1 dead cap = many dead components

[SteveC]

My younger bro phones me up yesterday asking for any pointers on why his PC isn't starting up. Go through the normal things of checking power cables and what not and no joy. So I pop round there pick up the machine and investigate...

Funny smell from the PSU.... Open it up and I find the attached picture.

That little capacitor going pop has destroyed the PSU (obviously), his Hard drive (with no backup of any important work - obviously ) and the Motherboard (only an Abit BX6, but still). There may be more casualties as I think either the CDRW or the SCSI card has died too cos when powered, the drive just ejects all the time. Haven't tested the sound card, firewire card or the G400 yet.

Bloody cheap components!!!!

[Wombat]

Was it just the PS going? For that much damage I would think your PC took some kind of electrical shock.

[orangejulius]

This is why I bought a PC Power & Cooling Silencer.
Not exactly silent but it's never failed.

BTW, for Steve: <a href="http://www.extropia.com/tutorials/photoshop/line_tool.html">How to make arrows using Photoshop</a> *g*

<small>edit: fix link</small>

[SteveC]

Wombat - 2 other PCs in the house weren't affected, nor was the TV/DVD player etc etc so I guess it was just the PSU going.

Oh, and for orange - <A HREF="http://www.webdeveloper.com/html/beginners_html.html">How to get your HTML right first time</A>

[orangejulius]

Hahaha. FYI, vBulletin erroneously inserted a <code>[br /]</code> tag inside the link and I had a fun time trying to get rid of it.