I was working late last week and was getting tired. I stripped an old P4 motherboard of ram chips and drives. Then I got around to seeing if the old motherboard would run with different hardware configurations.
I installed a ram chip into one of the four ram slots in the wrong direction! Yes, I was able to do that. It was dark and I just did it by physical sensation instead of visual inspection.
I turned on the pc power and started to smell some electronic parts burning. As I sniffed around the case I realized that something was burning but I didn't know what. Oh,yes, the power up was accompanied by sounds eminating from the motherboard. Once sound was like a groaning siren from an ambulance (seriously). As I powered the pc down by pressing and holding down the power button I thought that it was an awfully long time to power down. By the time I figured out that the powering down would have been accomplished a lot faster had I just unplugged the power cord the pc shut down.
I checked inside the box and pulled out the memory chip. It was hot as anything, and yes, it smelled like the burnt part.
Not only was the chip hot the slot was hot also. Well, let's say it was so hot it I was not able to hold the chip in between my fingers.
Now, my question: is the motherboard dead? I tried to load another memory chip in the slot and power up the pc but was not able to do so. If it is dead,is the cpu dead also? What salvageable parts can I get out of this, or are the parts that were on it all dead?
Thanks in advance, from one tired pc guy.
I installed a ram chip into one of the four ram slots in the wrong direction! Yes, I was able to do that. It was dark and I just did it by physical sensation instead of visual inspection.
I turned on the pc power and started to smell some electronic parts burning. As I sniffed around the case I realized that something was burning but I didn't know what. Oh,yes, the power up was accompanied by sounds eminating from the motherboard. Once sound was like a groaning siren from an ambulance (seriously). As I powered the pc down by pressing and holding down the power button I thought that it was an awfully long time to power down. By the time I figured out that the powering down would have been accomplished a lot faster had I just unplugged the power cord the pc shut down.
I checked inside the box and pulled out the memory chip. It was hot as anything, and yes, it smelled like the burnt part.
Not only was the chip hot the slot was hot also. Well, let's say it was so hot it I was not able to hold the chip in between my fingers.
Now, my question: is the motherboard dead? I tried to load another memory chip in the slot and power up the pc but was not able to do so. If it is dead,is the cpu dead also? What salvageable parts can I get out of this, or are the parts that were on it all dead?
Thanks in advance, from one tired pc guy.