I'm stupid, help.

[Potato]

I got new ram today and was excited to put it in because I'm a dork like that. I took the power cord out of the tower like a good little girl and it fell into a cup of water. Apparently it didn't dry out enough before I plugged it back in, because now my computer doesn't start. Everything does what it's supposed to, except the starting up part.... it makes a faint sad little noise and I don't know what I broke. Someone said my power supply... What do you nice, wonderful people of zp think? Besides that I'm stupid?

[TheBlackSnow]

hehe, you should keep waer near the computer, when u r trying tu put the rams. its really stupid situation... when the accident happened, you shoulded as quickly as possible to remove the water from your pc! to dry it very good and very quicly... because, after a some time u can have a very serious problems. I think in this situation, u will have to change the pc's equipments, which got the water:(((

[Potato]

You don't think I removed the power cord from the cup of water? And it's not like I poured water on my motherboard or something.

[Munter99]

chances are either the fuse in the power cord has gone, or the power supply is dead. try another power cord, or buy a new psu

[cheapprick]

Sorry to hear that tater.

What point exactly does it die? What's on the screen?

I just want to narrow it down so the new ram is out of the list of problems. Can you remove the ram again and try booting?

[fujow]

Does the power supply fan turn on? If it does try removing the ram you installed.

[Potato]

I removed the ram and tried to turn it on, and still nothing. There's nothing on the screen either. Just the nice yellow box saying "No signal."


But............

I just tried to turn it on again, to see if the power supply fan was on... and it was.... and I turned my monitor on... and it looks like it's getitng somewhere. Doing something.

[Potato]

It stopped after telling me what kind of video card I had. Now it's back to doing nothing, but it makes a wettish noise when I move the power cord around! yay.

[Lord_of_the_Dense]

Are all the cables nice and snug? You may have had a bad video connection also.

[muskrat_love]

Do you have another cord you can try? It might just be the cord is still damp...

[cheapprick]

Sounds like you're right on the problem then Potato.

You can just leave it and see what happens when it dries out, but yeah you'll likely need a new power supply. Thankfully they aren't much.

[Potato]

I'll try it again in a few hours when I'll be almost sure of it being dry. Gives me time to study. Unless I steal one from someone else..........

[ratbag]

accidents happen trust me as a pc repair tech i see it every day you need to replace both the power supply and the cord you can get them both inexpensively at tigerdirect

[nasrules]

Try a different cord. If that doesn't work, stick cord and PSU next to a radiator overnight. If that doesn't work, get a new PSU. If that doesn't work, you're fuxx0red :mellow

[Mels_Smileys45]

I don't think your power supply is dead yet. Take that cord back out and take a hair dryer to it.

Also, its a possibility you might have changed the power supply settings. There should be a small red switch on the PS that should be set at 110 volt in the US. If you can't tell, you can try sliding it over to see if it will start up. I've seen this happen and the symptoms were similar to what you have stated.

good luck

[nukehella]

Keep your powder(and power supply ) dry.

[Potato]

I took a blow dryer to it and it turned on, then it froze. Soooo off it went, and now it is doing what it did earlier: strange weird unhappy noise and nothingness. I shall take my blow dryer to it again.

[Slycktom]

You need to get rid of that power cord immediately. Stop messing around with it!!!!!!!

Get yourself a new power cord. When you dropped it in the water you probably fried it (specifically, shorted it out.)

[crackerjacker]

I got new ram today and was excited to put it in because I'm a dork like that. I took the power cord out of the tower like a good little girl and it fell into a cup of water. Apparently it didn't dry out enough before I plugged it back in, because now my computer doesn't start. Everything does what it's supposed to, except the starting up part.... it makes a faint sad little noise and I don't know what I broke. Someone said my power supply... What do you nice, wonderful people of zp think? Besides that I'm stupid?


oh take it back to the store where you brought it to get a replacement, say its not compatible with your motherboard or something.

*note i havent read anyone elses post except potatoes so if you already suggested her to take it back then thats cool*
woot

[crackerjacker]

after reading what others said do this
return the memory
get a new one
get new power cord
let puter be off for couple hours
and hope it works out
woot

[Potato]

I don't think the memory is the problem here, I'm now about 99.9% sure it's the power supply. The power will be on for a tiny bit, then move the tower or the cord or anything the tiniest bit, and *wham* nothing. potato's diagnosis=bad power supply. My advice: Don't drop electrical stuff in water.

[wingnut2600]

:( sad for the spud

BTW... it is eerie... just like you are looking at me.

My suggestion, find someone with an old, dead computer and steal their power supply. If their computer is nice enough, just steal the whole damned thing.

