1st post....1st major problem :( (longish)

[Bflanigin]

ok well ill start by giving background. I am a college student with a wealth of knowledge about cars, and have worked several jobs in trhat industry. I recently purchased a computer that a good freind of mine built. I dont know alot about computers so i know spec of the system and not brands etc. Well the computer has functioned great but the wiring inside was a little ho hum. So i got a sleeving kit to sleeve a few of the wires. Well i only got a couple done when i decided it was time to do some gaming for the night, so i plugged everything back ain turned it on and.... nothing. Now i know the immediate instinct for everyone (including me) was i forgot to plug somthing in. I double check and everything was correct i even marked in several places and only pulled one wire at a time. Now heres the kicker. While im poking around i left the power supply on and suddenly the green LED on the mother board pop on for a second then off again. I wiggled mt hand around in the area i just touched. (the 20 pin connector into mother board) and the light came on and stayed on. Hit the button and the beast fired up. Ok so i slapped the panels on set it on the floor.... then nothing. Put it back on the table wiggled wires to no avail.


Long story short i beleive this is a lose wire. Anyone have any ideas? Also, if its not the 20 pin connector, there is a wire going from the power supply that is white and black braided and connects to a 3 pin connector on the motherboard about 2 inches above where the 20 pin connector is. What does this wire do?

Well there it is i hope Someone can help. Thanks everyone.
(hlep the noob....)

 

[kurtowns]

I had this same problem once before i tied 1 of the wires up with a bread tie & it was shorting out the power ... those sleves causing problems ?

 

[Bflanigin]

hmmm. bread ties have metel in them and the sleeves i am using are all plastic with shrink tubing. there is one wire that may still have frayed ends on the motherbored because the plug was too hard to get to i didn't want to try it. The wire goes from the dvd drive to behind the wireless card. i dont know if the plastic sleeving would do anything. ill try taking that one off when i get home. Ill definatly try it though. everything is worth a try. Hey, i really appreciate your help.
Any more thoughts?

 

[Bflanigin]

is there something that shows me when the power is on what pins on that 20 pin connector should have power? i assume all of them because it goes straight to the PSU but just wondering. Also does anyone know what the other wire i mentioned is?

 

[QuaziBee]

I would recommend unplugging the 20pin connector and plugging it back in. It may just not be seated properly. You could go one step further and unplug everything and plug it all back in. Make sure there aren't any screws behind the mobo shorting it out.

 

[Bflanigin]

ive tried unpluging the 20 pin but tonight ill try to unplug everything and plug them back in. I was thinking it might just be a loose pin on the 20 pin connector but ill look for short because thats sound like a strong possibility. Thanks for the input.

Any other idea for me to check tonight?

 

[Bflanigin]

well, i did some more fiddeling to no avail. Im starting to think now that possibly my PSU is bad? how could i check this? or would i have to borrow one to plug in?

 

[HighTechBMH]

From what you described, Look inside the 20-pin connector and see if there is a connector that is bad, and you might just have to fiddle with it.

Along with the bad wire, since you were messing with things while the Power supply is on, you might have shorted out the board. But that is also unlikely.

A third idea: you might have knocked a jumper off or something, because you said that when you touched a part the light came on, it might have been using your hand/finger as a connector... Just a thought, so look where you touch to turn it on and see if two little parallel wires are sticking out, you might just need a jumper.

Other than that, i don't know, before throwing out the Power supply though try a power supply that you know is good and hook it up to your computer, if it works, the Power supply is bad. If you know that the power supply is good, and your computer still doesn't turn on, you know there is no power going into/through the motherboard, which means it needs replacing.

BMH