I blew up my computer? Holy C***

[lilstd]

Hey guys,

I'm afraid to turn on my computer right now. Earlier, I was browsing the web. All of a sudden, I hear popping noises from inside my computer. These noises got progressively louder. Immediately, and panicked, I shut off my system completely. I opened my system, but could not locate where these noises and smells were coming from. I'm pretty sure my power supply (antec true380) has been fried. How do I go about seeing whether or not the other components work?

Perhaps this is an issue with my motherboard?

I'm a bit panicked here - help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[BigJimbo]

were there any pop corn fragments?....possibly a friend threw popcorn seeds inside your pc?

 

[Algere]

:evil: Right On!



uhm how unfortunate ...

 

[ghostman]

grab another power supply to test.

 

[Swampster]

Presuming that you are out of warranty, simply take the Power Supply out (it is probably bad anyway), and take the cover off.

There are 4 screws to remove it from the case, and 4 more screws to open up the unit. If you heard snap, crackle, and pop, then you probably blew some capacitors in the PS. This is a visiable malfunction as they will look damaged.

Of lesser possibility is that the capacitors on the motherboard fried. Here again, it is visiable.

 

[Dantzig]

If you do open up the power supply, be very careful with your screwdriver! Some of the components in a power supply can hold an electrifying charge for days after unplugging it from the outlet! (BTW, for the same reason, never open up a TV or CRT monitor. They can hold a charge for weeks!)

 

[Bleep]

If you do open up the power supply, be very careful with your screwdriver! Some of the components in a power supply can hold an electrifying charge for days after unplugging it from the outlet!

I cannot believe this statement because all the filter caps in a power supply are connected to a bleeder resistor which provides 2 functions one of which is to discharge the filter caps when the ps is shut down the other reason is to equalize the voltage drop across each cap.

Bleep

 

[JK949]

Those popping sounds are not good. look on the motherboard and see if any of the resisters
have blown out the top. if the power supply failed it shouldn't make any poping sounds.
It dies and thats it. but as it dies other componets will fry in secounds.
The caps bulge when they go bad. the top of them can be like valcanos and can form
an ugly goop on top. they don't normaly pop in the sense to where you hear them.
If the caps all look ok i would follow the psu check route.

 

[EeyoreX]

but as it dies other componets will fry in secounds.

Depends on how the PSU dies. I "killed" a PSU by improperly connecting a couple wires after trying to sleeve the PSU. Turned it on, got a snap, crackle and pop, nice wiff of smoke, and zero damaged components. Maybe I was just lucky, but I have had other PSUs go bad without taking anything down with them. If there was a power surge that would be an entirely different matter, but it seems to me that the computer was in normal use and then suddenly it was not.

\Dan

 

[lilstd]

aint curiosity a bitch.

I opened up my power supply and saw that there was yellow gunk everywhere. I think something blew up in there. Great, now my warranty is void.

I dont see any volcanic capacitors on my motherboard, so hopefully none of my other components are damaged.

I'm now in the market for a new power supply. This time, I'm looking to avoid this type of hassle, and get something in the 450 watt range. Since money is an issue for me, what are some power supplies out there with a good performance/cost ratio?

Help is appreciated.
Thanks

 

[chazmotaz]

Do what us pros do: Seduce an out of towner, preselect a motel room, fill the tub full of ice, knock him out via a roofie.
Take his kidneys and hightail it out of the state.
That is how you get a new power supply, holmes.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: Bleep

If you do open up the power supply, be very careful with your screwdriver! Some of the components in a power supply can hold an electrifying charge for days after unplugging it from the outlet!

I cannot believe this statement because all the filter caps in a power supply are connected to a bleeder resistor which provides 2 functions one of which is to discharge the filter caps when the ps is shut down the other reason is to equalize the voltage drop across each cap.

Bleep

That does not matter. if you EVER screw around inside a PSU you shouldn't touch anything unless you know what your doing. Those bleeder resistors aren't on everything. They are on the most powerful things but still the capacitors and crap like that... they're still hot. BE VERY VERY CAREFUL when opening PSU and monitors. Also as another safety precaution press the power button a couple times after yuou unplug your computer from the wall. It should clean out a lot of electricity but there is still enough in there give you a fatal zap.
-Kevin

 

[EeyoreX]

I don't necessarily think the problem was with the PSU not being powerful enough. I would start looking at other issues/causes first. How is the power in your house/apt? Do you get frequent brownouts or dips in light? What about the other circumstances of the "event" was there a storm? Something else. Perhaps there was a surge and it killed your PSU. Or perhaps you just got a bum PSU that finally just gave out. A higher powered PSU in some of the examples I listed won't solve the problem. Do you have a UPS with line conditioning? That may fix several problems, including surge, brownouts and/or weather.

