Burning power supply

[War2d2]

Hey all-
I need some help/advice:
I built myself a new Athlon 2100+ system and I decided to use my old Athlon 1ghz as a personal web server. That meant that I needed to build a new system for my girlfriend, so I bought a Duron 1.3 chip on eBay and threw together a system from leftovers. The thing is, when I put the Duron into my ECS K7S5A it wouldn't fire up at first, but the fans would turn for a while then shut off. It did this about twice, then suddenly the power supply <b>BURST INTO FLAMES</b>. There were sparks and smoke, and I'm very glad the fire alarms in my building didn't go off, since I'm in an SF apartment with 15 sprinkler heads in the ceiling. Anyway, the eBay guy refuses to give me my money back, saying that a chip can't do that. The thing is, the system worked fine five minutes previous with my 1ghz in it, and it worked five minutes after with a backup power supply and the 1ghz back in. Any suggestions? Anyone ever have this happen before? I'm out $35 for the chip, and I want to make sure I'm right when I blame this on the chip--the power supply was an Enlight model from their EN7245 case, so while it wasn't top of the line, it also wasn't a bad enough psu that it would just suddenly flame out. Any ideas?

 

[johnoh]

Wow.

John A

 

[keller2343]

ive never heard of that before.

crazy

I wish i knew something

 

[War2d2]

Yeah.
I'll probably just put it up on eBay with a warning that it might blow your system up. I might be able to get at least half my cash back.
BTW, when I tore apart the psu after it cooled off, I saw that it was a couple of the resistors that had flamed out. Don't know if that means anything to anybody.

 

[jihiggs]

i seriously doubt the chip is responsible. only thing i can think of is it was screwed up and drew too much power, but that still shouldnt make a psu burst into flames. are you sure the chip is dead? if it were to blame it would more than likely have fried. of course this could just be an amd sucks it will destroy your life thread, like intel_inside's first post.

how do you shoot the devil in the back? what happens if you miss? -verbal

 

[War2d2]

No AMD haters here. I've backed AMD ever since the k6. Also, I tried the chip (albeit briefly) in my MSI KT3 Ultra2-R, and it did the same thing (fans turned, hard drives didn't, and no POST)(I didn't, however, wait around for my PSU to explode).

 

[jihiggs]

most likely the psu crapped out and killed the chip, probly the mobo also, then killed its self. the fact that you opend the psu could have screwed any chance of reimbursement from the psu manufacturer.

how do you shoot the devil in the back? what happens if you miss? -verbal

 

[tombance]

Umm... I thought that mobo you are talking about was renowned for its power taking capabilities. Something like without a PSU of 350watts it wouldnt work. Probably it drew about too much current and caused a few of your caps to blow, perhaps the dielectric is flammable?

My sig's faster than yours, and it overclocks better too....

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

read toms new power supply article. And yes i would RMA your motherboard, CPU, RAM, and maybe even the cards connected and the drives - cd-rom and hard drives. Probably even the floppy.

ya your system is toast. the very reason why you never buy a cheap power supply! You have to either just go buy a complete dell system now or RMA each product. Or yo ucan hope your lucky and keep each product and hope it doesn't die after 3 months. Latency defects suck!


Life is irrelivent and irrational.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[War2d2]

The psu was about 2 years old, so any hope of RMA was aout the window about a year ago. Luckily, the only thing that blew WAS the psu. Everything else survived. As far as the mobo being a power hog, I wasn't aware of that, but I wouldn't doubt it. As of right now, though, it's running 2 drives and a T-Bred 1GHz fine on an old 250 watt PSU. Granted, the 250w cost $100 new a few years ago, so it's a little beefier than the 300w that blew up.

I'm glad Tom finally ran a power supply article. Unfortunately, it's a week late and I bought one that wasn't in the review. I'll probably return it if UPS ever decides to deliver it...