replaced cooling, now computer won't power on at all

[hgfalling]

Hi, I recently had the following situation:

A couple of nights in a row, my PC shut off overnight, and when I woke up it was off. I didn't think too much of it (maybe power went out or something?), and everything seemed fine. On the third night, I turned the PC on after it was off all day, and it lasted about 15 minutes before shutting off again. I thought it was unlikely to be temperature-related since the PC was cold from being off all day.

Talked to a knowledgeable friend, who suggested replacing the power supply. I was planning to order one and do that, but the next morning I powered up the PC and quickly downloaded HWMonitor. I then watched the CPU temps steadily climb above 90C and then the PC shut off again. So after doing a little research, I decided that what I actually needed to do was replace the cooling.

The PC is a little over 2 years old, from CyberPower. The specs are at the end of the post, but the cooling that came with it was an Asetek LCLC liquid cooling system. From reading a little on forums, it seemed that replacing that with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 was a reasonable thing to do. So I ordered that and some Arctic Silver 5. They arrived today. Using YouTube videos and the instructions, I was able to remove the liquid cooling, replace it with the heat sink and fan combo with no trouble.

Then when I went to test things out, nothing would turn on. No fans, no post, no nothing. I tested all the connections I could find, everything seems okay. There's one small amber LED on the motherboard that turns on when everything is connected and the power supply is on, and I was able to open the CD tray. There is also some kind of power button on the motherboard, and pressing that did nothing either.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance. I include the original system specs below:

BLUETOOTH: None
CAS: Thermaltake V3 Black Mid-Tower Case
CASUPGRADE: None
CD: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)
CD2: None
CPU: Intel(R) Core™ i7-960 3.20 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366
CS_FAN: Default case fans
FA_HDD: None
FAN: XtremeGear Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Enhanced Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA)
FLASHMEDIA: None
FLOPPY: None
GLASSES: None
HDD: 1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Hard Drive)
HDD2: None
IEEE_CARD: None
KEYBOARD: Xtreme Gear (Black Color) Multimedia/Internet USB Keyboard
MB_ADDON: None
MEMORY: 12GB (2GBx6) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module (Corsair or Major Brand)
MONITOR: None
MONITOR2: None
MONITOR3: None
MOTHERBOARD: (3-Way SLI Support) MSI X58A-GD45 Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Triple-Channel DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 Audio, eSATA, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III, RAID, IEEE1394a, 3 Gen2 PCIe, 3 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI (All Venom OC Certified)
MOUSE: XtremeGear Optical USB 3 Buttons Gaming Mouse
MULTIVIEW: Non-SLI/Non-CrossFireX Mode Supports Multiple Monitors
NCSW: None
NETWORK: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 7 Home Premium (64-bit Edition)
OVERCLOCK: No Overclocking
POWERSUPPLY: 600 Watts - XtremeGear Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready
RUSH: NO; READY TO SHIP IN 5~10 BUSINESS DAYS
SERVICE: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
SPEAKERS: None
TEMP: None
TVRC: None
USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
USBFLASH: None
USBHD: None
USBX: None
VC_PHYSX: None
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 SE 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO2: None
VIDEO3: None
WNC: None

 

[Andreas414]

Offhand it seems like the power supply might still be the issue. If it is/was dying, it might not have been supplying sufficient power to the liquid cooling, explaining the high temperatures. I'd recommend buying or borrowing a known good power supply, as it's possible yours is burnt out to the point of the computer being unable to boot. Without changing anything else, you could at least isolate whether or not it's a PSU problem.

 

[Rasil23]

check your manual on how to properly reset cmos on your motherboard, that may do the trick.

 

[hgfalling]

check your manual on how to properly reset cmos on your motherboard, that may do the trick.

I didn't have a power supply handy (at least one that had the 12v2 4pin connector) so I tried this. According to the manual, there is a three pin thing with a dip switch that says either "keep settings" or "restart settings." I switched it, put the graphics card back in (it's right underneath), and powered on.

Now I get fans, the amber led turns green, and there is a little power-on noise. However, no post. I tried reconnecting a few things, but nothing seemed to help there. I tried to get the CMOS battery out (I have replacements b/c they are used in blood sugar meters), but it was difficult and I just gave up eventually. Now I could still try a new power supply, but now with the fans running, it seems so close, like I am just missing one thing.