Rig not turning on after being built

[Abominator]

Hey guys I'm in a spot of trouble and I'll give you some back ground info.

-Built the whole PC including asrock extreme 6 motherboard, 3570k, GTX 680
-Included H100 cooler in this build
-Tried turning it on, some times it would turn on for half a second (fans would try to spin but mainly LEDs would light up)
-Had a mental break down as this is my first build
-Pulled everything out and took of H100 because I remember I smudged the thermal paste, although application looked fine when I removed it
-Set up a test bench with the motherboard out of the case, put the GPU in, 24pin motherboard power supply, GPU powersupply, ATX12V or the supplemental powersupply? I also switched out the H100 and put the stock heat sink on
-Hit the on button and everything worked, booted into bios, heatsink fan spun up, GPU fans spun up
-Assumed it was thermal application
-Put everything back in the case (tied up cables even more to ensure nothing was getting pulled loose)
-Reinstalled the H100 with good thermal paste application
-Hit the on button and back to square one, it flicks on for a bloody half second randomly when I try to turn it on

I checked the stand offs so none are popping up. Noting is shorting out motherboard. Supplemental CPU or ATX12V is plugged in. I'm thinking it might be the damn CPU fan header. The stock intel heatsink's fan header has 4 pins, the H100 has a weird fan header, it's the size of a 3 pin header, although it has one contact point for a pin in it. But I simply assume this is because the H100s fan controller takes the roles of some of the cpu fan headers pins. Now this may be the case of a faulty fan header or the motherboard not accepting the fan header despite it working properly. Or it may be an entirey different thing. So I'm going to take out the H100 yet again and put in the stock intel heat sink whilst it's in the case to rule out the possibility of the any issues. Atleast if I install the intel heatsink and it work I can actually install all the damn drivers and anything else I require, swapping it out for the h100 when I have time as its winter right now and given the fact that it's in a HAF X with a bunch of high CFM fans the temperature won't be an issue.

I know without you being there that there isn't much you can offer but anything will work. I'm going out for dinner now and when I get back I'll swap out the H100 for the intel heatsink and get back to yous with the results.

This has literally ruined the last 2 days, but atleast it has given me a good learning experience on cable management, thermal paste application and removal, learning the headers and ports on the motherboard and in patience.

Thanks in advance.

[Zao11]

-Pulled everything out and took of H100 because I remember I smudged the thermal paste, although application looked fine when I removed it
-Set up a test bench with the motherboard out of the case, put the GPU in, 24pin motherboard power supply, GPU powersupply, ATX12V or the supplemental powersupply? I also switched out the H100 and put the stock heat sink on
-Hit the on button and everything worked, booted into bios, heatsink fan spun up, GPU fans spun up

-Put everything back in the case (tied up cables even more to ensure nothing was getting pulled loose)
-Reinstalled the H100 with good thermal paste application
-Hit the on button and back to square one, it flicks on for a bloody half second randomly when I try to turn it on

From the sound of it, you've narrowed it down to two possible causes. If it was me my next step would be to go ahead and swap back in the stock heatsink with the motherboard still in the case like you planned. From what I've read my first guess would be that the motherboard is actually shorting out on the case somehow. If it still doesn't work with the stock cooler on while in the case, make sure you have the right number of motherboard standoffs installed and none are in the wrong form factor positions for your motherboard.

[Abominator]

My motherboard has holes for 10 standoffs, although I only placed 9 in the case and they all match up with the correspoding holes in the motherboard. Using less than the required number of standoffs won't cause a short or troubes will it?

[YouTube1080p]

My motherboard has holes for 10 standoffs, although I only placed 9 in the case and they all match up with the correspoding holes in the motherboard. Using less than the required number of standoffs won't cause a short or troubes will it?

There's usually 1 in the middle of the case built in.

[Zao11]

My motherboard has holes for 10 standoffs, although I only placed 9 in the case and they all match up with the correspoding holes in the motherboard. Using less than the required number of standoffs won't cause a short or troubes will it?

I believe nine is the standard number of screws for both ATX and microATX form factors. If all 9 of the stands are lining up with the motherboard screw holes that wouldn't be the issue. My initial thought was that possibly you had one or 2 stands in wrong positions causing them to not line up and perhaps shorting a few of the solder points on the back of the circuit board.

I suppose there's no reason to assume it's a short until after you've tried swapping the heatsink though. But if the problem continues after getting the stock heatsink in, just make sure there is no possible way the back of the motherboard could be touching the case. I can't think of anything else to check at the moment, but maybe someone else will chime in with another idea.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

How did you attach the 3pin fan to the 4pin connector? There is a catch on one side of the fan connector, you need to align the connector so that it latches into that catch.

[Abominator]

How did you attach the 3pin fan to the 4pin connector? There is a catch on one side of the fan connector, you need to align the connector so that it latches into that catch.

My mother board come with 2 cpu fan headers, one is 4 pin and allows for a low noise adapter while the other is 3 pin. Both allow a 3 pin to be attached correctly.

I'll swap out the heatsinks now and when I'm doing that I'll have a look for anything that may be sticking up. As a side note the Haf X is a real pain because the cpu cutout isn't even big enough to allow bracket removal of a heat sink so I have to pull the entire motherboard out, nonetheless good practice.

