Antec P180 case / power supply problem

F

FactorD

Guest
hi, i am in the process of moving my PC's components from an old case to an antec p180.

The problem I'm having is that after hooking everything up as described, I can't turn the system on. Strangely, the power supply is whirring away like it's on, but there is no power going to the machine to turn it on. I tried pressing the front power power/ reset buttons on the case and they do nothing.

The noise and no response got me worried; I was afraid I may have bricked my PC, so I moved everything back to the old case and turned it on and it was all working fine, no harm seems to have been done.

So, could the problem be the antec p180's front bezel connectors are defective? Everythng works when connected to the old case, technically all I'm doing is moving my components to the antec so the case must be the cause, and the only impact the antec has on the operation of the PC really are just those front bezel connectors.

Sorry if this doesn't make sense, it's a bit hard to explain.
 
The fact that the fan in the PSU actually starts suggests to me that the system is turning on... When you say it isn't turning on do you mean that the screen is blank, or do the other fans, e.g. CPU not spin either?
Unlikely to be the buttons on the case as it makes your PSU start. Have you got some other equipment to test in the P180? That way you can be sure if it is the case or not.
 
are you sure that you have connected the front power switch/reset switch's on the new case to the motherboard correctly ??
 
I had a P160 where the power on button failed after a couple of days so it could be a bad case. I wired the reset button to the power on pins as a workaround.

Also check that the power cables are properly connected to the motherboard.

You should be able to do a quick test of the new power supply without putting everything back in the P180. Just connect your motherboard etc to the power supply. Then touch a small screwdriver between the power on pins & see if the PC starts up.
 
jidh007 said:
The fact that the fan in the PSU actually starts suggests to me that the system is turning on... When you say it isn't turning on do you mean that the screen is blank, or do the other fans, e.g. CPU not spin either?
Unlikely to be the buttons on the case as it makes your PSU start. Have you got some other equipment to test in the P180? That way you can be sure if it is the case or not.

Well it was only the power supply that was active.

So far I have tried two power supplies, the first I tried was an antec 500W smart power and the second was a 580w hipper type R (i had difficulty setting this up as the 12V connector it comes with is very short).

Both pretty much had the same problem, they would whir away like they were active but no response came when i tried switching the system on fomr the front. With the hipper installed, I saw one of the front LED's (above the reset button, on the antec p180), light up blue.

Currently, I am using the 580w hipper PSU, I'm afraid the antec 500 smart power may be faulty, don't want to chance it.
 
PeteD64 said:
I had a P160 where the power on button failed after a couple of days so it could be a bad case. I wired the reset button to the power on pins as a workaround.

Also check that the power cables are properly connected to the motherboard.

You should be able to do a quick test of the new power supply without putting everything back in the P180. Just connect your motherboard etc to the power supply. Then touch a small screwdriver between the power on pins & see if the PC starts up.

When the power on button failed, did you notice a similar problem as mine, where the PSU would sound like it's on and make noise?

Yes, everything was connected properly.

Are you sure that's safe?
 
well the power leads on PSU's in the P180 are known to be short make sure it is connected firmly to the mobo, why not remove the PSU from the case, and put it on the top and run it outside the case to see if it works, also check in the case where the mobo is mounted for any debree, or something that may be in contact wiht the mobo...also you could try connecting the power buttons from your old case up to the mobo and see if that works...should be long enough if you have the cases side by side...
 
FactorD said:
When the power on button failed, did you notice a similar problem as mine, where the PSU would sound like it's on and make noise?
Not sure. It was a while ago so I can't remember.

Are you sure that's safe?
Well I haven't killed myself yet:rolleyes: I'm only talking about touching the header pins on the motherboard where the power on cable connects.
 
ok have PC and PSU (have tried two different PSU's) set up in old case and have wired the front power connectors from the new antec case to the mobo in the old case, both cases are sitting side by side, with wires going from one to the other, for this to work -- Everything's working fine! both PSU's are fine and the front power connectors on the antec work fine!

I did notice on the antec case there was a standoff, under the mobo, that was kinda loose, but it was positioned underneath a screw that had been used, it wasn't an extra one, it wasn't touching anywhere on the mobo other than a screw hole. Still, i didn't notice that was there, it's possible it was still attached to a screw (still hanging off the mobo) while moving the mobo from the old case to the new case, as it was the only extra standoff on the case -- it could have been causing some issues with the mobo, or raising one side of the mobo at an angle or something.

Also, I haven't connected either the front USB connectors or the front sound connectors on the antec -- I did the first time, when I got this problem, could either of those have been causing the problem?

So I've narrowed down the possible causes of the problem to:

1. extra standoff - could have been raising the mobo at one angle.
2. possible faulty usb or sound connectors.

My next step is to now put the mobo and everything back on the antec case, theoretically all should go well!
 
standoff might me short circuiting something, but then again they are brass so they should not...
 
meansizzler said:
standoff might me short circuiting something, but then again they are brass so they should not...

Yeah... silly me, the problem was definitely the standoffs, or lack there of. It turned out one standoff hadn't been placed underneath so the mobo was coming in contact with the case, this was probably causing it to short. Everything seems to be in order though -- for the most part.

However, and I guess this is now my latest problem; each time I moved the PC to another case, I got a "checksum error - defaults loaded" error, it doesn't happen when I switch off/ unplug the machine though, don't think the cmos battery is dead, the board is pretty new, it's only happened on those two instances after moving the PC to another case -- maybe I moved some thing around?
 

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