Question about my exploding PC

[Dogg Thang]

Some of you may remember my PC's PSU blowing... and then again... and then what seemed like a full-on explosion. Anyway, the computer is fixed now but I still haven't got to the bottom of why this happened and I have major trust issues with the computer. So for now, I'm switching to a different PC. If that blows up, I know it's electrics in the room.

Because of what happened, I'm not using most things that were plugged into the old PC in case they were related to the cause. But I'm wondering about the hard drives. They're good big hard drives and I'm considering pulling them out and putting them into the computer I'm using. But I'm worried that something dodgy in one of those might be related to what happened.

To people who know computers - is my fear unfounded? Do you reckon there is no chance the HDs could have caused my computer to blow or am I right to play it safe and just avoid anything that is from that machine?

[gunrock]

SATA HDDs and SSDs are pretty low power items, if they are making your system go boom, I'd be surprised.

[Zaki]

Something on your motherboard might be shorting and causing a lot more damage than it should.

[Dogg Thang]

Something on your motherboard might be shorting and causing a lot more damage than it should.

Yeah, that's what the crowd who fixed it suspected but they said they honestly didn't know. When the PSU was replaced this time, the computer was still dead but, when they took it apart and replaced all the leads, it worked again. They said they went through it piece by piece but the initial cause wasn't apparent. Now there was a lot plugged into that computer and some of it pretty power heavy (like a set of surround sound speakers with a stupidly large subwoofer) so that's what had me looking at dropping all the peripheral stuff just in case but it would be great to get to use these hard drives.

[charlesr]

Sure that HDDs will be fine.

[MartyG]

Yeah, that's what the crowd who fixed it suspected but they said they honestly didn't know. When the PSU was replaced this time, the computer was still dead but, when they took it apart and replaced all the leads, it worked again. They said they went through it piece by piece but the initial cause wasn't apparent. Now there was a lot plugged into that computer and some of it pretty power heavy (like a set of surround sound speakers with a stupidly large subwoofer) so that's what had me looking at dropping all the peripheral stuff just in case but it would be great to get to use these hard drives.

It's far more likely to be mains spike related - get a UPS and have it clean the power, they're not that pricey now and actually can save you a lot of pain (don't bother with power surge extensions, they're not worth the letters on the packaging).

[vanpeebles]

He has a UPS Stuff like speakers should be self powered, We need a full list of the pc spec, psu spec etc to draw our proper conclusions.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep, the speakers are self powered but they are then connected to the computer so, if something surges in that, it could hit the computer? I have no idea. Generally, just no idea. But yeah, I got a heavy duty UPS after the last blowout.

[MartyG]

If the PC is plugged into a UPS, then dodgy room electrics won't be impacting it - having read the old thead now, I can see I suggested a UPS, though I didn't mention the PC plug needs to actually plug into the UPS

The PC was plugged into the UPS right? I find it unlikely that a short is blowing up PSUs, as it's far more likely that'll just stop the PC for starting. Any reasonable PSU will have overvolt and short protection. I suppose it's possible the PSU is being over driven - are you bitcoin mining with AMD R9 Fury X cards DT?

[Dogg Thang]

Ha! Yes it was plugged into the UPS! I mean, it was plugged into something anyway. Yeah, and the PSUs were different models and makes so it’s not like I had a dodgy batch. Whatever it was wasn’t just a bad PSU and, as you say, it should have protected it in the event of a short. The computer is a very power hungry computer and overclocked too (if that makes a difference) and also there was some empty space in the tower so I kept a stash of old caps from 80s toy guns in there. I love the smell of caps.

Really though, it’s a bit of a mystery so my trust with both the computer and the room it’s in is at an all time low. I now have a fire extinguisher by my desk! So I’m just not taken any chances, hence wondering if cannibalising the HDs might not be a good idea.

[vanpeebles]

He seems very cagey in actually telling us what spec the machine is. I have a feeling its a Cray Supercomputer with floruinert waterfall cooling running off a 200w AT PSU with a 3amp fuse.

[Dogg Thang]

I don’t know the specs off the top of my head. It’s a computer. They’re all computers. It has a CPU computer mainframe, access to the internet superhighway, probably comes with BASIC. I can tell you tomorrow when I power it up again.

[MartyG]

he computer is a very power hungry computer and overclocked too (if that makes a difference) and also there was some empty space in the tower so I kept a stash of old caps from 80s toy guns in there. I love the smell of caps.

Everyone loves the smell of 80s caps.

If the system is overclocked, then yes that can certainly have an impact on power draw, so if you're going through PSUs at this rate, it may well be that they're not sufficient for the system when it's under load, so the specs of the PSU and PC would give me a clearer idea of the sort of power draw the PC might be making.

You can download CPUz and screen grab the details there, that it'll reveal quite a lot of info - a 500w bronze PSU is plenty for modern PCs, but older gen stuff, especially older AMD stuff, was very power hungry.

[Dogg Thang]

My last PSU was 750w. I’ll post up an idea of the specs tomorrow.

[Leon Retro]

but they said they honestly didn't know

But seriously, I hope your computer is OK from now on. It does sound like one of your peripherals might have caused the problem.