Need help figuring out what I have damaged

[Degarmo]

I did something real stupid yesterday. I got my New turbo cool psu with the external pot on my 3.3v line yesterday. I was booted into windows, I had not mounted the pot on anything yet, so it was dangling outside my case. I moved the case a little and Whamo! frickin thing grounded out on my case!!!

I reset the psu, and my system hasn't been the same since, it acts like something got damaged on the southbridge. It will lock up loading windows, and a reset does nothing. I have to turn it off then the bios usuallly will lock. I prime95 ok, but I left it on last night and was greeted by a no signal monitor, and one led light on the frontx thing, I think it was #3 that was lit. Had to turn off then back on twice, to get back up.

The pot is on the 3.3v line. Anyone have any ideas as to what I damaged???? Is the psu ok? Since it prime95 ok, I am assuming the cpu/memory is ok, but what about the video card? I do have an extra board I can put in.. and I am pretty sure the board is what got hurt, but I need help making sure...

Thanks in advance
deg

[Alexia]

Test your voltages and monitor them with a multimeter from a four pin molex. Sounds like you fried part of PSU.

[Degarmo]

I put my old turbo cool back in my system... So far so good. I am testing the one with the pot that grounded out yesterday in my spare Lan party. It is running in the bios right now, defualt optimised options 2500 barton thermaltake valcano with delta 80 x 38 tornado, No drives no floppy Nvidia Gforce4 ti4600 1 gig dual channel ocz gold memory, chipset fan. Nothing else running. Volts test as such using digital volt meter touching pins on back of board @ atx connector.
3.3 = 3.45 constant
5.0 = 5.28 constant
12.0 = 12.19 constant but there is really no load on it. My VapoChill really drains it. and it's kinda hard to test with my vapo because of the way it is configured. Also in my regular system I have 3 hard drives 2 cdroms 4 more fans and a ati 9800pro. The one that I grounded out might only fail under load or an overclock? How long should I monitor using volt meter? It's real hard to keep it on there for very long?

[Degarmo]

Since Alexia is the only one who has replied, I guess the power supply is the one most likely to be damaged? I will confirm that tomarrow... God I hope it's just the psu, and not the cpu or memory.. I have a 2nd board, just got to switch is all, if the board ends up bad...

[cantankerous]

try a complete CMOS reset. I had very similar things happen after fooling in my case. Very troublesome to have your computer freeze during post screen. I did a real good clear of cmos and everything was fine after that. Perhaps you 'shocked' the bios and its not the same. Wouldn't hurt to try.

[Alexia]

Originally posted by cantankerous on 03-18-2004 at 01:02 AM
try a complete CMOS reset. I had very similar things happen after fooling in my case. Very troublesome to have your computer freeze during post screen. I did a real good clear of cmos and everything was fine after that. Perhaps you 'shocked' the bios and its not the same. Wouldn't hurt to try.

After clearing the CMOS, remove as many unneccessary things as possible to boot the computer. I was confused why my carputer wouldn't boot the other day. The external USB hard drive was locking the motherboard up(the Lanparty as well) and it was fixed by simply unplugging it.

[Degarmo]

Well it lasted through the night using my other psu. On the other board I was testing the psu that grounded out. I decided to overclock a little to see if it might cause it to hic-up a little. It did freeze in the bios once. I am pretty sure the psu got damaged. Well and also my winbond chip... Now the 3.3 reads .03v lower then before I had the psu in, with the external pot.

Thanks guys for the replies, I have reseated and also reflashed the bios, this might be what has fixed it to I guess? but I am not taking any chances. This psu that grounded out is going back!

Deg