get in the habit of shutting down the powersupply when working on the computer
good advice from badge make sure the risers are the only where they match up to the new motherboard
screw holes

 

[jsc]

Basic rule of troubleshooting: when something goes wrong, back up to the last known good step. (Yes, I realize that the new parts were working, but the key word is "was".) Reinstall the original PSU and video card in your original motherboard. Does that work? If it does change just the PSU. If that works, add the new video card.

Work through the checklist.

After the checklist, try this:

Try to verify (well as you can) that the PSU works. If you have a multimeter, you can do a rough checkout of a PSU using the "paper clip trick". You plug the bare PSU into the wall. Insert a paper clip into the green wire pin and one of the black wire pins beside it. That's how the case power switch works. It applies a ground to the green wire. Turn on the PSU and the fan should spin up. If it doesn't, the PSU is dead. If you have a multimeter, you can check all the outputs. Yellow wires should be 12 volts, red 5 volts, orange 3.3 volts, blue wire -12 volts, purple wire is the 5 volt standby. The gray wire is really important. It sends a control signal called something like "PowerOK" from the PSU to the motherboard. It should go from 0 volts to about 5 volts within a half second of pressing the case power switch. If you do not have this signal, your computer will not boot. The tolerances should be +/- 5%. If not, the PSU is bad.

Unfortunately (yes, there's a "gotcha"), passing all the above does not mean that the PSU is good. It's not being tested under any kind of load.

On to the real troubleshooting ...

Disconnect everything from the motherboard except the CPU and HSF and case power switch. Boot. You should hear a series of long single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence here indicates, in probable order, a bad PSU, motherboard, or CPU - or a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU.

To eliminate the possiblility of a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU, you will need to pull the motherboard out of the case and reassemble the components on an insulated surface. This is called "breadboarding" - from the 1920's homebrew radio days. I always breadboard a new or recycled build. It lets me test components before I go through the trouble of installing them in a case.

It will look something like this:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-262730_13_0.html
You can turn on the PC by shorting the two pins that the case power switch goes on.

If you get the long beeps, add a stick of RAM. Boot. The beep pattern should change to one long and two or three short beeps. Silence indicates that the RAM is shorting out the PSU (very rare). Long single beeps indicates that the BIOS does not recognize the presence of the RAM.

If you get the one long and two or three short beeps, test the rest of the RAM. If good, install the video card and any needed power cables and plug in the monitor. If the video card is good, the system should successfully POST (one short beep, usually) and you will see the boot screen and messages.

Note - an inadequate PSU will cause a failure here or any step later.
Note - you do not need drives or a keyboard to successfully POST (generally a single short beep).

If you successfully POST, start plugging in the rest of the components, one at a time.

Other comments in no particular order:
Rosewill PSU's are, umm, excessively mediocre.
If the case LED's are connected backwards, turn off the power and reverse the connections. Either way, you won't hurt the motherboard.
The case power and reset switches are not polarized. As long as they are plugged into the proper places, polarity doesn't matter. If you suspect a bad case power switch, swap it with the reset switch and try to boot with the reset switch.

And turn off the power and unplug the power cord from the computer before doing anything to the computer.

 

[spledang]

Okay so I have tried what Badge said and yes a miracle it worked, BUT now it doesnt read anything i previously had. It is giving me this

pc says "boot failure insert system disk and press enter"

-Note I can go into BIOS

I dont mind reformatting, but all my editing and videos i work with would be gone. Although its better than nothing i suppose. Umm only idea I have is to go into bios and have boot up order as HardDrive First, and rest of the order doesnt matter? Tell me what you all think. Thanks for all the suggestions previously posted and taking the time to help me =] since im a noob at the whole building scene lol.

 

[dokk2]

you could try fdisk /mbr,maybe you will get lucky,or you could reinstall right over from the install cd/dvd,and then save your stuff to another partition/cd/dvd,AND then reformat and start all over,,suggestion do partition your hdd use second or third partition to save your stuff then if you have to you can reformat the primary and reinstall with no lose..OTOH if you have Norton Ghost you would not be having this problem,,it is a real lifesaver..

 

[spledang]

Alright im back on my comp that i thought was a goner. Looks like in this whole process i lost 1gb of memory (i have no idea why 1gb of ram of the 2gb i have dont work), my hard drive couldnt be repaired or used at all to reformat so i bought a new one. All in all i guess im happy since my new power supply/video card/hard drive is running, but 1gb and all my stuff i previously had is gone. O well lesson learned... be sure to be safe when installing crap on your motherboard lol thats my lesson =P. Just wanna say thanks to everyone who posted. Much appreciation =]