PC died and now will not start

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wongb18c

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Ok, I'm new to this forum so bare with me. It happened last night as I turned on my comp, it's been 3 weeks since I turned it on because I was away. Anyway, everything is fine... I check email, chat on aim blah blah.. then I plug my usb cable from my mp3 player into the back.

Then all of a sudden... just as I plug the usb in, the comp shuts off!

I tried to turn it back on it won't work.. I tried everything spent the whole night trying to solve the problem but no go. How could this be? Talk about aggravation, at first I thought it was the power supply so I went out a bought a new one, when I put in the new power supply still won't work.. so I'm like OK... this is freaking crazy. Maybe it's the motherboard... I spent another 75$ and bought a cheap asus motherboard and rebuilt everything... Using the new mother board and the new power supply, the cd rom gets power and so does my 2 HD's but the cpu fan does not... nor does my video card. Basically it's not getting power at all... I don't know what to do ... after a new power supply and new motherboard... you'd think everything will be solved but still no go... how could this be? What else could be wrong? I mean I can't be the computer case or the HD's.. or CD drive.

Also the new motherboard has no built in video jack.. so I have to use my video card - will this cause problems?

Does anyone have a clue of what's wrong, I'm pretty new to this stuff so any help would be appreciated! What steps should I take to diagnose this problem.. and fix it? $175 dollars later I have nothing but parts.... any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA.

*One side note, when I plugged in the new power supply and turned it on for the first time I smelled some plastic burning.. it's a 430 watt supply maybe it's too much?
 
If you smell something burning when you turn on a PSU, there's definitely something wrong. Return it and get a new one...
 
Yes I know... I plan to return it... I only bought it because I thought it was my old power supply that went bad.

As of right now I still can not narrow down the problem... because I bought a new motherboard and re-built everything... after re-buliding everything I tried it with the OLD and the NEW psu. I still get a blank screen. I checked all the wiring and seems fine... the problem now is I don't know if I ruined my new motherboard already because of the plastic burning.

Next I plan to try out another psu from my dad's comp and see if it helps. But what puzzles me is that after a motherboard replacement with everything else being the way it was... it still does not work...

My specs...[after motherboard replacement]

Asus A7V8X-X mainboard
Athlon 1800 cpu
1 Stick of 512 ddr ram
1 80 GB WD HD
1 80 GB Maxtor HD
Some CD-R drive
Some floppy drive
Nvida 256mb videocard
Old 100watt IBM psu - I replaced it with a 430 watt Antec psu
 
I thought definitely for sure that it was my power supply that wasn't enough since I have 2 hd's, cd, video card, and floppy. But after I replaced with a new Antec 430W, still didn't work, along with motherboard.
 
First off, do you get any 'beeps' when powering up your rig?
Your RAM might have gone bad on you. Try a clean start with bare minimum (one HDD, video card, 1 RAM stick, keyboard and mouse) and see if you can enter your BIOS.
If you still can't enter BIOS, try your RAM in a different computer (don't put another stick of RAM in yours yet because if your MOBO or PSU is bad, you might burn it too)
If you can enter BIOS, you may have to reinstall/repair your OS, since you replaced some hardware (i.e. motherboard) If your running XP, try repair option. Make sure your boot priority is set to CD before the HDD.
If everything boots up fine on the first try, reconnect your hardware one piece at a time until you find the broken part.
A slight burnt smell is not unusual when installing a new PSU. It might be due to some dirt burning on one of the filters.
 
Thanks for trying to help guys.. I really appreciated. As you can tell I'm pretty much a newb. Well.. let me update on the current situ.

First of all I tested my cpu and ram sticks in my dad's pc.. they both work fine.. as I replaced them both and the comp ran just perfectly. Next I might try the psu. This is really a mystery because I take parts from my comp and put it in another comp they work.

I put it back in my, I don't even get video on the screen.. I don't get power to the video card nor the cpu. So you would think it's the mainboard right? I replaced the motherboard and the same situation occurs. I've tried everything and almost all possibilities. On my comp. I can't even get into bios since I don't even get power to the cpu and the video card.... I only get power to the HD's and CD drive since I can hear them running.
 
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