I killed my machine?

T

tyguy

Gawd
Joined
Sep 21, 2004
Messages
544
So I went by frys today and they had a evga geforce 4800. I had been trying to pick up a xfx 5870 for weeks because I had a 100 dollar off card at frys. Seeing as how its seems to be difficult to pick these cards up I decided to just get this. So I get home and I notice this card has an 8 pin connector and a 6 pin. I had been use to the regular double 6 pin connections. ANyway I used the power cables that came with the card. I go to turn on the machine and a light goes on then quickly off. Worried that maybe something happened I plugged my trusty 8800 gtx back in and same problem... I think when i plugged the cables in that came with my fermi I used the wrong power connection from my power supply? Is it possible I killed my power supply or even shorted out my mother board? Im using a tough power 650 wat power supply.
 
That thing is not enough to handle a 480. It's got 2 12V rails and probably not enough voltage. Your power supply probably blew.
 
Very likely you killed your power supply + its not uncommon to screw up your other components by the former event happening.
 
I used the 2 6 pin cables cables from the power supply to hook up to the 8 pin adapter that came with the card. I then used the 6 pin adapter which came up with the card. I think I hooked up the 6 pin adapter wrong. The 8 pin was straight forward as it required the 2 6 pins to use. Yeah when I go to turn on the machine now the cpu fan spins for like a split second then turns off.

This would really suck if I destroyed my motherboard as well. When I initially turned on my machine with fermi in I think I heard a feint pop, but I can't be 100% sure. I just got this mobo/i7 combo like 4 months back. Would kill me if I happened to destroy it all with one screw up.
 
I was initially a bit skeptical of the psu being able to handle the 480. It is primarily the reason why I wanted a 5870 so bad. Seeing how I couldnt get my hands on that card and they had this fermi in stock I just thought I would give it a try.
 
Also I think I used that 4 pin connector to hook up the adapter for the 6 pin.
 
Time to check what works then. Start with the PSU. Disconnect it and test it alone using this guide. I don't know your tech level, so be careful and perhaps ask others if you are very uncertain:
http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63991

While testing the PSU, you can test the machine by using only the MB (with CPU installed), 1 mem chip, GPU (8800GTX) and another PSU if you have it.
 
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I agree, sounds like PSU. That is why I recommend expending a good chunk of money on the PSU....you can upgrade many parts but the PSU normally stays with you so it makes sense to get a really good unit that you can keep for a long time.
Sorry to read this, the 480 is an awesome card...hope you get to enjoy it soon.
 
Ok clearing cmos did nothing. Also when I try to power on and fans spin for a brief moment I swear there is a hint of a burning smell.

Also I dont have another psu that will power my current system. I have older psus but those clearly wont work with this i7 8800 combo. I can try hooking up these psu to this older box I have lieing around. Its a e6400 core 2 duo and there is a onboard video with it too.
 
Well this happened to me once on a old backup computer. I forgot how but I connected the adapters wrong or whatever but it took out the 8800GTS and the power supply. Good luck.
 
tyguy said:
Ok clearing cmos did nothing. Also when I try to power on and fans spin for a brief moment I swear there is a hint of a burning smell.

Also I dont have another psu that will power my current system. I have older psus but those clearly wont work with this i7 8800 combo. I can try hooking up these psu to this older box I have lieing around. Its a e6400 core 2 duo and there is a onboard video with it too.
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If you follow the link I provided, it shows how to test the PSU without having it connected. :)

can you tell which older PSU you have? Don't forget that you only need it for powering up the system for testing and not to run Furmark. Its wise to figure out what got broken, so you can focus on replacing only what you need.

Edit: Try to figure out what part the smell comes from and see if there is any marks or indication that its burned.
 
aZn_plyR said:
Well this happened to me once on a old backup computer. I forgot how but I connected the adapters wrong or whatever but it took out the 8800GTS and the power supply. Good luck.
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If I took out the fermi as well I need to be punched in the face.Too bad I have no way of tesing out if I destroyed my fermi or even my 8800 gtx as well. Seeing as I only had 1 psu capable of running even my 8800. Im gonna take my psu out and try out whats in that tutorial.
 
Tamlin_WSGF said:
If you follow the link I provided, it shows how to test the PSU without having it connected. :)

can you tell which older PSU you have? Don't forget that you only need it for powering up the system for testing and not to run Furmark. Its wise to figure out what got broken, so you can focus on replacing only what you need.

Edit: Try to figure out what part the smell comes from and see if there is any marks or indication that its burned.
Click to expand...
The old psu I have is I think an antec blue and its like 400-500 wats. It dooesnt have 6 pin pci-e connections so I dont see how I can get these to work. None of my friends are into pc gaming like me so I cant just go over to their houses and tes out equipment.
 
Tamlin_WSGF said:
If you follow the link I provided, it shows how to test the PSU without having it connected. :)

can you tell which older PSU you have? Don't forget that you only need it for powering up the system for testing and not to run Furmark. Its wise to figure out what got broken, so you can focus on replacing only what you need.

Edit: Try to figure out what part the smell comes from and see if there is any marks or indication that its burned.
Click to expand...
Wow thats a pretty nifty test. SO say my psu fails this test. I'm still worried I destroyed my mobo #1 and my fermi possibly #2 maybe I even dicked up my 8800 by plugging it back in with a busted psu...
 
tyguy said:
Wow thats a pretty nifty test. SO say my psu fails this test. I'm still worried I destroyed my mobo #1 and my fermi possibly #2 maybe I even dicked up my 8800 by plugging it back in with a busted psu...
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Your 8800 is most likely not broken, since it wasn't in the machine during the failure. If the PSU after the failure were unable to boot anything, I doubt the 8800 got broken by this.

