Christmas system wont power up! HELP!

[macab0ne]

I am trying to build a computer on the cheap for a friends son for Christmas with a mix of old and new parts and the system wont boot. The motherboard led shows power to the board, but when you hit the power key the system is not powering up. The power supply and case fans do about a 1/4 turn and then nothing happens. I have checked all the connections and have tried getting it to start with different hardware plugged and unplugged to try to find the broken link but nothing seems to work. Is there anything anyone could recommend to try getting this system to boot? or a way to test what the issue is? I only have a few days to get this up and running before Christmas and would hate to tell my friend that it will not be ready Christmas morning.

[SpikeSoprano]

would help if you listed what the specs of the parts are, also what is new and what is old, but it sounds like a bad psu, this is only a guess as there is very little info to go on.

[Tjj226_Angel]

Try taking your pc apart and run it ontop of card board or something. Then turn it on using the screw driver trick with the jumpers. If it works, then your case is causing a short, or your headers are messed up. If it doesn't work, your mobo has a problem.

[macab0ne]

would help if you listed what the specs of the parts are, also what is new and what is old, but it sounds like a bad psu, this is only a guess as there is very little info to go on.

 

Sorry about that, the specs are:

 

Case (Brand new from Newegg): CASE ANTEC|THREE HUNDRED ILLUSION R

Power Supply (Brand new from Newegg): PSU ANTEC| NEO ECO 620C 620W RT

MotherBoard (Worked 2 weeks ago, removed when upgrading my PC): ASUS P5N32-E SLI QUAD 680I

CPU (Worked 2 weeks ago, removed when upgrading my PC): INTEL CORE 2 DUO E6600 2.40

Video (Worked 2 weeks ago, removed when upgrading my PC): EVGA GEFORCE G8800GTS 320MB

 

Thanks for the continued help!

[Alexandre]

The first thing I would check is that the power supply is plugged in properly to every component. It sounds like your PSU is turning off due to some short circuit protection

 

Make sure you haven't confused the PCI-E 6-pin + 8(6+2)-pin connectors with the 8(4+4)-pin ATX12V/EPS12V CPU power connector (Check your PSU manual for how they look). If you plugged those cables in the wrong place you will have your +12 volt rail shorted to ground which would cause your PSU to shut down immediated due to short circuit protection.

 

Quoting the PSU manual: "Sometimes the PSU will “latch” into a protected state. You will need to power off the PSU and clear the fault before it will function again." - Page 2 under "System Protection" sub-heading.

 

Hope you get this working for Christmas!

 

EDIT: Tidied up the text

Edited December 20, 2011 by Alexandre

[Black64]

Sounds like your missing the 4 or 8 pin connector to the mobo.

[Alexandre]

Sounds like your missing the 4 or 8 pin connector to the mobo.

You mean the CPU power connector?

 

The power supply would still run fine even with that connector not plugged in so it cannot be an unplugged 4/8 pin connector.

 

@OP How did it go? Did you get it working? If you still have a problem then have you checked whether the motherboard is shorting out with the case? Make sure you put the metal spacers between the motherboard and the side of the case before you screwed the motherboard on.

[paulktreg]

Try disconnecting everything from the power supply and shorting out the green wire to any black on the motherboard connector. ( A paperclip is good for this). Does the power supply fan start up? If not try connecting one HDD and try again. If the fan starts up then the power supply is probably OK but it's hard to be sure without a meter to measure the voltages. If the power supply does start then as previously mentioned you may have a short somewhere so try a basic build outside of the case.

[l1o2l]

I don't see any ram... lol

 

Put the bare essentials - cpu, motherboard, 1 stick of ram, and graphics card. Try to power it on.

 

If it doesn't power on, try clearing the bios via jumper on the motherboard.

[VaporX]

Okay lot of jumbled tips here, lets put them in a good order for you.

 

1) Reset the BIOS

 

2) Move RAM to new slots, try single sticks

 

3) Unplug everything except motherboard and take out any cards, see if the system will stay powered up.

 

4) Test the PSU, if you have a tester that is super if not here is a guide for doing it manually. Manual PSU Testing

 

Put these in order of easiest test to hardest.

[d6bmg]

@OP: so what happened? Any update about your problem?

[macab0ne]

Hey guys, thanks for all the awesome advice! I have not had the free time to run through these things yet, 12 hour work days with an hour travel does not leave much time. I'm going to be spending the day Friday, hopefully getting this system up and running. I have built several systems in the past with little to no trouble so this threw me for a loop. again THANKS YOU! so much for the advice Ill give you all an update Friday.