Bah well there goes my computer

(Alltaken) #1

well i installed a TVtuner card, and turned it on, the computer blew up.

i am hoping it was the power-supply. that seems to be the part that smells funny. however the screen is not coming up with anything so the vid card could be gone, but perhaps that is the Mobo gone.

i dunno, but Fvck, not exactly what i wanted.

i had a 300w power supply. it was running

2.4Ghz P4 533Mhz
1Gb ram (2x512)
wacom
scanner
tvcard (800Mhz i think)
GF4 ti4200

there was a spark about 10 seconds after the PC was turned on, so i dunno if that Fed anything, but i assume that was from a failing PSU (i hope)

anyone been in this situation before.

Alltaken

(BigBlend) #2

Yeah that the PSU that died on you. Had a similar problem.

(WhiteBoy) #3

Sounds like a power supply to me, too. Those tend to go out a lot. Mine crapped out on me less than a month after I finished building my machine. Dang thing.

Anyway, you should probably switch one out of another machine just to test and make sure before you go making a purchase. But of course, you knew that. :wink:

(ajc158) #4

I built a new computer for my brother with a crappy PSU. Install XP, restart, and BANG! Sparks, burning smell.

Even with such a massive failure on a poor quality PSU the components were all fine, and the swap replacment I got was far superior :D.

So you should be fine, just swap out the bad PSU and turn on (try and get a bit more wattage if possible though, that setup looks at the limits of a 300W PSU, and if you stress them they are more likely to go bang.

Alex

(yellow) #5

ha! had the same happen to me many years ago, I was working in an open plan office with 10 other guys. The PSU fan on the machine I was using constantly squeeked so I switched it off and sprayed a bit of wd40 onto the fan bearings over lunch. Left it, turned it on and BANG, blue sparks lit the room up and a thick blue smoke drifted across the office to the sound of a syncronised ‘what the F–K was that’ Had to get a replacement that afternoon, only one I could find had cables that were barely long enough to reach the mobo, cut my hands trying to make them reach.

Now I just buy good qual PSU’s.

(Mystery) #6

You guys are scaring me :o It hasn’t happened to me yet, but my powersupply is very old, and now I’m afraid it might blow up at any second o_O

Mystery

(PlantPerson) #7

Same here. Now I’m afraid to touch the thing.

(kit89) #8

Thats probably the only thing that hasnt happened to me :slight_smile: .

Although I’m going to have to get a new PSU to stop my pc from cutting out when i do long renders.

Do you now any good makes of PSU?

(osxrules) #9

Wheee, bonfire night has started early for you… as with everyone else around my way. Seriously, wtf is the point in using fireworks every damn night of the week before bonfire night? Afterwards I can understand if you are using them up.

I digress. Sorry to hear about your machine Alltaken. I hope none of the expensive bits of your machine have been fried.

How are you running the scanner and wacom off the same psu? Any time I’ve seen a scanner or wacom, they have their own power supply.

(Alltaken) #10

the scanner i think has its own power supply, our old one didn’t

the wacom… hell no it doesn’t have a power supply. they are like a mouse, does a mouse have a power supply?

and it would be lovely if i had another PSU to test with, however dad has a dell (yay lets make it so nobody can use our PSU’s), and our other two computers are laptops.

oh well buying a new one, if my PSU isn’t broken at least i will have a good one LOL.

Alltaken

(osxrules) #11

Some mice have batteries as do some tablets. Also, you do get power supplies for tablets:

Anyway, I don’t suppose the tablet will have made all that much difference - aren’t they like 40mA or something? Was the PSU already pretty much loaded or do you think you got a faulty TV card?

Also I take it you installed a PCI TV card or something? I would have gone for something like this:

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvrusb2.html

That way if you do go over the power usage, your system should just disable the usb port.

(Alltaken) #12

yeah i went PCI. i am trying to compact my room to go flatting, i don’t want a bulky 21" tv and a VCR as well as my computer, massive printer…

there were a lot of external ones for sale, but i wasn’t really keen on the idea, i didn’t really think my PSU would blow up LOL.

but even with the TV tuner card, the websites reckon my PSU load will only be 284 max, and 254 (or was it 264) average load.

Alltaken

(digital_me) #13

You only had a 300 wat psu? Ouch. I never run anything less than a 500 watt, and I have never had a failure. Buy a silverstone zeus. They have the best capactity and durability, period.

(Alltaken) #14

well it looks like some or all of my computer was taken out by the failing power supply.

so thats gonna cost me a few grand to fix.

i got a new PSU, and it turns on, power goes to everything, but nothing boots up, and the GFX card doesn’t display anything… pity really.

Alltaken

(Alltaken) #15

w00t a $1700 TV. what a bargain :frowning:

i am kinda fvcked off now. but hey i get a new computer out of it with 2Gb ram, 3200+ 64bit cpu.

Alltaken

(_Centauri_) #16

I had that happen with a floppy drive once… for all of you out there who havent smelled buring electronics, you’re lucky… I’ve seen PSU’s do some crazy things, though usually its the quality of the power you get that does most of em in, even with really crappy PSU’s around here(wyomin’) they just kinda fizzle out. We dont get many power spikes(probably because there arent too many people using power), so its relatively clean power going into the box, If its a really bad problem get a power conditioner. They do wonders!

(d52477001) #17

Heh, i had almost exactly the same happen. Fortunately a lot was still salvagable, and everything was still under warranty. I guess buying stock computers does have is upside…

d52477001

(phlip) #18

If you’re planning on getting a new computer, be sure to build it yourself :wink:

(Alltaken) #19

LOL phlip.

well actually i am getting it built for me this time, i don’t want to take the liability for any damage.

my new computer is an AMD 64 3200+

dual channel Ram 2Gb (2x1Gb) DDR 400

Gigabyte K8N SLI (or somthing like that) 8channel sound, network…

tv tuner card (it fuckin better still work, the POS, especially after it caused all that damage, if not i will be mighty pissed off.)

then all my old stuff.

so the computer will certainly out perform my old one.

Alltaken

(ajc158) #20

Alltaken: I have the K8N SLI, and can thoroughly recommend it exept for:

i) The Nvidia NIC (this conflicts with the SATA, so randomly stops working, requiring full power cycling, although the Marvell NIC works great, and the problems caused by the Nvidia are less than on other Nforce motherboards.)

ii) XP + SII3114 in RAID mode from the onboard bios = crash upon crash. The problem is with XP, not the motherboard.

Aside from these easily avoidable issues, one of which is with the Nvidia chipset, one with Windoze, the board is very good.

The provided wifi card with the XP-SLI is exceptionally good.

Dual bios, so flashing is completely risk free! Useful is you need to update the bios in the future to put in an X2.

That said, I’ve had good experiences with Asus, but their latest boards seem to have a few issues.

Alex