The way to find out what's wrong it to replace parts:
1) Unplug everything non essential, this way you can be POSITIVE, they're absolutely nothing to do with the problem, any drive other than master HDD, monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard, anything in the back of the PC, should only be the wire to the psu.
2) Ensure your motherboard isn't shorting on the case/motherboard tray. Your brother makes pc's so let him do it for you/with you to make sure you're installing nothing wrong.
3) Eliminate the psu by replacing that first. Just plug in the 24pin mobo power, hdd, cpu 4 pin and the graphics card. This also eliminates any errors with misc parts.
4) Then I'd go for front panel connectors, take em all out and go through em one by one, carefully.
5) Then I'd go for maybe using his hard drive, you don't even have to boot, you just want power first.
6) Try without graphics card in, then try with his in.
7) Take out all ram, then put in just one stick, try in all slots, might as well, only takes a second.
8) Then I'm afraid you're gonna have to lift that cpu, check for bent pins and get your brother to VERY carefully re-seat it.
9) Failing all this, chuck it out at least a first floor window, this often shakes parts slightly, allowing for tight parts to settle and function correctly.
10) Failing that, commit suicide. I accept 100% responsibility for all suicides due to pc enragement.
1) Unplug everything non essential, this way you can be POSITIVE, they're absolutely nothing to do with the problem, any drive other than master HDD, monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard, anything in the back of the PC, should only be the wire to the psu.
2) Ensure your motherboard isn't shorting on the case/motherboard tray. Your brother makes pc's so let him do it for you/with you to make sure you're installing nothing wrong.
3) Eliminate the psu by replacing that first. Just plug in the 24pin mobo power, hdd, cpu 4 pin and the graphics card. This also eliminates any errors with misc parts.
4) Then I'd go for front panel connectors, take em all out and go through em one by one, carefully.
5) Then I'd go for maybe using his hard drive, you don't even have to boot, you just want power first.
6) Try without graphics card in, then try with his in.
7) Take out all ram, then put in just one stick, try in all slots, might as well, only takes a second.
8) Then I'm afraid you're gonna have to lift that cpu, check for bent pins and get your brother to VERY carefully re-seat it.
9) Failing all this, chuck it out at least a first floor window, this often shakes parts slightly, allowing for tight parts to settle and function correctly.
10) Failing that, commit suicide. I accept 100% responsibility for all suicides due to pc enragement.
