Power supply popped

[SideShowCecil]

My PC power supply popped the other day. #-o Shouldn’t be a big deal right? Wrong! #-o

All I need is a plain jane $20 ATX 300 watt power supply for a hum drum off-white tower PC. Most retailers don’t even carry them any more and the few that do are out of stock. They’re trying to sell me some kind of liquid cooled, plasma power unit with a stealth fan, blue neon strobe lights, and bla bla bla for $300 or I’m told I have an older PC and should consider replacing it. Older PC! It’s only three years old! ](*,) ](*,)

I eventually ordered one from a supplier in Vancouver, I should have by the end of next week. Wow, aint technology great! :-s

[Bollux]

Yeah well you know the saying, the minute you buy it, it's outdated. They always want to sell you the "alienware" type of machines or supplies cause its top dollar. I mean come on, I have known people who put in small a/c units into computers which is insane. I don't need my computer to have neon lights I just need it to run. lol

[chipdad]

My wife turned on our desktop machine the other morning and it made a loud pop sound and she screamed out. I came running while starting to smell a smokey burning smell.
I disconnnect everything and pull out the power supply and sure enough she is fried. I call HP hoping that it's still under warranty :x (nope) so the tech tries to get me to send the unit to HP and they will warranty the entire thing for $249 and have it back in 48 hrs with a new power supply :shock: . I tell him I could buy a new PC for $300 or less and that he's crazy :P . Then he tells me that a local PC shop will charge over $200 to put one in. I break the news to my wife and tell her I'll go to Best Buy and pick out one.
I already had a gift card from a prior purchase return for $25 and for another $40 I got a ATX 350watt power supply and installed it myself in about 30 minutes :x as it was a 1/2 longer than the orginal and had a time connecting the cables to the CD/DVD.

[SideShowCecil]

Hmmm, HP. They used be Compaq, they were Digital before that. They’re having some customer service issues at the moment. :roll:

My new power supply finally arrived while I was in Sudbury for my Grand-dad’s funeral. While I had the PC apart I gave everything a good dusting; including pulling the cooling fans and heat-sinks from the CPU and BIOS. I never turn the thing off so the internals were pretty dusty and the heat-sinks were almost completely plugged. Care to place a wager on why my power supply crapped out?

When I restarted it I kept getting boot drive I/O errors. :evil: When I cleaned the CPU and BIOS fans they went out of balance a bit. The resulting vibration on the mother board was enough to cause intermittent failures on the IDE cable connections.:idea: Another $15 for two new fans and problem solved. The PC is much quieter now too.

Maybe I should get in the habit of turning my PC off now and then. :roll:

[Bollux]

Yeah, desktop pc's were not meant to run at a constant rate. Plus most people bury them under a desk or in some sort of computer unit and don't give any consideration to the ventilation of the unit. A friend of mine just blew his psu (an assumption) due to his computer constantly turning off (perhaps overheating) and one of the two fans not running. Best thing to do is every so often give the pc a dusting internally with all the fans and stuff running plus the open spaces it attracts dust like there was no tomorrow.

Did you buy the psu directly from HP? Usually bigger name places charge you more, so better off to find online at wholesale rather then retailer. Plus alot of the bigger PC companies dont even make their own parts. (alienware) They just buy the parts at wholesale, slap em together and sell them to the peon public for a profit. So you can do it yourself and save a few bucks here and there to get the better video card or a bigger monitor.

[EX Race Driver]

speaking of dusting the inside if your pc.... always vacuum ..... NEVER blow air in or on it.... I learned that one the hard way.... you'd be suprised how conductive carpet fibers are