Mobo: Asusrock Z77E-ITX
VGA: EVGA Geforce GTX670 FTW (fearing its broken)
CPU: Intel i5 2550K
PSU: Seasonic SS-560MK Gold
Cooling: Antec Kuehler H20/Stock
Mem : 2x 4GB Crucial 1.2Volts low profile
Hi,
This is a lot of text but I am trying to be as detailed as I can. I have seen a lot of similar cases in this forum, but they seem different still! I hope you can help out.
So here is the story.
I started my pc outside its case and mounted into a metal/white coated MSI Hetix 745 box (same as H61i), with possibly the VGA card underside touching the metal, although I carefully had mounted rubber distance holders. But I can't rule it out.
The motherboard was on top of this, upside-down (cooling was well taken care of), and the first seconds, the H20 Kuehler was making a weird noise. Probably not working very well because some air in the system had moved around (it is back to normal now).
The mobo did not have proper earth maybe. Also, it may have been touching the metal of the case.
(I know i was WAY too lousy but this is in retrospect)
The VGA card was connected to the pcie slot through a new flexible pcie 16x riser, cable length 25cm or so.
The GPU fan started roaring like crazy, and there was no display. I MAY have smelled something burning for a tiny fraction of time, I am not sure if my imagination was fooling me there!
Keyboard num lock light is on, ctrl-alt-del seems to restart the mobo as it makes the lights go off and then on again.
So I checked all, all connections, and I DID find that the big m/b cable had not been totally pushed into the PSU. But can this cause any damage? Hm.. didnt change anything.
So I went to a pc repair/parts shop. In the shop they removed the CPU and put in a new one; and the pc booted like normal, with onboard VGA.
Then they replaced the CPU with my own CPU and pc booted normally!
(NOTE: i'm not sure if the VGA card had been in the pcie slot at this point, if so, its fan had been silent while the new CPU was in it, because i heard no noise at the time. But i unfortunately have forgotten if it was).
Then they added the VGA card back in the pcie-slot (NOTE: see above, it may already have been in), and connected the cable.
Now, the VGA card fan started spinning again at 100% and there was no display.
The resulting verdict was: CPU and Mobo fine; GFX card broken.
(NOTE: the last 'test' has therefore been a faulty one, they did not 'retry' the working configuration (without the VGA card).
I went home and tried again.
ALL SYMPTOMS THE SAME AGAIN. I still have no image. Tried onboard HDMI and also DVI cables. The cables are OK, so is my monitor (tested). Although it always is a bit of a hassle to switch to a different source, and source scanning doesnt really seem to work well. (Dell U2711).
I only see the num lock keyboard light switch on, but no sign that i am in windows (although I might be). Ctrl-alt-del instantly makes lights on keyboards flicker, so that would suggest a reboot, so -not- being i Windows.
Putting the VGA card back in, its fan goes crazy.
BEEP TONES
The only beep tones I have heard is when I remove EVERYTHING (also the memory): then I hear 3 long beeps.
As soon as I place the memory sticks back in (they are 1.2 V by the way), the mobo is quiet again.
But I tested this with brand new memory, same behaviour.
One final note : I touched a part of metal from the heater at the wall and also the motherboard backside (audio port), and got an electric shock!! At that point, the power supply had been switched OFF.
After this, there was no change in behaviour, still showing the green keyboard light when switched on, doing 'something' when pressing ctrl-alt-del.
So that is the story...
I really hope you can help, my nice 6 months old pc is totally crippled... any suggestions welcome!
