Here's a good mystery

[daveshel]

I have a pretty nice dual core Opeteron Server 2003 box that I use for learning simulations and such. I don't use it more than once or twice a month - I maybe ran it last 3-4 weeks ago.

Tonight I powered it up and immediately made a pretty loud popping sound. It sounded like a capacitor or diode exploding. Before I could power it down, I was surprised that it began to POST. I powered it down and did a careful visual inspection of everything I could see (I did not open the power supply, an Antec TruePower 480W), and didn't see any exploded capacitors or any sign of damage. I did smell the smell of fried electronics.

I powered it back up and it came up just fine like nothing ever happened.

The only thing I can think of is I had some dust accumulate a static charge since the last use in a location that allowed to arc and explode when I powered it up. But I would thing such an event would cause damage to the more sensitive components.

 

[Dillybob]

It may be fine now, but the damage may become apparent later on. Your guess
about it being dust gathering static sounds like the most logical cause, but
I myself have not experienced anything like this first hand.

It's safe to say that you could probably keep running it safely (at least for a while), but you may want to back up any data that you want to keep.

Of course, it could be the power supply, and you may get problems only when the server's on full load.

 

[mujizac]

I would advise you to replace the power supply. At a minimum I would take it out, and shake it (seriously) and see if anything rattles around on the inside. You might not be able to see the part that fried. Remember that if it burned once, it could burn again and it could be a fire hazard. If nothing else, you may be jamming your other components with unregulated voltage and while it works for now, it could fry your stuff later.