Sonata/MSI K8N Neo2 Plat won't power up with S12-430

cmm0325 · Post by **cmm0325** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 6:02 am

Got the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard and Seasonic S12-430 power supply to go into an existing Antec Sonata case and nothing powers up. The case fan does spin for a fraction of a second, if that long. The strange thing is I tried out the S12-430 on a DFI Ultra-D NF4 motherboard in a different system and it works fine. I put the Antec 380SL psu that came with the Sonata and that powered up the MSI motherboard. Did I miss something when I had the S12 hooked up with the MSI motherboard?

Rest of the MSI system specs:
Venice 3200+
Thermalright XP90 w/Panaflo M1A
2x512MB Mushkin Redline HP3200
BenQ1620
ATI 9800Pro AIW
no HDDs were connected

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:39 pm

Here's a blind shot-in-the-dark suggestion: Unplug your DVD drive.

liquid_celica · Post by **liquid_celica** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 3:18 pm

its grounding issues.

Unscrew the motherboard and take an antistatic sheet(like the ones that come with the mobo) and place it underneathe the motherboard. Screw the motherboard back in, that includes screwing THROUGH the antistatic sheet.

Walla, you're done and its fixed. Hope that helps

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 6:08 pm

liquid_celica wrote:Unscrew the motherboard and take an antistatic sheet(like the ones that come with the mobo) and place it underneathe the motherboard. Screw the motherboard back in, that includes screwing THROUGH the antistatic sheet.

Aren't anti-static sheets CONDUCTIVE?

liquid_celica · Post by **liquid_celica** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 12:09 pm

NO, why?

liquid_celica · Post by **liquid_celica** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 12:10 pm

NO, why?

conductivity is a metal property... unless you have some free cations running around your anti-static sheets, there shouldn't be any conductivity.

CX23882-19 · Post by **CX23882-19** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 12:16 pm

Yes, they are conductive. If it wasn't, it would just be a plastic bag. Whether it can carry enough current is up for debate, but it's safe to assume that if it's sufficient to ground a motherboard then it's sufficient to short the pins and soldering on the back side of the motherboard too.

The case provides more than enough grounding.

liquid_celica · Post by **liquid_celica** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 1:46 pm

CX23882-19 wrote:Yes, they are conductive. If it wasn't, it would just be a plastic bag. Whether it can carry enough current is up for debate, but it's safe to assume that if it's sufficient to ground a motherboard then it's sufficient to short the pins and soldering on the back side of the motherboard too.

The case provides more than enough grounding.

Not picking for an arguement or anything...

but, conductivity is the measure of electrical charge through a substance. static is the nature of similar charged particles to repel eachother. to avoid static, thus conductivity, an anti-static sheet acts as a buffer to prevent to the collision of like ions on to the HDD. The plastic bag does not prevent the passing of charge, as they are small enough to pass through plastic. If the static sheet was conductive, then it will only aid in the passing of ions/charge to the HDD.

Ehh, makes sense to me, but i guess others are probably more knowledgeable about computers then i am.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:39 pm

liquid_celica wrote:conductivity is the measure of electrical charge through a substance. static is the nature of similar charged particles to repel eachother. to avoid static, thus conductivity, an anti-static sheet acts as a buffer to prevent to the collision of like ions on to the HDD. The plastic bag does not prevent the passing of charge, as they are small enough to pass through plastic. If the static sheet was conductive, then it will only aid in the passing of ions/charge to the HDD.

Ehh, makes sense to me, but i guess others are probably more knowledgeable about computers then i am.

Conductivity is a measure of how well a material accommodates the transport of electric charge.

Static electricity as we know it, involves the build-up of charge and their subsequent (and immediate) dissipation. When you touch a door knob after walking across a carpet, you have a build up of charge on you that can be over thousands of volts larger than the door knob. Hence when you touch that knob, you dissipate (or neutralize) your charge differences. Said voltages and their immediate dissipation can easily toast a CMOS chip. Worse yet, the voltages capable of toasting a CMOS chip are an order of magnitude lower than the voltages we feel when getting shocked. So you could pick up a chip, kill it and not know that you did it. Hence why you're often told (and most likely ignore) to use an anti-static wrist strap or at the very least, grab the sides of the case before actually working on your computer. What do you think both of those do? Now how do you prevent charge from building up? Hint: If you were chained to the door knob, you wouldn't be shocked it no matter how fuzzy the carpet or how dry the weather.

I'll try approaching from a different angle as well. As a guy who works with electricity and electrical components on a fairly regular basis, there are two features in shoes that I'm rather interested. Unfortunately, I'll never find them together on the same shoe: One is Electrical Hazard Safety* shoes, the other is Electric Static Dissipation (ESD) shoes. At this point in my post, I think you understand why.

* = Electrical Hazard Safety shoes are designed essentially such that if I'm standing on wet ground and I touch a 120+V source, I don't fibrillate my heart.