My Power supply just Exploded

[cognitoo]

Hi everyone,

My new build finished 4 weeks ago just had it's power supply explode ... Literally

The build is:

MSI P55-GD80 / Windows 7 64 bit / Intel i5-750 / 4GB G-skill 1600Mhz / Caviar Black 640GB 32mb cache / 2 x PNY GTX 460 OC in SLI / Lite-on combo / XFX 750W BE / Cooler Master 212 plus

My question is ... How likely is it that the PSU took the rest of the components with it? Do you think the motherboard is fried? The raphics cards?? ... etc??

Figures, the time to return to newegg expired 4 days ago......... Man ooh Man what a bummer

Please advise,

Cog

 

[hunter315]

Did you hear a loud pop and smell stuff cooking?

I would look inside and make sure there are no blow caps on the motherboard or graphics card and make sure nothing other than the PSU smells funky. Whether it took something with it or not partly depends on what blew and how it went.

 

[cognitoo]

yes there was a loud pop

smells like burnt plastic

I opened the case and I don't see any damage [immediately seen damage]

GOOD NEWS ... sort of... I just called Newegg and was on hold while I was typing this and they APROVED an RMA even though it's after the 30 days!! I checked the arrival time and I am acutally only 2 days beyone the 30 ... WOW NEWEGG ROCKS!

Now if only the rest of the rig isn't fried. I will take closer inspection of the caps etc on the mobo with a flashlight now.

Ok, there does Not Appear to be anything burnt out on the motherboard or on the back of the GPU's. But, How sensitive are the parts to a PSU's blowing?? Does the PSU have some sort of kill switch built into itself to prevent some sort of super surge going out to the rest of the system?

 

[Albyint]

Glad you got in sorted away but I also wanted to agree that newegg is indeed, awesome.

 

[jsc]

What kind of PSU?

 

[cognitoo]

The specs of the computer are in my opening post... PSU XFX 750W Black Edition

Anyone able to give me any hope that the rig will power up with the new PSU?? Chances of having a new 60 pound paper weight??

 

[hunter315]

Depends on what went, usually you wont have a total system failure, something might have gotten hurt a little but i doubt it did enough to take everything out. Depending on what went, it might have just killed itself and not touched anything.

 

[cognitoo]

And how difficult is it to diagnose what 'got hurt a little' or fried totally? This is my first build and I was so happy ... Whaaaa

I hope I can figure out how to fix/replace anything that got fried. Where would I start? I suppose I should wait for the replacement PSU to arrive..

 

[hunter315]

You need a good power source to be able to check out other things, my first test would be boot it up and see if everything appears to be behaving normally, if it is you should be fine.

 

[cognitoo]

Indeed ... We'll see when the replcement XFX 750 BE Power Supply arrives ... I only hope that this thread is still active when that happens.

Anyone know how long a Newegg RMA takes?

 

[cognitoo]

For anyone who is interested, my replacement PSU from Newegg will arrive 1/3/11 .. I am hoping and praying that nothing else in the system got taken out.

 

[pinaklonkar]

Pretty much every component has high voltage or short circuit protection relays, diodes whatever. 99% they all should be fine. You can bring a power supply from a store for testing purpose only. They may charge you some restocking fee, but hey...it will calm your nerve down. Very curious to know how that PSU exploded. Do you think you have a problem in the power line at your place? I advise you use a good surge protection.

RMA from Newegg takes about 15 days and with the holiday season, not sure.

 

[cognitoo]

Hey pinaklonkar and everyone else interested..

The replacement PSU arrived 4 days earliar than projected and I just installed it. EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!

Thank God for small favors [or big ones as it may be in this case] that Nothing else was damaged by the power supply blowing. I am so entirely excited

Pinak thanks for the calming words however I did not read them until just now. That is Exactly the answer I was hoping hear over the last several weeks. When I wasn't getting the 'positive reinforcement' I was looking for I guess I stopped looking for responses and tried not to think of the terrible possibilities. You were Right! Nothing at all was damaged.

As to the reasons for the power supply blowing ... I haven't got a clue. I do have a power surge protector attached to the power cord and I don't live in the woods with a gasoline or self peddled-bicycle generator [I live in Boston] so I can't imagin what the deal is. Don't PSU's just sometimes blow?

In any event I am majorly relieved. I just wish I had read your comment before I turned it on so I could have uncrossed some fingers and toes.

Thanks everyone and Thanks Tom's Hardware for being here!

HAPPY 2011

Cog

 

[cognitoo]

Best answer selected by cognitoo.

 

[pinaklonkar]

PSU's do not and should not (obviously) blow up. I used to live in Boston too and mine never did LOL.

Check your surge protector. I have a gaming desktop in NYC and I use it with quite an expensive Belkin surge protector. Working fine so far, fingers crossed.

 

[Silvune]

Recently we've been hearing things from Antec about how single rail PSUs are more dangerous because they lack OCP. Wonder if this is evidence for that?

 

[hunter315]

Dont believe that bit of FUD, the OCP on many Antec PSUs is set to such a level it isnt really protecting you from much more than OPP on a single rail PSU would, some of their more powerful units have it set to 40A per rail which kinda defeats the argument that smaller units that only have 40A total should be multi rail. When you get to stuff like the Corsair AX1200 where you have 100.4A on a single 12V rail, then you have a time when things need to get broken down a bit more, but for most units its not really relevant, see the jonnyguru FAQ on the subject for more info
http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3990

 

[Silvune]

I wasn't talking about how suitable Antec's PSUs are for demonstrating the effective use of OCP, I was more wondering if the lack of OCP on these XFX PSUs could have been some how responsible for not protecting cognitoo's PSU from blowing up.