help help help! computer fried?

LobsterLegs14

Commendable
Nov 7, 2016
5
0
1,510
okay so i just built a new PC not even a week ago and i put it together exactly like LinusTechTips told me to. and today i powered the system on, it started normally, then i realized the fans were blowing smoke out of the case. at first i sat still in shock. then i jumped out of my chair and pulled the power cable. when i opened the side panel, i kid you not, it smelled like a burnt piece of plastic. so my dumb self decides to plug it back in and power it up with the side panel off. it stared up and i thought that the problem was gone but after 30 seconds, i heard sparking, then the back of my GPU started smoking as well. my computer started glitching like crazy, then more smoke rose from the GPU and motherboard. mind you, these are brand new components and this computer has costed me over $1,200.00 i kept it running hoping that it would cool itself down, then behind the motherboard started smoking like crazy PLEASE HELP THIS WAS AN EXPENSIVE BUILD FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!


SPECS:

MSI B150A Gaming Pro LGA 1151 DDR4 USB 3.1
Intel Core I7 6700 LGA 1151
Kingston HyperX Fury 64gb DDR4 2133mhz
MSI GTX 1080 (Founders Edition)
Corsair RM1000x Fully-Modular
Corsair H55 Hydro Cooler
ASUS Optical Drive
WD Red 4TB 7200 RPM (2)
Samsung 960 Pro (1TB) (1)
 

Albionm00n

Reputable
Jan 31, 2016
462
1
5,165
Greetings!

Sadly, sparking and smoking generally means something has fried. As to the extent of the damage, it is hard to tell, but I am pretty sure you had some parts fry out by your description. What caused it is not possible to say from behind my keyboard, but I can take a couple guesses. The first that comes to mind is that your PSU surged your system. I am not saying that is absolutely what occurred, but it sounds like a possibility. The PSU you have is a high quality one, but there are rare occasions of a PSU failing and putting too much power into the system. This is a risk with less than quality PSUs, and is the reason why folk on this forum will always recommend Tier 1 or 2 PSUs...Yours is a quality unit, which greatly reduces the risk of this type of failure, but it can still occur. What sounds like what may have happened (and this is a guess, mind you) is that your PSU failed and then the surge fried something in your GPU and then started frying components/traces on your motherboard.

Another thing that comes to mind is a short or conduction occurring on your motherboard that translated to other components. Again, this is just me brainstorming. One question I have is if you had all of your motherboard standoffs in your case installed properly for the motherboard? Sometimes an unused standoff that is left in the case can make contact with conductive elements on the back of the motherboard and send power to places not intended by design. This can cause too much power going to components that are not rated for it, which would cause them to fail/fry.

I really have no way of saying just what is truly damaged, or to what degree, but my guess is that you will need to replace some things. By your description however, I think it can be a safe bet that your GPU and Motherboard may be damaged at the least. Whether this occurrence has effected other components (HDDs, SSDs, etc.) is hard to say until you can test them.

I would start by taking your PSU to someone who can put it on a meter and test it to see if it is functioning properly (or maybe you are capable of doing this yourself). This will tell you if the PSU was the cause. If the PSU is functioning to spec, then I would pull the rest of your components from your case and do an inspection to see if you can find the short.

I am truly sorry that you have had this experience, and I would jump on the testing process sooner rather than later to ensure that you can possibly be able to take advantage of potential RMA for replacement.

I really hope this helps...