Power supply???

[jasonwichman]

Hopefully you can give me your thoughts on this. As you know I have that AMD XP 1700+ machine, that I have been having problems with for a while now. It all started when the power supply went out, I replaced that and from there I have been having problems. At first what was happening is the PC would lock and then I would reboot and get a BSOD saying that the system has become corrupt, please reinstall through the recovery function of XP. Well I would never be able to complete that, because the PC would lock up always around half way though the setup. A clean install would work, sometimes. I thought maybe that it was the XP cd, so I tried a few different cd's. That didn't help. I still managed to get the BSOD and sometimes the install wouldn't even run. After about a week of messing with that I decided to get some DOS testing tools. I tested the PC with stress tests, and various hardware tests. The only thing failed very rarely was the RAM. I thought, great only a stick of DDR, that isn't that bad. So I got a new one of those. I put the RAM in and I could smell something, so I killed the power, looked at the RAM, and sure enough it was burned. No big deal under warranty, I'll send it back. Sent it back, got the replacement, turn the PC on and all I get is one long beep. I am like shit!! So everything comes out at this point, I inspect the motherboard very thoroughly, and see a cap is fried, so replace the board. In the mean time swap all other components and put it in an old 233 Mhz Omni Tech. Got the 233 running fine, with the video card, nic, usb expansion card, sound card, HD, floppy, and CD-Rom. Good all that is ruled out. The only things left are the motherboard, processor and RAM. I get the new board back, plug everything back in and one long beep again. So I figure it is the processor, after all there is a black dot on the heat sink as if the CPU burned up. AMD, replaces it, so now everything including the CPU, Motherboard, and RAM is brand new. All other parts minus the case and power supply have been running in the 233, so I know that those all work. I get the PC put back together last night and turn it on, and what happen next is great. The same exact cap on two different motherboards burns with flames. Not just a smoke, but a flames coming from the motherboard. So I sit back and wonder, can the power supply cause things to fry, or does it have something to do with how the HD is mounted in the 5 1/2 bays? The reason why I question the HD is because the HD case to mount it in the 5 1/2 bay comes less then a 1/16" from the motherboard where there is a circuit. Could that cause an arc to fry a cap on the board about 10" down?

Can you give me any ideas you might have?

If you need to know the motherbaord is a Shuttle AK 31, 1 stick of DDR crucial RAM, 1 stick of 256 DDR kingston Ram, AMD XP 1700+, 40 GB WD HD, 30 GB WD HD, 64 MB DDR GeForce 3 Ti200, Turtle Beach sound card, King Power 300 watt Power supply.



ANY HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!!!!!!! Jason Wichman

http://jasonwichman.ath.cx:81

ftp://jwichman.ath.cx:22

 

[christheprogrammer]

Your theory on the electricity "jumping across" is impossible, motherboards have very low current, and a high current is needed to cause a spark. I would say that your power supply is toast and you should get a new one. It is possible that the tolerances on the capacitors on your other motherboard (the one the power supply worked with) are higher than the tolerances on the motherboard that burned, so you would not see a problem there.

So, get a new power supply (spend a little extra and get a good one - it is the heart of your comp) and new Motherboard and try again.

Good luck Chris says: "It's time for a beer."