Rob Walker

Help. Last night I was playing medal of honour and it suddenly rebooted. When it was rebooting I had a look in the bios screen to check my cpu temperature because i'd been having problems with it overheating. The temp was 68 (i've never seen it that high before). As I was in the temperature screen the pc suddenly went BANG. It looks like the PSU has blown.. Is it likely to have taken any other components with it? Or should I be able to get away with just changing the psu?

Cheers

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

I'd check over the mobo and CPU core for signs of scorching.

Does the PSU no longer turn on ?

Rob Walker

No it doesn't turn on at all now.

there was a smell of burning after it happened but I can't see where its coming from..

I don't want to take the heatsink off my cpu either cos the last time I did it I cracked the core. Its a really tricky heatsink to get off...

Anyone know the best way to find out what's knackered?

Cheers

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

I think the best way will be to connect a new PSU to it and see what happens.

I assume its an Athlon ? Make sure the PSU is up to the job of powering the CPU that you have. I would recommend 300w+.

It could have just been the PSU that overheated and caused the temp to rise inside the case. Can often be caused by dust build-up in the PSU.

Rob Walker

Yeah its an athlon 1.2.. and it had a 300W PSU in it.. the one that came with the case...

I don't know if maybe i've got too much stuff in the pc for it to cope it..

3 * hard drives (1 is a removable caddy)
cd writer
One of those pci slot extractor fans
USB hub. (although this has its own power supply)
Alcatel usb modem..
Geforce II GTS (I only recently installed this. think this was the first game I had played with it too.. i'm wondering if this could be part of the problem?!?!?!)

Dunno whether to just buy another 300W number and see how it goes or splash out £50 or so for a decent one :-(

TBMeech

Had a similar prob that somehow has stuffed my machine too, power went bang lots of nasty smells, went to pc world, got new power box, put it in now my machine has general fault 40's cannot detect hdd, also mem count counts up my 512meg of ram then resets and counts again till i hit the esc key - doesnt sound healthy

DazV

Happened for the first time to me last week. Was switching a machine on having fitted a CDRW and then....ZAP CRACKLE and POP!

Turned out the customer had been mixing and matching 3 pin and 2 pin plugs (and sticking a pencil in the vacant socket) so things were a little unstable!

New PSU fixed it.

[Edited by DazV - 2/13/2002 2:35:22 PM]

Silent Monkey

TBMeech

Does the memory count complete if you leave it, counts 2, 3 or 4 times? If so sounds like your BIOS settings have reset, could also explain lack of HD and error 40's.

Apologies if you've already checked this

TBMeech

Silent Monkey,

I think i had to reset the bios, not being a techhie guru myself could have advertantly killed it, In the bios it's registering the fact I have 2 hdd's and they are showing they are the right sizes, but still no avail

Silent Monkey

Theres usually an option in the BIOS for "quick boot" or "extended memory test" or something along those lines, this is what normally causes the memory count to repeat several times.
IIRC 40 errors are floppy related, check you haven't disturbed any motherboard or drive cables when replacing the PSU.

It's virtually impossible to have done any lasting damage by restting the BIOS

AndiThompson

What is it with PSUs at the moment? I blew mine on saturday night (alright so I was mesiing inside and shorted it..). Scan have Enermax ones that are excellent, I found they were cheapest but then again I didnt pay VAT or delivery.

You may as well shove a new PSU in (as you'd have to buy one anyway) and see what works, mine didnt take anything out but the PSU luckily.

AndiThompson

PSU: The following tells you which bits take up what amount of power. Useful to help you work out what size PSU you need.


AGP video card - 20-30W
PCI video card - 20W
AMD Athlon 900MHz-1.1GHz - 50W
AMD Athlon 1.2MHz-1.4GHz - 55-65W
Intel Pentium III 800MHz-1.26GHz - 30W
Intel Pentium 4 1.4GHz-1.7GHz - 65W
Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz-2.0GHz - 75W
Intel Celeron 700MHz-900MHz - 25W
Intel Celeron 1.0GHz-1.1GHz - 35W
ATX Motherboard - 30W-40W
128MB RAM - 10W
256MB RAM - 20W
12X or higher IDE CD-RW Drive - 25W
32X or higher IDE CD-ROM Drive - 20W
10x or higher IDE DVD-ROM Drive - 20W
SCSI CD-RW Drive - 17W
SCSI CD-ROM Drive - 12W
5400RPM IDE Hard Drive - 10W
7200RPM IDE Hard Drive - 13W
7200RPM SCSI Hard Drive - 24W
10000RPM SCSI Hard Drive - 30W
Floppy Drive - 5W
Network Card - 4W
Modem - 5W
Sound Card - 5W
SCSI Controller Card - 20W
Firewire/USB Controller Card - 10W
Case Fan - 3W
CPU Fan - 3W

Rob Walker

I blagged an old 250W one from work last night and gave it a try and thankfully it booted up ok.

Bought myself a new 350W one today at lunchtime so hopefully I should be back in business tonight... (famous last words.. I know it probably won't fit in my case or something...)

Thanks to all who helped.

Rob Walker

Fitted new PSU last night. Works a treat. Also noticed my cpu temps seem to be about 10 degrees lower now. I've always had problems with this pc's cpu temps. I never thought it would have been the PSU that was causing them. The old one must have been bobbins.

*Viz style handy hint*
Before taking 2 big gouges out of your hands removing a power supply unit on the razor blade construction that passes for a case be sure to check the top of your case doesn't just slide off with a gentle nudge... DOH!

AndiThompson

ouch! Noticed the same with my new enermax, is it one of these fancy dual fan beasties?