Power supply cap just burst...

[cleverhandle]

The 300W Antec Smartpower unit powering one of my servers just bit it (which maybe isn't too bad for an inexpensive unit after 4 years of 24/7 use). I could feel significant heat through the top of the (thick Antec steel) case when I pulled the box, so I'm wondering if maybe the fan unit died and things went downhill from there.

Anyway, I popped in another power supply I had around, but couldn't get a POST. Fans spin, and the HD access light stays lit, no beeps. As I go about removing components, are there any particularly likely items the PSU would've taken down with it? Given the symptoms, I'm guessing the mobo probably fried. It would be relatively nice if that's all the extra damage there is, since I have a solid replacement handy. Anything else to look out for?

 

[PurdueRy]

a PSU can take everything with it...its gonna be a lot of troubleshooting

 

[Iron Addict]

most likely mobo itself..

 

[0roo0roo]

one took out my mb once. pretty obvious since the cable to the mb welded itself together grrr, i literally couldn't pull it apart.

 

[Zepper]

Antec had a spate of PSU with bad caps - it's possible you could RMA it even though it's out of warranty.

As others have said, it could take anything with it. I hope you have a friend that has a similar system and would let you swap parts until you determine which parts are good and which have bit the big one. A well-designed PSU wouldn't have taken anything else with it. And you need to carefully examine all your parts with a magnifier as you don't want to risk your friend's system on parts that have visibly taken a hit.

To avoid risking a friend's system, just buy a cheap mobo that's compatible with your parts off the For Sale/Trade section here. Do your t-shooting and then resell it. OIC, you already have a spare mobo - so get down with the t-shooting. You'll need to check the drives too.

.bh.

 

[cleverhandle]

Well, at the least the IDE headers are damaged. If anything is plugged into either one there's no POST. While I could probably go buy a cheap IDE card to get around that, I'm just going to go ahead and replace the board since the new A7V333 is nicer than the old KT3Ultra anyway. That even has the same IDE chipset, so the disks should boot right up to the OS provided they're not damaged. Hopefully they're not - I've got backups from less than a week ago, but it would be nice not to have to buy new disks and go through the trouble of restoring. We'll see...

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

HDDs are very sensitive to 5V spikes. Examine the motherboard for bad caps and give it's
underside a good look for scorching near VRM/FETs.

More than you need to know here http://www.badcaps.net/ great group of techs.


...Galvanized

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee
HDDs are very sensitive to 5V spikes.

Yeah, you got that right. Both of the hard drives are torched - RAID 1 FTW, baby! The CD drive went too. Fortunately, the tape drive survived and tests out OK. Even though it's just an old DDS4, replacing that on short notice would be more expensive than the two hard drives put together. Going to be a busy day tomorrow...