Can a shorted hard drive hurt the mobo?

[blakelyb]

I was running my DFI LanpartyUT nF4 Ultra-D system just fine for about a year now, with only two power connectors - I did not hook the regular molex like a hard drive uses, nor the floppy style. It had 6 hard drives and 2 DVDs at that time. No problems for a year.

 

NOw, I did some changes and plugged it in and got smoke near my hard drive and turned it off. One of the changes I made was to change the northbridge fan to the twinkling, quieter one. It had a big copper base and I thought it may have shorted one of the tiny metal components of the mobo, so I made sure it cannot do that with some electrical tape. Has anyone got shorts from the twinkling fan?

 

Then later I was sure it was just the hard drive, not the twinkling fan. I think the hard drive shorted from a tiny metal filing during the changes. I am sure now it was the hard drive based on futher investigation.

 

Now, the mobo only boots part way. It starts out with the 4 LEDS all on, then 3, then 2, then 1. It gets stuck on 1 LED, and the case speaker beebs continously. The video works OK - I can see the partial boot process and I can edit BIOS. But when the beeping starts, the video stops changing.

Is my mobo fried? I checked my RAM and it is OK. I checked my power supply voltages and they are OK.

 

Thanks for any advice, especially what the beeps mean.

[SeanDude05]

You DESPERATELY need a new PSU, like now. 380W is 100Watts below recommended minimum power. Have you removed the broken HDD? Cleared CMOS?

[blakelyb]

Right after posting I read some threads about the power supply, including http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showpost.p...22&postcount=34

So you need the same power rating regardless if you

1) have a low power video card, low power processor, do no overclocking of any kind, etc.

or

2) have a high powered video card, overclock highly, etc.

 

I am sorry but I do not understand how this can be. It seems arguments on this are no longer allowed, There must be a good thread from the past where this was argued, that will help me understand how actual consumption has no effect on the amount of supply needed. I know that some supplies do not hold voltages etc under load, but True Power does not have these problems.

 

I hope we can still discuss how my supply may have been damaged, what the beeps mean, and other items. Or does all discussion stop based on power supply?

[SeanDude05]

Well, it doesn't necessarily mean it should stop, just meaning that a low-power PSU can cause a myriad of problems that are seemingly unrelated to the PSU. Remove the offending HDD first. Have you done a visual inspection of the mobo to make sure there are is no damage?

 

And between the hardware and power ratings, DFI as a company recommends no lower than 450-480W PSU. Just for stability. Now seeing as your not overclocking, you may be getting by on just 380W. Your choice to upgrade or stick with the truePower, you know your computer better than anyone else. A underpowered PSU wont necessarily cause sparking and shorts, but it can cause failure to boot/post problems.

[blakelyb]

Thanks Sean. I do not use the shorted hard drive because it still shorts. I felt if it shorted on the power side it may hurt the supply but would not hurt the mobo. If it shorts on the IDE side, can that hurt the mobo? I think it shorted on the IDE side (the data side).

 

Any idea what the one LED and the continous beepng means?

[iamkoza]

Thanks Sean. I do not use the shorted hard drive because it still shorts.

Any idea what the one LED and the continous beepng means?

 

i dont remember, but i do remmeber the LED light question has been asked 13124124 times here, try searching for it!

[SeanDude05]

Generally 1 long beep indicates memory module error. Have you tried clearing the CMOS?

[steelballzz]

i am surprised you even boot with that psu

i am gonna tell you 2 short story's for better perception on this psu situation

 

i had an eurotech 460w that could run my mobile and nf2 without issues.....bought a dfi nf4 lp and tried to boot ....without hard drive or cd rom....just mobo cpu ram and vga...vga was a 6200 TC...booted fine into bios....

then i plugged the hdd and 1 optical drive......no boot...at all...had 4 leds at the time

 

a friend of mine was running a dfi cfx 3200 and a pair of x1900 xtx....crossfire powa......WC setup....several fans...the all 9 yards....

and the psu.....ocz modstream 450w...ouch....now he is in the process of rma the precious XTX cause the psu failed and took the vga with it

 

just to tell you this.....

your underpowered psu could have been the cause of failure and i would worry and get another one

 

just my 2 cents from my personal experience

 

good luck on that

[blakelyb]

I ran it for a year with 6 hard drives, 2 DVDs. Now I did changes and shorted with stray metal in my hard drive, and reduced to 4 hard drives. Steelballz, I do not know enough about your loads and supply to comment. But on my rig, it seems to be a different situation. I've read some threads about the power supply and I'd like to leave it a major suspect, but move on to other possibilities as well, and other information as well. No need to tell me over and over about my supply.

 

I searced on "LED" and "one LED" and it is too much to read them all. I'll keep trying.

 

I am able to get into the BIOS screens and change things. I did revert to the defalt BIOS. NO change in problem. Then I did the jumper reset. No change in problem. My RAM LED is on, but that is not the LED i speak of.

[steelballzz]

the hhd with the short was a sata or pata drive?

maybe the controler was affected

[blakelyb]

Steelballz thanks for reply. The shorted one was a PATA. The short occured on a microchip on the hard drive with wires so small I think they are data wires, not power wires. So do you think it wrecked the controller on the mobo? That is sort of what I am thinking.

 

I checked the owner manual for the meaning of the 4 LEDs.

4 LEDs) it started up,

3 LEDs) CPU detected,

2 LEDs) DRAM detected,

1 LEDs) VGA detected.

0 LED) System Boot.

 

But since the last LED did not go out, it means the system can not boot, but the rest is OK.

 

But I do not know if the continous beeping has a particular meaning. Maybe it means it keeps trying to boot, and beeps each time it fails, but keeps trying, so keeps beeping?

[SeanDude05]

Well, the single LED will stay lit all the way until it boots into Windows. It is possible that the drive took out the controller.