pc down, pc down!

[Saxif]

Yup, my pc went POP!

I am 99% sure its the PSU as thats the bit that smells and thats where the smoke came from, gonna drop into town but Weymouth doesn't have the best pc shops and on a bank holiday I have my doubts.  I'll prolly end up ordering something from Scan.  My question is do PSU's function like a fuse, in that they break to protect the system, or could I have further problems with other components?

Also, would it be safe to use the same plug socket again, or might it be something to do with that socket?  I didn't have a surge protector in place, which is annoying because I have been meaning to get ahold of one for a few years now but never had the motivation! meh ....

So much for my weekend of hardcore Civ time 

Sax.

[Cernos]

A power surge is a possible cause, as is just general wear and tear. Unfortunately it's possible that a PSU blowup might affect other components such as the motherboard or cards, it doesn't act as a fuse. So if you have problems when the new PSU goes in you might need to run it barebones (just psu, motherboard and graphics card) and work from there.

I don't know enough about power surges to know for sure whether the socket might be the cause. If it is a wall socket I would think less likely, but if its a multiblock then I would certainly replace it.

Crap always happens at a bank holiday weekend, it's a rule. I've just got back from an emergency vet visit with my dog who picked the bank holiday to get ill on.

[Saxif]

Bah, bloody bank holidays!

Hope your doggy gets better Cern.

Hmm, barebones would be mobo, cpu and HD surely?  You wouldn't need the gfx card or the sound card, to start?

Think house insurance covers this?

Sax.

[Cernos]

You don't need a hard disk to boot up and get to BIOS. You don't need the graphics card either of course, but it helps to see that you've reached the BIOS. True barebones would be motherboard (with one memory stick) and PSU. Test to see if there's any BIOS beeps. If not start connecting the other opponents one by one.

House insurance might cover it, but most have an excess of some sort don't they? Excess will probably be more than the cost of a new PSU.

If you're sure the smoke came from the PSU and not the motherboard hopefully that's the only thing that was affected. Was anything wierd happening with your electrics at the time, lights flickering or washing machine cutting in and out etc?

[Saxif]

No, nothing wierd but it was about 13:00.  I did have a fairly decent Corsair PSU, I am hoping the money I spent on that means I won't have to replace anything else.  Compared to some shitty non-brand PSU which would have prolly set my computer on fire as it died!

Gonna order another from Scan (slightly more wattage), will stick to Corsair as well as they are a good brand and I undoubtedly got unlucky.

Cheers,

Sax.

edit - Reason I reckon its the PSU is not only did the smoke come out the bottom where the sound card and PSU live but the PSU smelt of electric fire when I unscrewed it enough to semi pull it out. 

[Lasiien]

What's it with you and your luck with PC's Sax?

Hope nothing else is broken and that your domination of the world can continue unabaited once you get a new PSU !

[Saxif]

Put a new psu in and nothing else was damaged.  Although it took me a couple hours if you add in the time I spent dusting (the hoover just didn't really do the job) it was a fairly simple process

Sax.

[Cernos]

Good news, glad you're back up and running.

If you're get a lot of dust in the case, I'm guessing your case doesn't have dust filters? They make a huge difference. My current Antec P182 case lets no dust in at all, whereas my old Coolermaster Wavemaster was a terrible dust magnet. Best way to shift the dust is to have a hoover nozzle in there and dislodge the dust into it with a paintbrush (a decent sized horsehair brush used for oil painting is good).

[Saxif]

I used a paintbrush for my gpu fan but I have a Zalman massive copper cpu heat sink and fan together and the dust had made a carpet behind the fan and it was a pita to get to, the hoover didn't do it and nor did the paint brush.  Luckily I had some pastuer pipettes from work, they are 2 ml plastic pipettes so I cut the end of one to make it "sharp" and hooked the dust out with that.  Cos I need to take the gfx card and sound card out I ended up giving most of the rest of the case a good clean also.

Next time I buy a case though I'll get something thats dust free, however I know a web site that does very fine nylon mesh, down to about 80um, I could buy a metre squared for < ?15 and cut it up and stick it over the fan in ports, that would prolly do the same job ...

Sax.