Folks I need to revisit this issue: its been a long frustrating month of dealing with coolermaster on this issue, and their support dept has been less than helpful on several fronts. i will just hit a couple high points before getting to my most pressing issue.
I will c/p from my correspondence to save some typing:
""on 7/1 i got an authorization email in regards to eRMA # xxxxxxxxx which said go ahead and return this, gives the address, says nothing at all about you sending a UPS shipping label, cost me $17 and change, shipped it monday. yesterday, 10 days later, i get an email saying i can go online and retrieve a shipping label from UPS ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? i'm already upset that your cooler has sprayed down the components in my rig, and the burnt electrical smell coming from it before i got the power pulled, and now i've wasted $17, which is just about offset by the $25 rebate which is still 8-12 weeks from arriving. needless to say i am not happy.""
In fact, their site says specifically that warranty return is on the customer, so I guess i shouldn't be too unhappy? but this was just the start of a month long process to get another cooler. btw their solution to this was to upgrade me to their 120XL model. woohoo. more cooling i didn't really need. $17 is 3 weekday lunches...
i have asked repeatedly what was the coolant in these coolers. as i mentioned, it smelled to me like automotive antifreeze. to this day i have not gotten the answer. in a live chat with support i asked the guy what would have happened had that thing blown when i had my face in it and gotten whatever it is in my eyes, mouth, or breathed the fumes. surely there must be a disclosure in the paperwork that comes with the cooler. at the time i had sent the old one back, but i see nothing with the new cooler to address this. surely its an email or phone call to an engineer in china; it is 2013 after all. but this sounds like they don't want me to know. proprietory? not if i'm sprayed with it its not...
there is more, but enough whine... i got my cooler, put it all back together, and no boot. powers up, but no video. all fans run, case, vid, and ps, everything that should light up does, but nada. when it all happened, i disassembled everything, pulled battery and memory, cleaned and dried everything with iso alch, and then it sat for a month "resting".
i have no other components to swap in. i have swapped around memory slot pairs, used each as a single stick. i have used each vid card alone in each of the pci-e 16 slots. i got nuttin... so my question is, where does your vast combined experience tell you where else to turn, which component to buy and try? i hate to spend any money on such an old machine, but i don't think i can afford to start over. i will poll my few computer-savvy friends locally for components i might borrow but otherwise i'm out of options.
thanks in advance zz03