Computer won't start -- Power supply burnout!?

[dogus1]

I was jamming along playing Jedi Knight II the other day and my computer crashed -- it was a heat issue, for sure, as I did not take my usual precaution of placing a box fan next to my open case! YES, I do this, because for some reason I cannot get my CPU to cool down -- I bought that Artic silver thermal bond, I bought a top of the line heatsink ... and still, during 3d games my rig gets HOT. Over 70 degrees celcius! The box fan really works, though! Really! However, yes, I forgot this time and my computer got hotten than I think it had ever gotten before -- when I touched the box to test for heat -- My GOD! I could have cooked an egg on it! I let it be for a while, forgot about it, and then today, two days later -- the computer won't turn on at all! I have not used it since that initial failure. I am wondering if something catastropic happened!

However, even if I fried the CPU, wouldn't my power supply still light the little LED on my motherboard -- and wouldn't I stil powerup into Bios or at least into an error message? I am getting no power -- and normally when I turn my power supply off and on, I hear a little revving sound ...but no longer! -- Is it possible that I have somehow blown out my power supply? It too also always seems to be excessivly hot, and I don't know if thats because of some sort of error, or if it is supposed to do that, or if it is because of its close proximity to my hot CPU???

Are there different levels of quality in power supplies? And how much wattage does one need -- this one is 400 watts.

I have
AMD Athlon 2100+
512 MB ddr ram
Geforce 4 4200 128 mb
windows xp
biostar m7vik via Kt400

 

[svol]

Hmmm... are you sure you used a very thin layer of Arctic Silver and removed all previous thermal goop?

Anyway if it doesn't power up at all it can mean two things: fried PSU or other hardware or something short circuiting. Check every cable and see if your CPU didn;t fry and took the mobo with it.

You can test a PSU outside the case if you want... just remove all connectors with hardware and use a paper clip or wire to short the green wire of the mobo connector with a black ground wire (doesn't matter which one). If your PSU is OK it should start running this way.

A 400W should be enough BTW... as long as it is decent quality ofcourse.

I love my Delta 60HP 7000 RPM fan that puts out more dB then CFM