My pc is dead.

[Aegrus]

The unthinkable happened today. While playing Skyrim, my 700 watt psu (the one my pc shipped with) died. It started clicking, I smelled burning plastic- and a second before I could turn it off, it sparked and my pc shut down with a popping noise.

 

I started to turn it back on- it seemed like it would boot (no odd noises or anything, and I got to the windows loading screen)- but then I got nervous, and turned it off again. My pc is currently unplugged. I can see no obvious signs of damage, but then, maybe there wouldn't be noticeable damages. I don't know. I haven't opened it up to check yet- I've just been looking in.

I've already ordered a new 850 watt, modular Corsair psu with a 5 star average rating, but it's worthless if the rest of my pc is fried. Does anyone know about how often a psu failure damages other parts in the pc? Does the pc starting to boot mean anything, or could parts still be broken even if it starts to boot?

 

I am really not having a good day. This sucks- I really like my pc. It's always been very dependable- in everything except Skyrim. I should have just replaced that psu the first time my pc just randomly shut down (the first time I played Skyrim), but it was so. . .sporadic. Sometimes it went months without anything bad happening. I just figured the crashes might be a bad Skyrim bug- since it only ever crashed on Skyrim, not even in more demanding games. But Skyrim can't make psu's spark via glitches, so I'm guessing it's just Skyrim's erratic power-draw that killed my psu. . .

 

I just hope that power failure didn't take half of the rest of my pc with it. It's funny how you start to think of your pc like a person after a while. . . I named mine GlaDos. Seriously. Its/her system name was set to GlaDos. She even used a custom GlaDos sound set for Windows 7. It always outperformed what the benchmarks said it would, always ran cooler than it was supposed to, was always quiet, avoided even common glitches in games, always drew less power than it was supposed to, had a 3-second start-up. . . It wasn't a very strong pc, but it never let me down. I shouldn't have pushed it so hard. . . :(

 

Ps, I'm posting this from my netbook. Thank god I at least still have some connection to the internet.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Aegrus

[Illiad86]

PSUs can cause other damage. Happened to my boyfriend. His PSU over volted, died, and popped two transistors on the motherboard. I would inspect your motherboard for any burn marks, popped capacitors, cracked transistors, etc. Also check the CPU socket for any burn marks or damage. Look over it well. We didn't see the cracked transistors the first time:

 

http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/vv200/Illiana86/IMG_4565.jpg

 

Quite an ugly site huh? :( Ah well, my boyfriend had to upgrade anyways lol :P

 

If it booted, there probably wasn't any other damage. But double check to make sure.

 

Sorry man, I know how it feels. What brand PSU was it? They normally put really cheap ones in it if it comes with the case.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Illiad86

[Erik005]

Check all your components for obvious damage but this isn't a guaranty that nothing is broken. Damage from electricity can suddenly pop up after some time.

[bben46]

A good quality PSU and a good mother board will have extra filtering to prevent damage to the other components - But some types of damage are always possible. However, not all damage will show up immediately. A surge could have weakened some other component so it will fail later. The fact that it did boot to the windows screen is a very good sign.

 

Try the smell test - remove the known bad PSU far enough away so you will not smell it (outside if possible) - and get close to the board and sniff for that burned electronics smell you now know so well. Damage like that shown in Illiad86's pics should be readily noticeable by sniffing. :sick:

[Illiad86]

Oh yeah...it stunk really bad when it popped. We thought originally it was just coming from the PSU but then we saw that, ugh. :sick: Burnt electronics smell terrible. Edited September 24, 2012 by Illiad86

[Aegrus]

My psu was a Cooler Master- I forget the exact model, but it had a 4 star average review on Newegg. Cost $120. Pretty much everything as expected for a 700 watt psu. Not great, but not as bad as most stock power supply units.

 

But bad news- my psu smells like burnt plastic, which is to be expected, but my video card and motherboard also both do (albeit more faintly). I'll examine them more closely when college is over for the day, as it's possible they just absorbed the smell from the psu they were stuck with all night. (I wasn't able to see any physical damage when I opened up my pc and glanced it over before college this morning.)

Edited September 24, 2012 by Aegrus

[Illiad86]

If they smell faintly of it, it's most likely the smell just drifted to the mobo and GPU. Look over it well. Like I said, took us 3 look overs to finally see that damage.

 

We had a Cooler Master PSU pop on us once. Luckily, it didn't damage anything, but now I don't trust their PSUs anymore. They make fantastic cases at least :)

[FMod]

I've already ordered a new 850 watt, modular Corsair psu with a 5 star average rating, but it's worthless if the rest of my pc is fried. Does anyone know about how often a psu failure damages other parts in the pc?

Decent PSU very rarely damage other components.

 

Newegg star rating means nothing.

 

It's probably all fine anyway.

[ginnyfizz]

Oh man, I deeply sympathise. I had a surge problem of the kind that bben46 describes and unfortunately it had weakened PSU, CPU and HDD. MOBO was replaced too as a precaution and because the new CPU would not have worked with the new MOBO. My failure did not involve any popping and burning smells, but what I am saying to you is to be prepared for other components to be damaged and in need of replacement, even if the damage is not obvious. Get everything thoroughly checked out.

 

@Iliad86, yep I looked at the Coolermaster PSU's when me and my system builder were speccing the new parts and we thought....nah, and ordered a Corsair HX1050W professional instead. (Credit cards are the things that are smoking rather than the computer parts, hehe..). But the cases are epic, my HAF X is like a refrigerator and is the size of a garden shed.

[Aegrus]

Good news! I got my new psu and installed it today. I then proceeded to test it for an hour on the most demanding game I have- Skyrim, with high-quality enb effects enabled, modded above ultra- and my pc ran flawlessly. (Which is good, because Skyrim with the same settings killed my other psu in less than an hour.) I checked my temperature- it got up to 67 degrees, which is a little higher than I wanted, but not dangerous. It seems that my pc escaped damage from the psu failure. I suppose something might fail sooner than it otherwise would have, but it seems to be working well right now. GlaDos is back in business. :thumbsup: Edited September 28, 2012 by Aegrus