My New PC is dead

[techreactor]

I think, I lost something in my PC, it just went dead in the middle of an encoding job. When I try to switch it on, it gives a little blink of both the power and HDD LED's in the front panel and thats it, no PSU fan, no activity, no cpu fan,no beeps, but the LED on the motherboard is ON.

I hope I only lost the PSU and not other components like the motherboard or the cpu itself , will have to call for replacement.

[soup]

I am sorry to hear about that techreactor. I hope everything turns out okay.

[Chewy]

were you overclocking the pentium?

[ed klein]

Good excuse to build or buy a bare bone high performance one. Then soup it up to the way you like it.

Remember the more SATA connections the better, and the faster the cpu the better, raid O configuration, 3 or more high speed burners, overclocking a must, two or three hard drives. And, without the Vista operating system.

Sorry, I think I am getting carried away.

[techreactor]

were you overclocking the pentium?

Yes, I was and it was the heat which got to the PSU. the 12v rail stopped working whereas the others were working, thats why the HDD and the CPU fans stopped and brought down the system.

the D805 is like a Oven, I can start baking my bread on it. I will build something like this once I have my new PSU.


Some other interesting facts about Case cooling.



These pictures have been directly linked from http://www.heatsink-guide.com/ and i hope I am not infringing any rights.

[Chewy]

is there place for a 120 mm fan directly below the PS?

In your case I would have that pulling out and one or two in the front blowing in, hope the cpu didn't blow at same time

[Steve83]

For about 4 years, I ran mine with all the fans blowing in thru filters (except the PS's 2 which blow out) and had no problems.

[techreactor]

is there place for a 120 mm fan directly below the PS?

In your case I would have that pulling out and one or two in the front blowing in, hope the cpu didn't blow at same time

A smaller (I think its a 60mm fan) was already part of the case (in the back, below the PSU)and working when the PSU blew, but i think it was combination of a generic PSU (unable to manage the loads) + overclocking + extra heat (generated by OC), which took its toll on the PSU.

thankfully nothing else was effected and the PC is up and running now with the replaced PSU.

[imike]

that was why it is important to always backup data frequently just in case something happens and computer crashes.
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[techreactor]

my home PC does not have anything that I cannot rebuild, so I dont create a backup, but my work PC is backed up twice every month and I have had its crash and successful recovery after it.

[RFBurns]

....thankfully nothing else was effected and the PC is up and running now with the replaced PSU.

No doubt! Not to get you worried or anything, but usually when the PSU goes poof, it might surge the many filter caps along the power rails on the mobo, purging them, and turning them into loads on the power rails instead of filters, thus making the PSU work even harder, and of course, get hot.

Double check those capacitors and see if ANY of them looked bulged. The shrink wrap on the container is a key indicator of bulged capacitors. Capacitors are used, lots of them on a pc, to filter out any potential noises on the power supplies. They are like batteries, and can dry out and become a load on the power supply. They can also short out if surged enough, turning them into a screwdriver going across the terminals of a battery, shorting out the battery and get hot.

I would monitor the temperature very closely, as well as the voltages with a sensitive DVM, taking notes of any fluctuations of the regulated supply voltages.

[toomanycats]

If you doing components the capacitor checker from ElectronicsDesignSpecialists is excellent. If checks caps by checking the equivalent series resistance (ESR) without removing the cap. Sometimes low value caps can screw things up and a visual inspection will reveal nothing.. Back in my TV repairing days this tool paid for itself in 1 week. It is the same tool used on the SpaceShuttle.

[RFBurns]

If you doing components the capacitor checker from ElectronicsDesignSpecialists is excellent. If checks caps by checking the equivalent series resistance (ESR) without removing the cap. Sometimes low value caps can screw things up and a visual inspection will reveal nothing.. Back in my TV repairing days this tool paid for itself in 1 week. It is the same tool used on the SpaceShuttle.

A very usefull tool indeed, but a bit costly for the average end user, but I agree 100% to have one of these if you run a repair shop, computer or television.

Since most end users will not have even basic test equipment such as a simple VM or DVM, visual inspection is a good idea. And your correct, low value caps often go bad with no visual clues. However, today's materials used in all electrolytic caps, such as the canisters, are made so that they would, most of the time, give visual clues such as build up of dried up fluids below the capacitor, erroded leads from that leakage, or even stained and sometimes eaten through pc boards right where the capacitor is mounted.

Replacing the capacitors on the MOBO is not an easy task for the average end user, so I recommend folks let a trained technician do the work.

[toomanycats]

Tis true I fear. I found that if your MoBo has capacitors that are colored like "M+M's" candy their probably cheap capacitors. You might want to check header pins as sometimes the solder pads crack if they are under pressure from heavy strain caused by bundling wires. I have repaired a few of those especially on PC's that don't have good venilation. I do think if their is none of the visual damage as described by RFBurns and myself the MoBo is probably toast and would cause more than it is worth to repair. The MILSpec life on capacitors is surprisingly short compared to how long people use their average computers anyway.