Build Advice Possible scorched motherboard?

Was building my new PC, went to power it on and there's a puff of smoke. Now all that happens when I press the button is the cpu fan spins once.

All standoffs were installed, I really have no idea what could have caused this.

Anyway, do these look like scorch marks? http://imgur.com/TDOESga

If so, can i RMA or what? I'm not entirely sure if this was my fault or not.

 

Maybe it's just my eyes but it looks like to board is covered with dried up liquid residue? Where did you get it? and was it new?

 

Bought new two weeks ago, was running fine until now. Today I fitted a new PSU and GPU, then this happens. Both the old and new PSU do the same thing.

I think I'll build it again on the mobo case and see what happens.

 

Looks like that to me too - if that's the state you received it in I would be most annoyed...

 

Dude seriously, if there was a puff of smoke stop wasting your time. That defo looks like liquid damage to me

 

Unfortunately this - very rarely when the blue smoke comes out of the computer, will it turn on again, normally it means something's insides are now on the outside and that will hinder the computer doing anything.

 

I hate to state the obvious but scorchmarks are black, not white.

 

Are there too many standoffs installed?
If you've put in ones that don't line up with the screw holes they'll short the board and you get the same symptoms as you've described with the fan

 

So, just to confirm, you'd already built your PC using this motherboard, and it was working fine. You've then swapped out the PSU and GPU (and nothing else) and now it's knackered?

If that's the case, did you remove the motherboard from your case or unplug/plug in any other components other than the new GPU and PSU?

If you've literally just swapped out the PSU and GPU, and touched absolutely nothing else, then I'd suspect the new PSU might be at fault (or, less probable, you've done something wrong when plugging it in). Of course, if you've removed and reconnected any other components then it makes identifying the problem a whole lot more difficult.

As others have said, that pic appears to show some sort of residue on your motherboard, and I'd suspect that it's from some sort of liquid...

 

Absolutely this. When you rebuild the computer make sure you only put standoffs where there are matching holes on the mobo, often there are more standoffs supplied than you need to cover different mobos, do not just screw them all in. Anything shorting the back of the mobo such as superfluous standoffs will fry the computer, so if that is liquid on the back same issue. Case in point, my idiot mate once built a computer and screwed the mobo directly to the bare metal tray without any standoffs at all. I can confirm this only results in a loud bang and the smoke plus when I saw what he had done it was hilarious, but generally none of this is desirable. I think this incident junked his mobo and processor.

If you inspect the front of the board closely you probably will be able to find a burnt component somewhere.

 

Tested outside of case on box with only cooler and stick of ram, exact same result with both PSU.

Going to use the CPU in another board now, hopefully it still works.

I agree that it doesn't look like a burn, but I really have no idea how liquid could have gotten there. I assembled the PC in a dry place, surely my palms aren't that sweaty?

 

Haha - maybe this is how you find out... Could there have been a way that it could have got wet? Left under a open window? Small child? Certainly does look like water damage.

 

Yeah something must have happened to it. Good news is that my old mobo works fine with the same components, so I'm 100% sure it's only the board that fried. What would you guys say are my chances of an RMA?

Actually,new PSU is now failing pin test. Another part to RMA...

 

It looks like residue from the chemicals they use to clean PCB's during manufacturing, they just did a lousy job of cleaning it up after. I've had several bits of kit with that kind of stuff on it and have never given it a second thought.

 

Alright, case solved, I think.

I thought that that everything was working in the old motherboard, but really when I went to plug in to the monitor I got no signal. After attaching a post speaker, turns out I've got a "CPU failure".

So I've most likely got a broken CPU, and possibly motherboard. I reckon I'll just stick them on eBay as spare parts and be done with it. CPU was OEM now that I think of it, so out of luck there.