smoke is definately a bad sign
 

ok I hooked up the new motherboard, read instructions and installed each piece. So I plugged it in, turned it on. Nothing. Then I noticed a whisp of smoke so I immediately shut it all down and unplugged it. Now I have no idea what to do. I'm not sure what was smoking since I didn't leave it on to find out.

I have no idea what to do. The only place I know of that I could take it in to ripped me off last time, plus the thing smelled like smoke for a month which I hate.

Uh... Yer boned. Pretend it came smoked and say nothing about smoke coming out, that will kill any warranty you might've had.

Before you do that, though, hook up every other component you have into your older motherboard and see if it all still works. If other parts of your computer got fried, you may be able to convince them to reimburse you for those as well.

Also--you DID put down the spacers (or what the hell ever they're called) before installing the motherboard, right? They aren't listed in the instructions a lot of the time, but not putting them down can crack your motherboard or cause it to short out due to being against your case. Either of which could cause serious fuck ups for other parts of your computer, resulting in smoke.

Also--how old is your power source? That may be the real source of the problem.

well, granted I am no expert, but it did cross my mind it was the power source. So I will ask if the power supply is working, shouldn't its cooling fans be spinning?

Oh defiantly. If the fans aren't going, the PS will overheat very quickly.

If it's the power source that went, you have a chance of nothing else being fried, and you also have a chance of EVERYTHING else being fried, and everything in between. That's even more reason to test everything out (including your new motherboard) within a different machine.

Well, except the power source...

I had my power source go once, and that's all I had to replace. I had it go again and my hard drive got fried, but nothing else...

On a related note: I should take better care of my computers, and maybe replace my power source every five years or so, instead of acting surprised when it fries shit after eight or ten.

I take it there were no scorch marks on anything when you plucked up the courage to take a look?

This was a stupid question but did you make sure you weren't trying to run like 500W of internal components off a 350W PSU? Well your power consumption should probably be down closer to the 400W range but the same bad things can happen. Generally you should have at least 25W more power than you computer actually needs to run. Otherwise you run the risk of overtaxing and straight up burning out your PSU.

If you plugged a PSU that actually puts out less power than needed that might explain the smoke. Some of the wires may have over heated and melted their insulators. Thus causing smoke then a subsequent short. I've learned the hard way from 3 separate PSUs that they don't really have good fuse protection. You hook them to a higher draw than they are rated for and they fry fast. Though I've also never had a high end name brand PSU.

I suggest looking at all your parts, carefully, to see which, if any, have scorch marks on them. I then suggest following everyone else's advice, but not before carefully cleaning all your (assumedly still) good parts with rubbing alcohol and letting them dry for several hours to prevent any soot from making connections it shouldn't. Especially the motherboard. They like to be clean.

Handling your parts and examining them closely is a good idea... With an ESD strap! Don't handle your junk without being properly grounded, both you and the component!