   king kong broke my computer
  I downloaded the king kong demo and played it for a lil' while. I left the game running and went to the kitchen to make a sandwich. When I returned, the computer was off. Hmm. I flipped the switch to turn it back on, and almost nothing happened. The 3 lights on the keyboard flashed on then off once, and I heard a faint whirring sound in the computer. I removed the case and it sounded like the whirring sound was coming from the 350 watt power supply. Naturally I suspected the power supply of being broked. To test this theory, I unplugged the power supply from all the components in the computer, and plugged it into a known working dvd player from a different computer, and it wouldnt turn on. So it must have been the power supply. (right?).I happened to have a 420 watt power supply that I knew worked, so I swapped out my old broken one with this one. It had all the same connectors and was the same size as my old one, and I was alredy pretty sure that power supplys were one-size-fits-all kind of things. In other words, any power supply can go into any computer right? The only thing is to make sure it has enough watts to run all your parts.So anyway I put the 420 watt in, and plugged it into all the parts again, and started up the computer. It does the startup memory check which seems to run fine.Then it does the IDE detection, and seems to detect my IDE devices correctly. Then it ouputs that "press DEL to enter setup" message, and hangs there. pressing DEL at this point does nothing. (However, if I press DEL before the IDE detection is finished then it does enter setup instead of hanging at that point). Pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL restarts the computer. pressing anything else causes the computer to beep after about 10 keystrokes. Thats the keyboard buffer filling up i guess. anyway, what I want to know is:Was the original problem in fact my 350watt power supply dying?Did it take my motherboard with it?Did installing and firing up the 420watt power supply kill my motherboard?Is it possible to put 'the wrong type' of power supply into a computer and break things?Is my motherboard even dead?Why does my system hang, and how do I fix it?Just for clarification, here is my startup screen:Memory test (press esc to cancel)536,870,912 okblah blah blah...Detecting IDE device Primary Master... WD blah blah hard drive foundDetecting IDE device Secondary Master... NoneDetecting IDE device Primary Slave... LG blah blah cdrom foundDetecting IDE device Primary Slave... None**System hangs right here. I forget what is supposed to come next, so if someone else happens to know, then maybe thats a good hint about which piece is broken.I appreciate any help. Its really frustrating because I supposedly know a lot about computers, but every time I touch one I seem to manage to break it :(   
  Hi,There is a possibility that if your old psu died it could have taken the motherboard with it. As at that stage of the boot process, the motherboard is polled for information and then it starts checking your boot devices in order.I would make quadrupally sure you attached everything properly when putting in the other psu and then try booting with the mimimum of components (unplug all ide devices and floppy drive etc).With regards to what could have happened in the first place ...leaving a game like that running for a long period of time may have caused your pc to overheat. If this is the case you may have damaged other components and you would really have to test everything individually until you find the one that is broken [dead]All the best,ViLiO   ;  Unplug everything except CPU, MB and RAM. Test if it works (ie: gets to the point where it says no bootable device detected). If it does then add the rest of the components one by one and see at which point it fails. Otherwise you can also unplug the CPU and RAM and see if you can make anything out of the beep codes.If it fails when you plug in the HD you could for example try another bootable device, like a bootable CD or floppy. That will probably tell you if it is the HD thats bad or the MB.   ;  I have this happen quite frequently when swapping parts in computers (the hanging not the dead psu), usually the best thing to do is to make sure all the ide's are plugged in correctly (wrong order will confuse the Mobo because of slave and master settings), check the power to the drives are plugged in correctly. if none of the above work you probably just need to reset your cmos, a dieing psu can sometimes frize out some of the bios settings but a simple cmos reset usally fixes it. its a jumper that you need to switch over from its current location to one pin over, wait 40 seconds or so (don't turn your pc on!!!!) and then switch it back, then turn your pc on. refer to your motherboard manual for exact location.if this doesn't work then something else in your system may have died. its possibel your motherboard may have been damaged or your cpu or vid card as these are really the only things that may have either been overheated or damaged by the psu. if the reste cmos doesn't work then i would start swapping parts with other computers to test what working and whats not starting with your motherboard.hope that helps, goodluck.   ;  I'm in no way a hardware guru, but if this happened while you had a game running, my first question would be "do you overclock your GPU?" If so, it sounds like overclocking may have been your mistake. In which case, you burnout the GPU, which then hangs the boot because it's only half-dead (confusing the mobo).But, if your previous power supply is truly dead, then it's probably just a coincidence that it happened while gaming. In which case, what the other posters said is probably the right direction to head in.;  This happened to me about a month ago (I don't overclock) - the psu didn't make a bang or anything so I wasn't sure what'd happened. Got a new one & everything was still working ok, so your mobo might be ok still.The fact that it's turning on is a good sign. Have you tried clearing the bios with the jumpers on the board? edit: yeah, as Jarrod says. Take out the battery & unplug the power first as well.   ;  I faced similar problem before, but I know it is caused by few capacitors that  has some few dried orange goo visible on its silver cap.   ;  Maybe your bios got screwed up... Try plugging and unplugging things alternatively. If nothings works, find someone able to re-write/change your bios. Or... get a new mobo... Good Luck!   ;  Or just claim on your household insurance (you might need to knock the PC off the desk first).PS: Make sure your policy covers accidental damage firstPPS: Make sure you have insurance   ;  Check out the capacitors on your motherboard. These cyllinders must look completely flat. If they look somewhat inflated (the round part on the top, not the sides, e.g. it's higher than it's supposed to be) then it's 99% than your motherboard won't function correctly.The good news, you can actually fix them. I had a mobo which only booted Win98 (and everything else just restarted during boot), my dad bought a couple of capacitors and replaced them, now works very well.   