Motherboard

[[THANATOS].m3d!c]

Okay...this really bites...@#$%!

I'm building a PC for my brother. After plugging everything, the PC wouldn't power on, but he light on the mb is green, which means it's working. I also smell something burnt (electrical) when I try to power it on. The 500w ps is working when I tested it. I shipped it back to Asus for RMA and finally received it yesterday...a friggin month later.

Anyway, after putting it all together again with just the ps and processor and fan plugged in, I decided to power it up to test. Again, nothing. Then I saw smoke coming from this little black thingy, like some sort of a capacitor, but not an actual capacitor. So I pulled the plug. I guess I have to do another RMA.

But anyway, what the heck is going on? Its this another bad mb or did I do something wrong?

[[THANATOS].Metal]

There should be rubber grommets that go over the mounting holes in the case. Did you get/use them?

[[THANATOS].m3d!c]

[THANATOS Wrote:.Metal"]There should be rubber grommets that go over the mounting holes in the case. Did you get/use them?

It's a red like washers right? I'm using that with the screws.

[[THANATOS].Sneye.GT]

You can also use the copper looking things, they're essentially spacers to keep the motherboard from touching your case and frying itself. Which it sounds like you've done.

[[THANATOS].-Hades]

Your powersupply could be faulty and "overpowering" the motherboard which probably resulted in a fried portion of the motherboard(s).

ASUS makes decent mobo(s) and it seems unlikely that 2 of their boards would have the exact same fault. You could try using google to see if it's a common problem with that specific board but that's highly unlikely.

[[THANATOS].Sneye.GT]

I've fried 2 mobo's and 1 cpu, all were my own fault. That's building my own and friends computers for 20 or so years now. It's usually just an OOPS. But they are quick and costly. That being said, I have had a few brand new mobo's that were bad. I went through 2 exact same ABIT mobo's before I stopped using them and switched to ASUS. Both Abit's were toast right from the factory.

[[THANATOS].m3d!c]

[THANATOS Wrote:.-Hades"]Your powersupply could be faulty and "overpowering" the motherboard which probably resulted in a fried portion of the motherboard(s).

ASUS makes decent mobo(s) and it seems unlikely that 2 of their boards would have the exact same fault. You could try using google to see if it's a common problem with that specific board but that's highly unlikely.

I hope it is not the PS that is faulty. Can a PS tester test for overloading? I don't see any PS tester that checks for overloading, only to see if it works or not.

[[THANATOS].-Hades]

Instead of buying a tester I'd just get a mid range psu $30-50.

[[THANATOS].Metal]

This:

[THANATOS Wrote:.-Hades"]Instead of buying a tester I'd just get a mid range psu $30-50.

What I usually do when I suspect a power supply has taken a dump is go and buy another one rated at a higher wattage than the one in use, hook it up to the machine in question with all the peripherals that are going to be used on the machine, and see if it fixes the problem. If it doesn't fix it, return the PSU and you're no worse for the wear.