The motherboard and such can be broken and also the new card. But, you need a new PSU if the other one fails the test and you can then test the MB/CPU/1 mem chip with the new PSU.
 
tyguy said:
Also I think I used that 4 pin connector to hook up the adapter for the 6 pin.
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This is what scares me. The 4-pin cpu power supply?

Did you try taking out/unplugging the gfx card and booting without it?

Also didn't look at that guy's link, but you can use the paperclip trick to test a psu. If you smell something burning, something's definitely fucked.
 
I used the 4-pin Peripheral Power Connector
X 7 to hook up the 6 pin adapater. Son of a bitch I dont have any metal paper clips around here. Man buying a new psu in the hopes I didnt screw up any of my components doesnt seem very cost effective. Really wish I knew someone with the components to test out this fermi.
 
tyguy said:
I used the 4-pin Peripheral Power Connector
X 7 to hook up the 6 pin adapater. Son of a bitch I dont have any metal paper clips around here. Man buying a new psu in the hopes I didnt screw up any of my components doesnt seem very cost effective. Really wish I knew someone with the components to test out this fermi.
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use a metal copper wire or something else conductive. All you need to do is to short out those pins. :)

Did you figure out what part that smell burned?
 
If you killed the videocard thats ok you can return it to frys. if you killed the powersupply, go to frys and take the 100 dollars that you saved and purchase a new power supply. You have only a few days to retrun the card if it is dead. So, act quick.
 
So I got myself a paper clip and hooked up a case fan and the psu as well as the power supply both powered up just fine. No burning smell whatsoever..... I think im gonna try throwing this power supply into my core 2 duo box....
 
So far so good. At least power supply wise.. I hope everything else is man, keep us updated.
 
tyguy said:
So I got myself a paper clip and hooked up a case fan and the psu as well as the power supply both powered up just fine. No burning smell whatsoever..... I think im gonna try throwing this power supply into my core 2 duo box....
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Good, now find out where the smell comes from. If there is no smell from motherboard, CPU or memory, connect the PSU and run it first on them (it might make sound without GPU, but it will start). If successful, put in the 8800 and make sure to connect it without the adapters.

Make sure that you have the 24-pin and the 8-pin motherboard connectors plugged in.

You can also smell on the PCI-E connectors from the PSU to see if you broke something there.

Edit: Earlier, there were this CPU protection, where if something failed, you could get it started again by unplugging the 24-pin cable and plug it back in. You might be lucky and its still there causing the CPU not to start. :)
 
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Ok I hooked my power supply back up to my biostar i7 system sans videocard. Everything powered up just fine. There was no burning smell coming from anywhere that I could tell. Cpu fan continually spun however there was no beeping noise. Typically when something is wrong with video or no video im use to a beeping noise.... I do have 2 pci-e slots so I think im gonna try hooking up my 8800 gtx to the other pci-e
 
Get a new power supply anyway. This whole incident should not have happened. A decent unit should shut down without damage if you overload one of the rails.
 
Ok so i hook up 8800 gtx to my 2d pci-e port. Everything starts up smoothly. Mind you I dont have my hard drives hooked up or monitor plugged in, just all the fans were spinning nicely. So im look hmmm. I take it out polug it into the normal pcie-e slot. Turn it on and now its working again..... wtf is going on?
 
Do I even dare try plugging the fermi back in? I mean I really want this card, but im afraid it might be busted...
 
tyguy said:
Ok so i hook up 8800 gtx to my 2d pci-e port. Everything starts up smoothly. Mind you I dont have my hard drives hooked up or monitor plugged in, just all the fans were spinning nicely. So im look hmmm. I take it out polug it into the normal pcie-e slot. Turn it on and now its working again..... wtf is going on?
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Looking good, but you are still not out of the woods yet. Try to hook it up to the screen and see if you can get a picture. :)
 
Just s you know my motherboard uses 4 pin slot for its power adapter. The psu has an 8pin but its connected to that 4 pin wire I use. I cant reach the card from where the cpu power plugs in. So I HAVE to use the adapter. I think it was the 6 pin adapater I dicked up in plugging in.
 
Go ahead and try the Fermi, just make sure everything else is disconnected. DVD drives / Hard drives etc.
 
Ok I think I got it.... I plugged in my hard drives along with the rest of the system, wont boot up, burning smell happens. Take un plug hard drive power cables and everything works fine...
 
tyguy said:
Hooked up the screen and there was a picture.
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Nice! :D

Now, about the Fermi. Two things can have happened.

1. The molex connector you used are sometimes tricky and its crucial that you make sure all the pins are properly connected.
2. The Fermi was dead on arrive, which can happen with all cards.

The power surge might have given the card structural damage inside, so its crucial that you test it properly if you choose to try again.

Personally, I would buy a new PSU which have the connectors needed [H] has a good list for this in the Nvidia section and plug it in there (or RMA the card, get a new card and PSU).

Its up to you. :)
 
tyguy said:
Do I even dare try plugging the fermi back in? I mean I really want this card, but im afraid it might be busted...
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If everything else is checking out fine now, return the video card and get your money back then get a 5870. I don't think your PSU will handle the Fermi AND the rest of your system (hard drives, etc.) from what you've told us.
Either that or you'll have to buy a better PSU to handle the Fermi + the rest of your system. Your choice.
 
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