[nukehella]

Don't drop electrical stuff in water.
them be words to live by

[crackerjacker]

[QUOTE=Potato Don't drop electrical stuff in water.[/QUOTE]

Dont go changing waterfalls. ok i couldnt help myself you know from that old song by tlc.
dont go changing waterfalls stick to the rivers, and the things that use to.

yet i know dont drop electrical stuff in water
booya
and on a side note good morning

[Mels_Smileys45]

I really think if yu let your PS dry out awhile it will be ok. Its showing signs of life and is probably shorting out and tripping a breaker inside the supply. Hopefully it will dry out and be fine. I would not try it anymore till it sits up for about a day.

The other day a storm caused my power to go out for a second and when it came back on, my computer wouldn't start. I waited for a bit and tried it again and it sprang to life, thank god. One of my external hard drives wasn't so lucky. Its dead and bloated.

[FrozenShadow23]

At least you unplugged it. I've repaired a lot of computers, and I once forgot to unplug an oldie I was workin' on and I started messin' around inside and got a bit of a shock. That REALLY fucked up the power supply, not to mention, just about everything else. Luckily, it belonged to the school, so I just pushed it to the back of the work desk and grabbed another one.

[Omyn]

Potatoe what did I tell you about water cooling just last week, your supposed to keep the water contained inside the cooling system, not dunk your parts in it.

But seriously I want your computer to work for you so you can share your files with me :]

Unplug anything from your computer.

Check to make sure the switch on the back of it if it has one is set to " I " and not " O " and that the voltage setting in back corresponds to your countries setting :]

Take off one side of the case and lay it down and let it dry for a full day.

Throw out that power cord, they can be purchased from any electronics shop or computer store for just a few dollars.

Redo everything in your computer exactly as it was when it was working normally.

Next press the power button on the case just once when its unplugged from the wall and not connected, you should see your system fans start up for a second, sometimes draining the power supply completely actually works when the PSU doesnt want to start up.

Plug in the computer with the new wire, press the power button once again after setting up your necessary connections such as keyboard/monitor to start it up.

If that doesnt work remove anything that is not absolutely necessary to get into OS first, if you cant get in your OS first at least try to get into your CMOS.

Remember the evils of static electricity, they can damage computer parts as well even if you cant feel the static on you, when working on the inside of the computer use a static wrist strap or at least make sure your arm is touching the case metal when working on it.

When I work on computers if I dont have my static wrist strap I usually lay both arms on the metal just below my wrists.

But yeah, after you removed everything just basic requirements and it still doesnt work try different slots with different amounts of ram to troubleshoot.

If after all this it still doesnt work, I would recommend getting a new power supply unless you have a voltage meter to check your power supply connections.

Best of luck spud.

[Potato]

It still makes a sad little meepy noise instead of the happy beep noise you get before you see stuff on your monitor. I got a new power cord, got rid of the old one. Also got a new power supply, hooked everything up, and still get the sad little meepy noise. Like I said before, when I would move the power cord around, the power would cut in and out, so something was clearly wrong with the connection between the old cord and the old power supply. What is the sad little meepy noise? What does it mean? :(

[method77]

I feel sorry for the spud

[Mels_Smileys45]

Well my guess is you fried the memoery on instillation. Did you have yourself grounded properly when you installed it?

[Potato]

Fried the memory? Hm. One of the times when it started up, I checked to see if the computer was recognizing it, and it was, said I had 1 GB of ram. It froze shortly thereafter.

[Omyn]

Potato, did you try moving around memory chips in different slots like
starting off with just one and try all slots, and keep going?

What about clearing the CMOS battery?

Seeing how you have a new power supply and cord, still makes the noise it could be possible you fried your board :[ If you can I would recommend getting in a place where you can take the whole thing apart away from the case, hook up the bare minimum basics and try running the computer outside the case, lay it out on the static bags or if you dont have the static bags lay it out on a wooden table or somewhere you know theres not going to be a problem with static.

I hope you get it working :[

[Potato]

Would the little green light on the motherboard still go on if the board were fried?

[mountain_rage]

Shove a fork into the power socket to see if tis not that not giving out enough power. If you get a very large shock then its not that.

[Omyn]

I wouldnt know.

Check your motherboards documentation or check their website.

If you dont know the name just look for a label somewhere on the motherboard that should tell you.

The electricity could have damaged another part of the motherboard, you could have one side work and another totally gone so nothing is a sure bet : /

[Montoge360]

accidents happen trust me as a pc repair tech i see it every day you need to replace both the power supply and the cord you can get them both inexpensively at tigerdirect

inexpensively at tigerdirect? lol

I'm not sure if they have exactly the lowest price to service quality ratio around.
Check out these sites, newegg and zipzoomfly. They both have excellent service. If its still too expensive, try the 'master price index', pricewatch. But becareful who you buy it from through pricewatch. Not all companies in there are all that great.