[Deleted]

Had a simular issue with my build few months back, fans would go on for like a second or so then shut down and it was a faulty power supply so i got that exchanged and it all worked.

[Naididae]

On the bright side, everything seems to be working fine, except maybe the H100 and/or the installation in the case.

As someone pointed out, try using the stock heatsink and install it all in the case, if it works, the H100 could be faulty (maybe the pump isn't working or something).
If it doesn't work then it can be a shorting inside the case or static build up there. A friend had the same issue once (inside case = no good, outside = hooray), all he had to do was take it all of the case, touch the case and, at the same time, touch a grounded metal object. Supposedly it took away static built up in the case. After that, everything worked fine.

[Abominator]

Okay so I put the stock heat sink in and the same deal, turns on for half a second then off. Which is good because that means the H100 isn't broken. It just means it's shorting somewhere, which means I have to go hunting. I'll try the static build of the case thing but I'm not sure what else could be shorting it, all the stand offs are in place, it could be the I/O sheild plate maybe because it caused me troubles and it's got little fins coming off of it, other than that I'm not sure.

[hapylol]

Why would it be the standoffs? They are just meant to hold the motherboard up...

It is most likely a bad PSU, google- Power Supply paper clip and use that test to see if your PSU is working.

[Naididae]

I don't know how it can be the PSU when it turns on perfectly fine outside the case.

[noteworthynerd]

I may have missed it, but I didn't see any mention of the front panel connectors... An incorrectly wired front panel is often the culprit in this situation, double check your motherboard manual and make sure you've got the correct wires on the correct pins, normally this specific problem is caused by mixing up the live wire and the ground, or maybe putting the reset wire where the power wire should be.

[Deleted]

Well, on the upside it looks like your rig is still keeping all the magic smoke tightly locked inside.

I am assuming the MB is receiving enough power, too? I mean my own needs an actual 4-pin powerplug from the powersupply connected into the MB, otherwise it will refuse to work.
when I look at the picture of the motherboard on the company site, it looks like it has a numeric display attached. Is it spitting out a code for you?

[Abominator]

I played special attention to the manual on getting the front panel connectors right, also the motherboard has a power and reset switch on it that I can use when it's not plugged in. Also I make sure each time the 4 pin power connector (I have an 8 pin) is plugged in.

Also yes when I ad it running on the bench it displayed a code of A6 which according to the manual is SCSI detect.

Still shorting so I'll take it out again.

---------- Post added 2012-06-15 at 01:38 PM ----------

Okay I'll take out the motherboard again and test it on the bench to make sure everything is still working, I bent back the pins on the I/O plate but that didnt help so I'm going to totally remove it and reinstall the motherboard and see if that fixs it.

[noteworthynerd]

Yeah, I pull those pins off of the I/O plate with a pair of needle-nose pliers in every build I do, not sure if that's detrimental, but I've never had problems with it.

[Abominator]

I made a lucky and interesting discovery. I pulled it out of the case and ran it on the bench, it didn't boot up. So I removed all the non-essential connectors from the PSU (ie all the 4 pin accessory connectors), I waited a little bit and the motherboard booted up as normal. So from this I'm assuming that one of the accessory 4 pin connector devices is shorting out the PSU or the motherboard via the PSU. I also discovered that after the motherboard shorts out there is a certain space of time before it can boot up again, well atleast I think it does this so its probably going to take even longer to find out what 4 pin accessory device is at fault.

---------- Post added 2012-06-15 at 03:07 PM ----------

Great news every one I figured out whats wrong, the case fans have 2 cables, one for fan speed/power and the other for LED. The LED cables are small 2 pin ones and have no adapter on them and as such you can put them on backwards, as such I had some of them backwards which was shorting out the PSU. These are only preliminary findings so I'll get back letting you guys know how things go. Thanks for the help so far guys, I couldn't have done any of this without you.

[Libram]

It could be possible that the PSU has a loose plug in the back. My new computer would do the same thing, sometimes not even light up... I found that the plug in the back of the power supply had to be jammed like hell to get anything to work (was bad design imo) or else it wiggles free and sometimes will just pop right out if bumped.

[Abominator]

It appears that I have bigger issues now. All my fans were working, then one of them stopped working and smoke came out of my fan controller where it was plugged, I changed it to a different position on the fan controller and smoke came out of that port as well, now neither of the positions work or atleast don't appear to work. Now I'm guessing I have to get a new fan and fan controler if I wish to utilize all the ports on the fan controller?

Edit.
It appears that all ports on the fan controller wokr but I'm afraid to plug in the faulty fan. What should I do?

---------- Post added 2012-06-15 at 04:53 PM ----------

Yeah so I plugged the faulty fan into the fan controller and it still doesn't work, so seeing as I did nothing wrong to break it I could probably get a new one on warranty or just buy one because they are cheap.

---------- Post added 2012-06-16 at 03:41 PM ----------

I just wanted to let everyone know that the computer is now fully up and running (except one rear 140mm fan and the fan controller which still works partially, but I'll have those replaced in a few days and it will only take 5 minutes or so). Nonetheless I want to give a huge thanks to everyone who provided advice, I doubt I could of done this without you. Once I get the bomb site that is my room littered with dozens of boxes and wires cleaned up Ill post a picture of my rig in the my build thread thing in case anyone wants to look.

I'm so happy right now, after putting in excess of 24 hours into this computer it finally lives.