No power

[Jedi]

I'm using a 350W power supply which is more than sufficient for my PC. I won't even bother telling what my PC consists of. A 300W power supply was good enought for it as well so I won't go into details.

I've had to do some minor modifications to my PC. Nothing much.. I needed to replace the thermal paste on my CPU. But the problem began there... I couldn't detach the cooler from the CPU so I had to take out the power supply. After assembling all stuff back together I tried to start up my PC, but it won't come on. All I get is a short small noise.. a short buzz which comes from the power supply and nothing turnes on. I see the led diode on the motherboard light up, but nothing else. Even the fans don't move when I plug in the power cable.

I've never experienced a problem like this before. Did my power supply "die"? Or is it something else?

.. I'm sorry if I don't know how to describe the problem properly, bu tI'm not English and I yet have problems expressing my problem in my own language...

Thanks for your help!

~Jedi:.

[Jedi]

OK, the 1st problem was a fan that did not work. A fail-safe mechanism The computer wouldn't start because the fan did not work. I corrected that.
Now for a new problem... I managed to power u my PC, but shotly after being powered up it began to stink like hell. Like some bacelite was begining to fry.

Two questions:

a) could this smell come from the CPU? I applied a layer of thermalpaste - not too much though, but before that I removed the old one from the cooler with acetone [nail polish removal?].. could this one be now the source of the burning smell? ... however it seem unlikely to me since it started smelling/burning right after the power up..

b) Could it be that my power supply unit began to burn some materials inside?

Thanks in advance for the info !

[curtybob]

It's really hard to tell what could be cooking. I just recently discovered that nail polish remover has some other ingredients that will leave an oily film, though. I use straight Acetone (have a jug of it from working on my old Mustang) with no problems... but maybe if you used nail polish remover, you could try giving the heatsink and CPU a thorough wipe-down with some good Isopropyl Alcohol to get rid of any nail polish remover leftovers. Another thing to check might be lifting your motherboard out of the case to make sure that there is no stray metal (like a dropped screw) floating around the space between your motherboard and case.

[Jedi]

No screws behind the motherboard.. and I'm almost 100% sure it wasn't the CPU cooking. I removed the cooler again and replaced the thermal paste and the CPU didn't have any scent of the "burn". However the rest of the PC had... Unpleasant... I don't know whether the straight Acetone would do any difference at this point, but I'll try on Monday as soon as I get some alcohol.