BTW, if your pockets are deep, and you want a super nice PSU for an ATX, look at the Antec True Control 550W. It has a front 5.25in drive bay adapter with PSU fan control, and rail adjusters for the 3v, 5.5v, and 12v lines so you can fine tune them if you need better stability when overclocking or for just heavy power usage. It also has a 3.5in drive bay holder so you can put a hdd in there or other 3.5in drive if you want. I'd recommend this one if you've got the money. If not, just get a standard one. But beware of generic PSU's. They are often the source of a few prolbems. Im not saying that they wont work, because i had an old generic 450Watt that i got for $15 through pricewatch. But in my new system, the Antec TrueControl 550W sounded pretty good to me. But its just a *tad* more expensive than a generic 450W PSU.

[Montoge360]

Fried the memory? Hm. One of the times when it started up, I checked to see if the computer was recognizing it, and it was, said I had 1 GB of ram. It froze shortly thereafter.

If you're afraide that it was your memory that is causing prolbems, get a bootable version of Memtest86. Its an excellent memory testing and checking utility. Its free for download. Just google it up.

[Malakai1911]

Uh, is the sad little meepy noise constant, or a series of beeps, by any chance? If it is a beep code, it will tell you exactly what the problem is (just look in your motherboard manual, or download the manual online from the manufacturer's website).

Otherwise, remove everything except video card, master hard drive, and one stick of ram. Be sure to reseat the video card and the one stick of ram, to ensure that they are properly installed. Unplug or remove ALL other components (cdroms, floppy, other hard drives, sound card) from the motherboard and power supply. You want to isolate the possibility of other components being bad, causing the problem.

If that does not solve the problem, try reseating the RAM and a second time, just in case.

Next, try removing the motherboard from the case and place it on a piece of cardboard (or any smooth, hard, dry surface like a table). Wacky thing is sometimes the computer will work outside the case, in that case a screw may have been bridging traces, something could be wedged behind the motherboard, or any number of things. If it works outside the case, you will be left with one really worrying question "now why didn't it work IN the case?"

Then, test each remaining component. If you have access to a second computer, try the video card in the different computer. Then try each stick of ram in the different computer (if it boots with each stick (one stick at a time), use memtest+ [ www.memtest.org ] to test the RAM for errors). Lastly, try the hard drive as a slave in the different computer, and try opening a few files.

The above pretty much narrows it down to CPU or Motherboard seeing as how your bought a brand new power supply and power cord.

If you can test the CPU in a different motherboard, you will have narrowed it down (the hard way) to the motherboard. If it is still under warranty, call the manufacturer, explain that it mysteriously stopped working, and explain what you have done to narrow down the problem to the motherboard being the culprit. If the CPU doesn't work in the second motherboard, then the problem is with the CPU, and you better hope you bought a retail box for the warranty coverage.

Worst case scenerio, the Mobo or CPU manufacturer wont help you and you will have to buy a new one. www.zipzoomfly.com is pretty good.

[WE_DELIVER]

Wait a minute.....If you dipped the cord in water, and then plugged it in to the socket, replaced the power cord and the psu, and your computer is reacting just by u moving the cord....

...you could have potentially fried that particular electrical socket....

why else would a computer react to you moving the power cord arround...?

[Malakai1911]

Wait a minute.....If you dipped the cord in water, and then plugged it in to the socket, replaced the power cord and the psu, and your computer is reacting just by u moving the cord....

...you could have potentially fried that particular electrical socket....

why else would a computer react to you moving the power cord arround...?

Hmm... did I misread, I thought she dropped the ram into the water.

Perhaps you should replace all your outlets with GFI outlets :-P

[aqlo]

why else would a computer react to you moving the power cord arround...?

It's a short circuit, agitating it makes it possible for current to "jump" across the short temporarily, sometimes wacking things* can make the circuit work for periods of time, nevertheless it is defective, will require replacement, and may constitute a fire hazard.

Tato have you replaced the power cord yet? If the short is in the cord that will stop it. If not, suspect the power supply.

* "percussive maintanance" :)

[Potato]

It's a short circuit, agitating it makes it possible for current to "jump" across the short temporarily, sometimes wacking things* can make the circuit work for periods of time, nevertheless it is defective, will require replacement, and may constitute a fire hazard.

Tato have you replaced the power cord yet? If the short is in the cord that will stop it. If not, suspect the power supply.

* "percussive maintanance" :)

Yes, replaced the power cord. Yes, replaced the power supply. No, nothing is helping. It is making faint meepy noises. They sound sad. Like me, sad. Very sad.

It wasn't the ram that was dropped in water, it was the power cord, for whoever was confused.

Thank you, everyone, for your input. I really do appreciate it. Now, if only the damned thing would work....

[homie_da_clownx]

i thought it was "chasing waterfalls" in that TLC song, and tiger direct sucks.

[Potato]

I got a new motherboard, and all is well....

Thank you to everyone for their input.

[cpugeniusmv]

/me claps for potato