Just looking for other options here, as very few people really need a PSU in the "450 watt range".

\Dan

 

[lilstd]

thanks for the reply eeyorex

i'm not really sure if this has anything to do with my problem, but i'm not sure if my power supply was feeding enough juice to the cpu. quite often, cpu vcore would dip down to 1.46 with 1.525 as idle and 1.550 in bios. Perhaps this fluctuation was an indicator of my power supply going sour? Keep in mind, the other rails were pretty tight in fluctuation 2-3% with the 12v line fluctuating the most.

As for my apartment, i'm living in a dorm, so i'm not really sure what the power tendencies are. i havent noticed any light dimming and such and the weather was fine that day. I will definitely consider buying a UPS with line conditioning pending the money situation.

And so, my question is this: what kind of hardware configuration warrants a power supply in the 450 watt range?

here are my components in addition to the ones in my sig:

2x120mm fans
1x92mm cpu fan
3 usb devices (external extigy sound card, webcam, mouse)
pci tv tuner
16x dvd
54x32x54 cdrw

 

[Turkey22]

Next time dot open the ps, just smell it and or shake it. When they tend to blow you will get a burning cookie type smell and its usually accompanied by something rattling around in there. At least thats what tend to happen to the 40-50 bad psu's I've seen.

 

[clarkmo]

Originally posted by: lilstd
aint curiosity a bitch.

I opened up my power supply and saw that there was yellow gunk everywhere. I think something blew up in there. Great, now my warranty is void.

I dont see any volcanic capacitors on my motherboard, so hopefully none of my other components are damaged.

I'm now in the market for a new power supply. This time, I'm looking to avoid this type of hassle, and get something in the 450 watt range. Since money is an issue for me, what are some power supplies out there with a good performance/cost ratio?

Help is appreciated.
Thanks

Are you sure that yellow gunk is not just glue? Seem that I recall a bucnh if yellow gunk in several power supplies. It's solid though, not gooey. I vote for capacitors at this point. Mobo or video card. Any overclocking, hard mods?
I did this with an Epox 8rda+. I misread my potentiometer and, 1 snap, crackle and pop later, I had a fried mobo.

 

[orion7144]

Does your PSU have the "FAN ONLY" connectors? If so check and make sure your case fans are still good. On the Antec's if a FAN fails while on the FAN Only connector it takes out the PSU fans aswell. I had Abit's hardware monitor running (Just installed new CPU) and while I was down stairs I heard loud beeps. I run upstairs and the PSU is hot as Sh** and the fans weren't spinning. Turns out one of my case fans was bad. Disconnected it and all is well.

 

[lilstd]

I didnt have any fans on the "fan only" connector

Something was definitely burning inside my psu. But the yellow stuff could very well be glue, I'm just not sure at this point :\

I dont see any blown capacitors anywhere on my board/vid card.
No hard mods and minor overclocking.

Is there any way to plug in my power supply again without putting my other components in jeopardy?

 

[Tango57]

with all the snap crackle n poppin going on, sounds like we got some rice krispy treats baking over here. if you plan on upgrading within a year or 2 to the new upcoming geforce 6800 cards which recommends using a minimum 480w psu then i'd go for the higher wattage psu otherwise a good quality 400w should do you just fine.

 

[Darkhound]

I wouldnt fiddle around in PSU's either unless i knew what i was doing - the capacitors do store charge for ages.

I definitely wouldnt. Once I was drawing a disposable camera for Graphic communication and it had a capacitor in it for the flash - little did I know that before I had taken it apart the flash had been charged up. I touched the circuit board and i got an imprint of a circuit board burnt into my thumb, it hurt like hell. My mate had to put it on a window frame to discharge it because even after giving me a scar it hadnt full discharged. I'd hate to see what a capacitor in a PSU would do.


And about the 6800, a good quality 400W should do you even for that, there is a review on the net where they used a 400W and had no problems.

 

[JK949]

Toss the power supply. don't put back in your computer. as for the yellow stuff it's glue. as mentioned above, buy yourself
a good solid 400w power supply. the one thing to consider is sata connectors in case you buy a sata drive down the line.