Well I had just created a 5v/12v fan switch which was my first time doing anything like that. While the computer was on and the fans plugged in 2 of the wires touched and everything just shut down. I basically killed everything in a matter of 1/2 a second. the pathetic thing is I was suppose to sell my video card and mobo yesterday. So ya an X800 XT PE down the drain, 2 160 gig hard drives down the drain. Abit AV8 gonner. not sure about the CPU or power supply yet, haven't had time to test them and Im not very hopeful. Ram worked actually and I sold it to my friend real cheap so I could start saving up for a new beast. This basically means 6 months with no real games and i dont know how im going to do it. This is like torture for me as I play soooo many video games....
Are you sure it's borked? Start stripping the machine, use another power supply and try to get some sort of POST out of the mobo. I don't think shorting out the PSU would kill all your hardware, it could be as little as a blown fuse.
heh I wish, I tried the video card in 3 different computers the fan turns on to 100% which is extremely loud and there is no video, my mobo doesn't turn on, my hard drives dont even spin up on other computers anymore. I do have another motherboard to try my cpu in that I will get to later today. I dont have a video card though as its pci-e mobo and all i have is like old voodoo 4 and voodoo 2 layin around.
whoa, thats bad. i had the same thing happen, with the wires touching the case. it blew my fan but everything else survived. real shame. try and beg your parents for a loan or something to replace your rig quick and then pay them back later.
That really is bad. Don't let it put you off making things though. There must have been something wrong with the PSU if it didn't cut the power off when the short started, so you might be able to claim from your insurance.... ch424
but the fact that it was a homebrew device that shorted out the system may make his claim not covered by insurance.
i find it hard to believe it wiped everything out unless something else was wrong. I've shorted my 12v rail 3 times now and everything works still, even the power supply. granted it wouldnt turn on for a day every time, it still works now.
Dude, you don't tell them that! He just has to make it look like the PSU burned out and took the rest of the system with it, and the fan controller worked fine. ch424
That depends whether the computer IS covered by insurance, you need to look in the contract and see what is insured. Hopefully it is though.
Oops! i didnt think of that. umm... Im sure your computer will be replaced by the manufacturer(s) and uh... dont worry, youll be playing games again in no time!
What sort of supply was in that thing!? Not generic, I hope. I've accidentally shorted mine once, sparks and all, but it shut down instantly and is still fine...
This is real bad, hope the most of your hadware works maby you can get a god price for it Next time test the 5/12V switch on a old PSU
lol thats alot of replies. So ya, My mobo was fried I confirmed that one. I do have SOME good news that is my processor survived this. I put it in a bfg nf4 mobo I had laying around unopened with my 3dfx 32mb pci video card and walla it still works. So ya, the power supply is a Antec True Blue 480 watt or something, it was a really nice ps. I dont think it works anymore as I tried using my wifes computer with it and it would turn some things on but not others and there was no display so...I think its a gonner( and i dont have the reciept for warranty ><). As for the video card im going to try and replace it under the warranty as I have the original invoice and its been less then a year. the motherboard im also going to try and RMA as I fried my last one and got a new one. if I get both those back, im going to sell them the day I get them so I dont fry them. then im either going to buy a x1800 xt or a 7800 gtx 512 O_O still debating. So I need new ram, power supply hard drive and video card as the 3dfx isn't cutting it these days. I wish my parents had money to give to me though lol that would be nice. Actually considering taking on a second job on top of my full time one ><
No one has said this yet? Ok, never work with live electronics. AKA, never mess with the computers insideds(even if it is just a fan) when the computer is on. Hope you have better luck in the future.
Wow, That really bites the big ones eh? Im real sorry for you man. That must have sucked when you tried to turn the computer back on and nothing happend. Who knows maybe it will come around. I wish the best for you man.
I wasn't working with live electronics, I moved the fan because a wire was hitting the blade and annoying me. then... the wires touched, flash of the lights and gone. Anyways im prob going to be selling my new mobo and processor and just build a whole new top of the line system. of course its going to take me 6 months to save up for >_<
I modded my psu quite a bit, and had some of the wires shorting left and right, took me a day to figure out why my computer would randomly shut down. It probably happened betweenw 10-20 times before I fixed it completely. Luckily for me nothing was ever killed, this sucks for you.
After reading up a bit on voltage regulators and dissecting a whole bunch of dead PSUs, i have gained some knowledge about how stuff like this works. The regulators can't regulate if the output voltage is pulled high by another supply,and there are capacitors on every output to minimize ripple. What happens when any line is shorted to ground is basically that the overcurrent protection cuts in and shuts the supply down, but if 5V is shorted to 12V, there is nothing the supply can do to prevent 5V from being pulled a lot higher since there are no active components after the capacitor banks on the outputs. In theory, if 12V and 5V uses the same value capacitors and are shorted together, the capacitors will even out to a value exactly in between 5 and 12V, wich is 8.5V In a practical application, this could be higher or lower depending on how fast the supply cuts the power and how much is lost in the wires. But i would say that shorting the 5V and 12V lines could very possibly fry every single component in the computer that uses 5V.
yes, ATX spec for the 5v rail is max 5.25. your memory should have lived because it runs of the 3.3 rail exclusivly as well as the processor. less than 3.3 in fact. you killed everything that had an input for 5v and 12v. bites man ATX power spec here: http://www.formfactors.org/developer\specs\ATX12V PSDG2.01.pdf
