something's burning

[murphyz]

When attempting to turn the PC on yesterday nothing happened so I took the casing off, checked the wires to make sure power was plugged in right and tried again - it worked.

Five minutes of being on the pc made a hissing sound, a little smoke came out and a really bad smell arose.

Obviously I turned it off pronto.

I took it apart and the smell was coming from the internal power supply where you plug the kettle type lead into the PC from the wall. I took this apart and cleaned it out and put the PC back together minus one of the CD drives (not sure if this saves on power).

Now it seems to be working okay.

Why did this happen?
Would it be because I added more memory at xmas?
Shall I see if it happens again before buying a new power thing?

Mxx

[Borgtex]

a hissing sound? maybe an snake... :D

[mouse]

Possibly a dust problem but a psu shouldn't do that. Sounds like it may be on the way out.

Opening psu's is dangerous, if you do it beware of the big capacitors; these run at 400v and take some time to discharge once the supply is turned off. Very dangerous basically.

[murphyz]

oopsy.

I did open it, and touch stuff, and give it a jolly good clean out.

I seem to be allright though - and the tingling feeling should go away ;)

Hopefully it was just a dust build up and it won't happen again. The PC was quite near the wall so I am leaving it a bit more room to breath from now on.

Thanks.

Mxx

[Quiet Storm]

Originally posted by mouse
Opening psu's is dangerous, if you do it beware of the big capacitors; these run at 400v and take some time to discharge once the supply is turned off. Very dangerous basically.

Yeah, don't stick your toungue on them... hurts bad - but does clear the sinuses!

:D

[mouse]

Oh I do it all the time, before I got my Enermax supply with adjustable fan (so very quiet) I'd open them up and replace the fans with 7v quiet items. You've just to resist poking around to much, on fear of death. :eek:

[x_goose_x]

I'd buy a new power supply. I've seen too many boards fried from bad power supplies to leave it be (my count is 4).

Ya you might want to avoid playing with it. I had one blow up on me (not my fault, just started it up) and got shocked. I was completely spaced out (like a really bad burnout) for the rest of the day. I don't suggest it.

[scroots]

I had my pc catch fire i had a whole thread about, it fortunately when it happened i was using the pc so i could do something about it. I survived and so did my pc, i had it checked out though. the report was nothing wrong.

my thread about mine http://www.codingforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13129

scroots

[Morgoth]

That's a very tricky stiuation, as soon as my PSU blows smoke at me, I am running for the hills, that thing is probibly going to explode or something..

It's so old...

[murphyz]

Thanks guys,

IT seems to be working okay just now, although I have disconnected one of the CD-ROMs and it currently has no outer casing. I shall add the CD and case at a later date and keep my eye on it - in the meantime I may consider buying a more powerful PSU.

Cheers

Mxx

[Morgoth]

If your a pentium guy, and you're not on a p4 yet, make sure your PSU is P4 ready for later, if you are going to upgrade to it.