hi, all
The other day I was poking around insides of my computer. I took out the motherboard, disconnected all the cables and power cords. After I done with my research (I was in the process of fitting a new motherboard into my pc), I put everything back in and reconnected the power. But the computer won't power on, I rechecked the connections but everything seems fine, motherboard power indicator was on, I got voltage output through the 20-pin motherboard power connector. But the machine simply wouldn't turn itself on by the power switch. I was really puzzled and thinking I might fry something on the board. So I did a step by step component check, and was surprised to discover the heat sink fan wasn't properly inserted onto the mother board when I put things back together (it's a Intel 440BX motherboard and Intel PIII 600Mhz processor combination), once I fully inserted the heat sink of the processor, system is back to normal.
I have a couple of questions:
- how does the heat sink related with system power? Is it always true that the system power will only deliver once the heat sink is in place?
- I noticed on the 20 pin motherboard cable, only one pin has voltage ( a 5V), but I know the 20 pin cable delivers different level of voltages to the system (12v, 5v, 3v, etc). is it because those lines didn't detect any loads hence it won't deliver power? ( I disconnected the power cable from motherboard during voltage measurement).
- I have Dell dimension T600 mini-tower system and it's equipped with a Intel 440BX motherboard, does anyone know if it's ATX compliant? I couldn't fit a ATX motherboard onto the chassis.
Thanks in advance.