Need some help

[progbuddy]

As said, my friend Ajutz21 is having trouble with his PC. I'm trying to target which item is the problem:

1. PSU
2. Motherboard
3. CPU

Some questions are:

1. Does the CPU have anything to control wattage within a PC?
2. Could a short in the PSU could have caused the CPU to fry?

Some things that happen when I turn it on with a different PSU:

lots of heat output
harddrives and other optical drives wont even spin.
graphics won't load

I believe there is a problem within the CPU, not the mobo (the PSU probably did it). If nothings loading, it sounds like there is a short within the core, causing the extreme heat output.

[DaveW]

Some questions are:

1. Does the CPU have anything to control wattage within a PC?
2. Could a short in the PSU could have caused the CPU to fry?

1) No
2) Yes

Does the second PSU provide enough power? Unplug devices and try booting it up.

-Dave

[xmastree]

lots of heat outputWhere from?


harddrives and other optical drives wont even spin.Unplug them.
Unplug everything except the CPU (and its fan). Yes, even remove the RAM, but leave the speaker connected.

Then try to turn on.

At this point most motherboards will emit a long beep from the speaker. This is a good sign, as it means the system is alive enough to tell you there's a problem with RAM. Install some RAM, just one, and try again. You should get one long and a few short beeps. This is also good, as it means the RAM is there (but not necessarily good) but there's no video.

At this point, you have a certain amount of confidence in the PSU, mobo and CPU. Take it from there, step by step.

[progbuddy]

I don't think it comes from the case speaker. I thought it was from the piezoelectric speaker soldered onto the mobo. Anyways, the large amts. of heat were coming from the CPU (the metal on top started to melt, literally). It wasn't a pretty sight to see black smelly crap on the CPU. I'm thinking of calling AMD and Thermaltake (Tt made the PSU and AMD was the CPU) and getting their input. I have heard of AMD socket A's doing this sort of thing because of internal core shorts (cable disconnections, etc.).

EDIT: I figured that the mobo is drawing power from the PSU (up to its limits, which is not right because the PSU is 430 watts), not allowing the harddrives to even spin.