Member Avatar for petzoldt01

I recently moved back home from school. When I left school, my computer worked fine. I shut it down, unplugged everything, and packed it home. When I got home, I plugged everything back together, and thats where things get fun.

I turn on the power supply, and then hit my power button. Nothing happens. I double check everything, hit the power button again, and nothing happens. When I say nothing, I mean almost nothing. Besides for the stupid little sound in the next paragraph, no fans start to spin at all, and no lights are turning on, even for an instant.

I noticed a sound coming from the power supply, my first guess was that a fan was running very slowly, but closer inspection showed no fans were spinning. I could not determine what was making the sound. I also noticed that when I shut the power off to the power supply, the sound would continue, and then slowly go away after about 4 seconds.

Determined to find out what the sound was, I put my head really close, and was looking into my power supply (transparent case). I hit the power button, and 1 second later, something blew up in my face. It made a huge flash and a loud pop. It all took place inside my power supply. I dismantled the power supply, and the fuse was still intact, and there were no damaged parts visible.

I noticed that there was a lot of dust in my computer, so I took an air compressor and blew it out. Once clean, I reseated everything and looked around for loose things (ie. screws). Everything looks as it should.

I power up, and nothing happens. To be quite honest, it is acting like it did before the "explosion." I have now noticed a green light blinking on the front of my case. It may have been blinking before, but I never saw it. It does not blink consistantly, or in any pattern, but it only blinks when the power supply is turned on. Maybe the power supply isnt bad after all, but then again, maybe it is.

I believe that my computer was already in trouble before the bang inside my power supply. I did have a lot of dust in my computer, maybe moving it around caused some dust to fall in a really bad spot.

Before the bang in my power supply, What could have caused my computer to behave as it did? Is there a way to test if I have a bad power supply? Does my power supply work find, and really its just a bad power button?

Any suggestions on what to do, or what to look for would be great. I am in a huge hurry to get this running again as it is my source of income. Thanks for all of the help.

Chad

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by chunkmartinez
Member Avatar for Chaky

First (and, hopefully. the last) step would be to replace the PSU. If it exploded, that's it. It won't come back to life now.

Member Avatar for chunkmartinez

"First (and, hopefully. the last) step would be to replace the PSU. If it exploded, that's it. It won't come back to life now."

Yep, but till then here a couple of solutions.
first, try cleaning the heak out of it(DUST & stuff), and figure out if the fan is really spinning or not(important), if so your Ps could be functioning properly(maybe), but if so, it could possibly be some of your other computer hardware acting up. But also if you removed the power from your Ps, its probobly means that some electrical components are acting up (typically capacitors or inductors or anything that stores electricity). An obvious aproach would be to, turn on Ps, and test any form of measurement of electricity comming from one of the Ps's output, like for the harddrive or something similar. But anyway, hope this simple info is helpfull.

Member Avatar for Chaky

With exploded PSU it is unnecessary risk to even turn the PC on.

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