I've been building a PC for my brother and had it on the bench for a few months but the other week I got round to ziptie-ing the fan to the CPU heatsink (Mini Ninja) and putting it back in the case (I had it in there around Christmas) and after that it wouldn't power on anymore.
As the onboard power button had stopped working some time ago (I'd been using a switch connected to the front panel header since then) I guessed that whatever fault had caused that might have spread, causing the board to stop working completely.
So I bought a replacement s/h board, put that in the case and turned it on and nothing. Well, much the same as the previous board, the onboard LEDs briefly flicker and that's it. I've tested the CPU, RAM and PSU (the only parts I'm trying to use at the moment, the boards has onboard graphics) and they all work fine with my other board and in fact even without any RAM that powers-up and the CPU fan spins but I don't even get that with these two boards.
Now of course it's possible I'm just unlucky and the first board got damaged whilst I was attaching the CPU fan and the replacement board was faulty but I'm somewhat nervous now that perhaps somehow the case is killing my boards. I don't really see how that would be possible, as there's no protrusions under the board and it's obviously raised up on standoffs. Apart from the CPU, RAM and PSU the only extra thing I connected was the front panel power switch but I've buzzed that out and it's connecting the pins correctly when pressed and doesn't seem to be shorting to the case or anything.
I've ordered another board now and I'll test it on the bench before putting it in the case to see what happens but I'd really like to avoid knackering yet another board, so I thought I'd check if anyone can think of how the case might be doing that (as I say, it may not be the case and I've just been unlucky)?
Originally posted by Ripper: I suppose it's possible static is killing your motherboards or at least sending the electronics skewy. I'm not sure, though.
How did you get on with further testing/your new board?
I haven't received it yet. I'll test it outside the case when I do to see if it suddenly stops working when I put it in the case, after thoroughly checking over the case several times, although I can't really see how it could be damaging motherboards so hopefully it was just an unfortunate co-incidence.
Got the new motherboard today and Amazon have sent me the rev4.0, not the 1.0 advertised, so I've got to send that back!
I'm not sure if they actually have any 1.0 in stock or if they just mis-listed it. I hope not, as it's rather tricky to find an alternative board with onboard graphics, 2*PCI slots and an IDE port.
