Friend's build

[hmmblah]

So I friend of mine decided to build his first PC. He lives roughly 4 hours away and gave me a call Friday night. He had the whole machine together, but when he tried to turn it on, nothing at all happened. No fans spin up, nothing turns on. I walked him through a few troubleshooting procedures like unhooking unessential hardware, making sure PSU switch was on etc.

Well, he was able to have someone bring it to me late last night. I took a quick look at it today at lunch, I wasn't able to plug it in, but I think I may have found the issue.

That's the bracket for his cooler (CoolerMaster 212 Plus). In the red circle you can see it's not sitting flat on the back of the motherboard, but it's on top of a transistor or something.

 

[alienware]

No offence to your friend but this is why some people should just buy a pre built machine.

Building a PC really isn't as easy as it sounds. Just the other day on here we had a dude trying to screw his motherboard straight to the tray with no standoffs and I saw at least two instances of that when running a shop.

The problem is that no case I have ever come across has any instructions on building a PC. I mean, there simply aren't any. You could probably buy a book though.

I've seen far worse than that though. I remember once some guy came in and wanted to buy a CDRW drive (back in the days when burn proof very first came out on SCSI drives). He point blank refused to pay £27.50 to have us do it and asked me what to do.

"I dunno man, I guess just connect every cable". Yeah, right.

He found a 2 pin 12v cable on the psu and jammed it onto the master jumper pin on the drive. Simultaenously burning the entire PC. So bad was it that the IDE cables burnt so that all that was remaining were hair like wires with no coating on them at all.

He did see the funny side though. But didn't when he had to pay £600 for a new computer.

Even my friend who has built three PCs made the fatal mistake of forgetting to plug in the 8 pin. And that cost him his Phenom 9950 (sent it to me confident it was dead).

Crazy really. I guess people who know things automatically assume that some one else can pick them up in five minutes. And there are just sooo many mistakes to be made when fitting stuff.

Ah well, sounds like you did him right in the end

 

[SnW]

That looks very much that he has forgot to put the washers on ..

 

[alienware]

Yeah I would strongly imagine there would be some kind of spacers to go in there.

 

[hmmblah]

No washers. The underside of the bracket has insulating tape on it. I've used this cooler once before for a build that was running stock. I tried to get him to bring all the parts up here so I could help him put it together.

@ALX - he tried to fit the mobo at first without the standoffs too

. Luckily he noticed it didn't fit quite right and called me before he tried putting any screws in. I just hope this motherboard isn't dead because of this. I'm going to take it all apart tonight and reassemble. I don't think I have another heatsink though as this one definitely won't work.

 

[alienware]

Legend

 

[AMDFTW]

ouch that board could be dead already if it has touched bare metal.

altho they say you cant handle PCb's cos of the oil on your fingers but that rubbish.

anyhu u suggest you take a look at it

 

[hmmblah]

It actually hasn't touched bare metal as their is tape between the metal and motherboard. I think it's more likely he crushed whatever is under that bracket.

 

[AMDFTW]

i meant as he lay the mobo in the case with no standoffs

 

[alienware]

altho they say you cant handle PCb's cos of the oil on your fingers but that rubbish.

I think you have PCBs mixed up with halogen lightbulbs.

 

[AMDFTW]

nope deffo motherboards

this info was given to me when i was entering into buildin PC's

 

[alienware]

Hmm. Seems to be poocack to me.

I know on a Halogen lightbulb the oil from your hands can cause heat to concentrate in a specific area of the bulb causing it to blow a hole but on a PCB? Never heard anything like it.

I do know that in the slave factory assembly lines plants that they make this stuff in they wear Tyvek suits and latex gloves but yeah, in all my years I've never seen some one damage a board with hand oil. Static leccy yes.

 

[SLIEuro]

I had a pre-built PC with no standoff's

 

[Brooksie]

I had a pre-built PC with no standoff's

Fail

.

I agree with all of you, people think it's so easy to build a PC they don't bother reading any manuals etc. When I first built my PC I read about every manual just incase I killed something, wouldn't want an expensive piece of equipment dieing because you forgot to put a washer in.

 

[glitch666]

Ive been building computers since I was about 12 years old and yes I admit that I have made my mistakes but learned in the process. This reminds me of this article http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-your-own-pc,2601.html

I have recommended this article a few times for the beginners out there. I covers pretty much anything anyone would need to know.

 

[hmmblah]

Had a chance to work on this again today, found the cause of the issue. This heatsink isn't going to work so he will have to get a different one because of the bracket, but luckily it hasn't damaged the board. I took the motherboard out of the case and noticed two too many standoffs.

Luckily again, taking the board out and booting on a desk everything seems A-OK. Any recommendations on cheap heatsinks ($30 or so) that have a different mounting system? I might just try to get a few nylon washers to raise the bracket above the transistor, but then I'm afraid the screw for the heatsink won't be long enough.

 

[alienware]

I've seen loads of cases of that too dude. Oddly in some instances it doesn't cause complete failure, just BSODs and all sorts of errors. One of my apprentices at the PC shop brought his to work one day saying it had never been right.. Exactly the same issue. LOL.

$30 is pretty tight for a cooler. I had a look and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...33040&cm_re=cpu_cooler-_-35-233-040-_-Product

seems OK.

As does

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...18059&cm_re=cpu_cooler-_-35-118-059-_-Product

But sub $40 there really isn't anything at all.

 

[yggdrasil]

God aren't people lucky that components have so many safety features in them now days.

These days you short some thing out the PSU goes into a safe mode for a few mins, If you overclock to far your PC just restarts.

I remember the days of OCing and then you see smoke that was the end and time for a new PC.

When the PSU would short out and spark and you be to scared to go near the PC so you go unplug it from the wall instead.

 

[hmmblah]

Thanks for the recommendations ALX. I'll see what he wants to do. He probably still has the stock Intel HSF as well. I know he won't be overclocking at all as this is his brother's machine. I just hope he isn't discouraged from trying this again. Sure he made a couple dumb mistakes, but you can be sure he won't make the same ones again.