PC Goes Pop!

[KRC]

Well I tried to turn on my PC this morning and the light wouldn't turn on and wouldnt make any boot noises at all, then I noticed smoke and it actually set off the smoke alarm in the hallway, I think it maybe the PSU thats done it and it's affected the motherboard and possibly the CPU. The inside of the PC case is always maintained correctly but I checked this morning and it was very dirty, kinda dusty.

I didn't have time to check it fully this morning but let's hope it's not permanent damage. I'm getting my brother round to my house to diagnose the problem as he builds and maintains PC's himself.

Just a few details incase anyone can help.

Intel Core I7 3770

Intel DQ77MK Motherboard

OCZ PSU (off the top of my head I think it's 650.)

[stigzler]

Damn. Gutting. Fingers crossed just an easy to replace psu for you

[DazzleHP]

Dang, if it was just the PSU, and just smoke hit the rest you might get away with a careful cleanup, probably depends how hot that smoke was. Not too hot hopefully if you switched it off sharpish. Good luck man, hope its not too complimacated.

[KRC]

Well my brother came round and tested the PSU, Motherboard and CPU in another PC and none of them are working,

I'm not sure what has happened, I have cleaned everything thoroughly and still it's a no-go?

The RAM was also tested and it is fine, so are all the cables and SSD's / HDD's

[hansolo77]

That sucks dude. I hate it when my computers die. At least your hard drives are ok. To me, thats the most important cause it holds all your data. Luckily if you have to replace everything else, prices are nice and low. You could probably get upgraded for the cost of what you spent on your parts originally. I haven't upgraded in a long time, before the i-cores cames out, so I'm not sure how prices are nowadays. But I know if I were to replace 1:1 what I have, it would probably be really cheap now.

[DazzleHP]

...it's probably bad news then if it was the PSU it could have been pushing all kinds of crazy currents through your mobo i would test the rest of your kit in a known working rig too, your GPU, HDD's etc. Must be able to salvage something. I'm of course only speculating. Is there anyone you could call round to have a physical poke around and give a 2nd opinion?

[tthurman]

I've had two Zalman power supplies die on me like this, might want to give this a try with a new power supply.

Remove CMOS battery

pull all memory but one stick

replace CMOS battery

Boot (hopefully)

If it boots, reset defaults in BIOS, shut down, put memory back in and set your BIOS up like you had it.

I don't know what thing is with one stick of memory, but I happend along this method several years ago while troubleshooting a ASUS P5K Deluxe, and it has on occasion, worked on other motherboards too.

Good luck!

[KRC]

[DazzleHP]

You could probably get upgraded for the cost of what you spent on your parts originally. I haven't upgraded in a long time, before the i-cores cames out, so I'm not sure how prices are nowadays. But I know if I were to replace 1:1 what I have, it would probably be really cheap now.

3770's aren't sold anymore (at least in most shops) so he would have to get the Haswell equivilant, with a mobo and RAM cost around £500, not cheap.

[tthurman]

Also, remove the ATX 4 pin 12v connector and see if it's burnt. One of the workstations here at the office smoked right there, and melted it pretty good, resulting in a nice puff of smoke. The other components survived this BTW.

[tthurman]

Bummer dude!

[KRC]

Nope, still a no-go

[stigzler]

Take out that candle case mod you were using. Go for the more modern gas burners

That probably didn't help at all did it?

Anything still in warranty? Failing that, slap it all back together and do a flying sale at a flea-market in a neighboring state?

Oh, that also probably didn't help at all did it?

[KRC]

Nope nothing in warranty, I'm taking it to a local PC repair shop today to see if they can salvage anything.

[Adultery]

Man that really sucks.

I'm sort to hear that KRC... I spouse I've ben lucky not to suffer any kind of catastrophic failure...

/me knocks on wood

[KRC]

Yep sucks big time

I agree with Dazz, I did a search on replacing whats damaged and it racks up to nearly £500, which is cash I just don't have.

I'm already struggling to make ends meet as it is.

Luckily I invested in a cheap Dell Inspiron Laptop and all my artwork related stuff is on there.

[KRC]

Well my Local PC repair shop said exactly the same, CPU,PSU and motherboard are shot. He tested all damaged parts in different machines and non of them work, the PSU was still slightly smoking.

[tthurman]

Man I hate to hear that nothing is salavageable, that just flat out sucks! The Zalman I mentioned in my above post was a popular model that utilized a heat pipe system to keep the fan from running so hard. I felt like it was a fluke when it failed, and so I put the replacement Zalman sent me back right in when it arrived. It lasted about the same amount of time, ~ 2 years. Turns out Zalman knew it was a dog, with a main cap that was going to fail, but shipped them anyway. No more Zalman for me! I moved to this because of reliablity issues with Antec's higher end supplies, which also failed on me serveral times early in their service life. When the time comes, I highly recommend the Seasonic M12II series power supplies. I've put them in all but one of the last six builds I've done, and they seem to live up to the high marks they get.

[DazzleHP]

All this and yet i'm still using a generic no-make 650w PSU i bought 6 years ago in a sale for £30 i couldn't even give you the brand of it without opening my case. Go figure.

[stigzler]

That's a tough break. Insurance? Pitching a tent outside of Zalman's HQ??

[tthurman]

That's a tough break. Insurance? Pitching a tent outside of Zalman's HQ??

No, not at all! Sorry if I gave the wrong impression. These were good power supplies, that just happened to be manufactured with poor quality caps that were all released around the same time period. I have seen many Dell motherboards, Samsung monitors/TV's etc., with the same problem. A lot of times I'll just order some new caps from digikey, replace them and carry on, but this is not something I'm so inclinded to do on with PSU's. They rank up there with CRT monitors, as in, I'd rather not go there! I was just surprised that they simply shipped out another supply two some odd years later, that had the same defective cap in it. At the end of the day I got over five years of service, nearly six, between the two of them, bad caps and all, for right around $70 USD. I caught them on a good deal, and didn't pay the overly inflated street price they normaly fetch. To say I'm a deal hunter would be a understatement. It's not uncommon for 80 Plus units like these to have protective features that can help prevent a failure of this type from taking out other equipment, but as always you mileage may vary when it comes to this. In my opinion, it's just an added benefiet to the monthly electric bill savings they represent. I feel like I was extremely fortunate that the rest of my rig survived for sure.

During that time though, I discovered the Seasonic built units seemed much more robust, even the rebadged ones. i.e. Corsair HX series, and even some more recent Antec HCG models. I've had some of them running since 2006 without issue, and to me, this is worthy of a recomendation!

[Draco1962]

I bought an Ultra LSP 750 Pro 750W about 5-6 years ago and use it in my current gaming rig (was from CompUSA at the time, just prior to their buyout by Tiger Direct). It was a replacement for aq stock Dell 300W PSU that came with my old Dell XPS 420 that died about 2 years after purchase. Good ratings at the time, plenty of connectors that reach around well within the cable management system in my Antec P280 case, and never a problem.

[KRC]

Someone donated some $ to me as a boost so I can get up and running again, the non working parts (PSU,GPU,MOBO) I have sold on and put that money together with the kind donation and a little of my own money to get some new parts.

Again thanks to that generous gentleman.

[Draco1962]

That's great news! You'll be back on your knees in no time!

[KRC]

That's great news! You'll be back on your knees in no time!

Hey Hey, Come On Man !