So my power supply just burned up...(Now with pics)

[AMCRambler]

So I'm playing some Battlefield 1942 Desert Combat listening to my mix cd and my mom comes in to give me some mail and she's like "It smells hot in here, like something is burning." My mom has a seinsitive nose and she's said similar things to me when I put together a new pc and the motherboard had that new copmuter smell and the fans were blowing it all around my room. So since I didn't smell anything I shurgged it off.

Well after about 15 minutes of playing, my music cd starts skipping a little bit a regular intervals. I'm like thats weird, thinking maybe some rogue process had started eating up all my memory, so I alt tabbed out and looked at the cpu and memory usage, both fine. So I figure the cd got scratched, change the track, go back in and keep playing.

Then as I go back in it gets real bad skipping alot. So I try to alt tab out again to shut it down, and thats all she wrote. Screen goes blank, monitor into standby. Uh oh I say. I go to shut it off by holding the power switch and it won't shut off. So as I reach around the back to pull the power cable, I smell it. The worst electrical burning smell. Nuts. Pull the power cable, slide the case off and man is it stinking now. The power supply is kinda hot and I can hear it sizzling inside. It musta melted down good. Luckily I just ordered a new case last week that comes with a cheapo 400watt ps. Should work as a replacement. Till it gets here Thursday, it looks like I'll be surfing the web from my laptop and no Battlefield :-(. I'm thinking about cracking open the PS to see what it looks like. Shall I take pics?

Edit: Pics here

 

[bjc112]

Bummer.


and as always, PICS!!!!!!!!!

 

[imported_Hi]

you know the rule about pics

and what kind of psu was it

 

[Nohr]

What was the PSU that burned up?

 

[AMCRambler]

Takin it apart now. It was an el cheapo that came with the case. Im not heart broken about it. Just hope it did't fry anything with itself like an Al Quaeda suicide bomber. The sticker sais L&C Technology model LC-300ATX. It's kind of funny too because I just recently swapped the other 300watt ps I was using out because I went into my motherboard monitoring software and it was showing the 3.3 volt rail running at about 2.9. That one was a better ps, it as an Enlight. I figured I'd be proactive and swap that one out with this spare generic on I had till my new case arrived. The numbers looked real good on this one too when I booted up and check it. It is an old one though. Came with this chassis I have when I bought it 4 years ago. Ah well. Pics in 10 minutes.

 

[Arcanedeath]

L&C is like deer, one of the worst Generic PSU makers and you should try and stay away from them, they tend to take stuff with them when they go.

 

[AMCRambler]

Yeah, I've been lucky so far. Well I cracked the sucker open, and it doesn't look terribly burnt up. The smell was pretty, but I only see one small cap that looks like it popped, at least I think it's a cap. And a couple small ones around it who's tops have bulged up a little. Looking at the guts of the power supply it doesn't look like it was too catastrophic. Maybe my friend has a spare I can borrow before thursday to test the system to see if anything cooked. Pics are up on webshots HERE.

 

[CraigRT]

I had a generic POS go out last week too
was causing instability for the person using the PC, so i took the PC to my desk to diagnose and as soon as I flipped the power switch on (the PS) after I plugged it in, it went "POP" really loud and stunk like hell... PSU blew up... capacitor as well.

Generic PSU's are total junk, replaced with a 300W SPI/Sparkle that should last for many years to come.

Let this be a lesson to people thinking of buying a cheap PS... stay away!

 

[sniperruff]

for picture hosting use pics.bbzzdd.com

that pic hosting is awful

 

[AMCRambler]

Whats so bad about webshots? Gives you thumbnails, and then the pics. Pics bbzzdd is only good for Anandtech. Won't be able to access them from anywhere else.

 

[RussianSensation]

Ok so I hope you intend to replace the cheap 400 watt PSU in the new case you bought?

 

[AMCRambler]

Yeah I'm thinking about it. Maybe get a Vantec or something.

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

What music were you listening to?

 

[Zepper]

That is a coil, not a cap. Just from looking at the pic I knew it was a flimsy PSU. Your telling us that it was L&C (one of the lowest bottom-feeders) just confirmed. Here's hoping it didn't take something else along with it - that's a bad habit of cheap PSUs...

.bh.

And here are a couple of pics of a Sparkle FSP250-60ATV PSU just for comparison with the L & C...

SPI250-1

SPI250-2

.bh.