[diamondgeezer]

My computer's just exploded. Literally. I'm there playing Battle for Middle-earth when there's a blue flash near the PSU/CPU corner and a CRACK! like a gun shot. The whole lot shuts down, of course, and there's a rather distressing smell of burning.

Where do I start?

__________________
All the ducks are swimming in the water
Fol de rol de rol da
Fol de rol de rol da

[Night Hammer]

hahahaha, get a new comp?

[Grey Wolf]

Seems to me that, at the very least, you fried your PSU. Which, incidentally, may have taken out your entire PC.

Steal someone else's PSU, and see if your computer works then. If not, I'd say you're in need of a new computer.

[Lightspeed]

Did the die explode?

[Corsair]

Wow...I didn't know a computer could really explode.

[Zuljin]

It's probably the PSU.
Same thing happened to a friend of mine.
We just heard a bang, and then there was this awful smell, and his computer refused to work afterwards ofcourse..

If you are lucky it might be just the PSU, if not.. it might have affected the CPU or motherboard too.

As suggested above, get another PSU and try that and see if it works

[MatthewPapa]

Ur PSU shorted.
When that happened to me I found a rather large bug (was burned to a crisp) inside of it. I think the two may be related some how but i dont know...

[diamondgeezer]

Yeah, PSU's shot. And as it happends, back-up computer's PSU is shot as well. Yay

I really don't want to take this box I'm on now apart, cos the hardware is just a nightmare tangle.

This is so ****ing annoying

Which PSU manufacturers should I be looking at?

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It's the fantastic drowse
Of the afternoon Sundays

[aldo_14]

1 sec

edit; balls, can't remember.  I think Antec are decent.

[Night Hammer]

Originally posted by aldo_14
1 sec

edit; balls, can't remember.  I think Antec are decent.

wondering that myself....


edit:dammit aldo you changed real fast

[Scuddie]

If it was a decent PSU (Antec or the like), it should have a safety protection circut in it that literally destroys the device outputs prior to applying voltage.  If it has protection, it is not likely any components were seriously damaged.  The most I'd be concerned with is your RAM modules or mainboard.  The likeliness of a CPU or drive being cooked from an output failure in this case is slim.

Anyway, I see this kind of thing all the time.  It is most commonly caused by dust, because once it gets hot, it is explosive.  If you saw a bit of a yellow/white explosion, it was dust.  Since you said it was blue, however, it seems much more likely to be a surge or spike that caused an overload in the transformer.  I hate those things...  Grrrr...

[Rictor]

the hand of Sauron is far reaching indeed. And vengeful too. That'll teach you for invading Mordor with your pansy Elves.

[diamondgeezer]

OK, I'm looking at the 430W job here. Thoughts?

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Fell in to the Union...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Night Hammer


wondering that myself....


edit:dammit aldo you changed real fast

whoosh.

[Taristin]

Antec is teh nice.

[SadisticSid]

http://www.qtec.info/products/product.htm?artnr=13492&specs=1

That's what I've got in mine... pretty quiet, and the extra fan does help with the cooling. You can probably get it at less than half the price of the Antec one

[Grey Wolf]

Most have 2 fans. I'd reccomend the NeoPower 480 from Antec, but it's a bit expensive, so the TruePower you have should work fine. I'm running with the "quiet" version of the 380w model (basically, they took out a fan).

[phatosealpha]

Antec makes a good PSU.  I'm using the true 480 in my current rig.  My only real complain is that whatever they used to consolidate the cords is so stiff that it makes it hard to work with the main power connections.

I'm told Enermax makes some pretty good PSUs.  OCZ does too, but expect to pay through the nose if you want one of those.


Mostly just check for the wattage on the 12v rail or rails.

[Clave]

Capacitors can explode, most other stuff usually just burns

[WMCoolmon]

Enermax is pretty good - you can plug it in to your motherboard and the fan may auto-adjust its speed depending on the temperature.

I've also seen that happen to my cousin's computer, when I was helping him set it up. I plugged it in and saw some.
I discovered shortly afterwards that the power switch on the PSU was set to the 'on' position.