Urgent help, black smoke!

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Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
9,054
Location
London
Turned my computer on today, nothing happened, changed fuse, nothing.

Opened it up, unplugged/plugged wires, turned it on, spark came out of HDD power plug, and a bit of black smoke :(
Can't get it to turn on at all now.

I have no spares, how do I know what's broken? I'm thinking buy a hdd/psu on ocuk today, and hope that it still runs?

I selected a nice cheap hdd:
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB ATA-100 8MB Cache - OEM (WD2500AAJB)

I dunno what psu to get though, I've been out of the loop for a while, can anyone help me? :( Cheaper the better!

I currently have a Tagan TG530-U15 (I think that's 530w). I need it to fit my mobo obviously which is an Asus A8N32-SLI Deleux. I don't really know what to get?

I need to get this sorted quickly I guess if I want to get it delivered tomorrow?
Thanks for any help, hate it when computers break :(
 
Power supply has blown and probably killed the HDD. Very unusual for a tagan. Id get a Corsair one, but if you dont have the money, an Antec earthwatts PSU would be a good choice or a cooler master PSU, i have one in another system and its top notch and it was free with a case which was only £45 :)
 
try this. If your hard drive uses an IDE cable, change it for a different one. I had exactly the same thing happen to me a while ago, and when i check the ide cable, it had a tiny nick in it. I changed it for a new one, and the machine started up fine. This machine has a Hiper 530W PSU in it which made me worry due to the reputation these PSU's have, but to my suprise, it was fine.
The black smoke you described probably came from the plastic covering on a wire somewhere in your system. Check all your wires and see if any are damaged.
 
I had it on it's side and was looking in as I turned it on, so I know for sure it came from the area where the plug meets the HDD. At the moment I have everything unplugged apart from the mobo connector and still doesn't want to power up.

I seriously hope my HDD survives, nothing massively important on there since last backup, but... urgh.

I guess I'll order this one?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-087-AN&tool=3
 
i would try your PSU in a different machine first, just to make sure its actually dead before ordering a new one
 
Short the PSU to see if it'll come on at all. (Green -> Black)

If not, it's blown. Cross your fingers nothing else has been taken with it. Normally good PSU's die without killing everything else.
 
I checked the fuse in the plug, that's not blown. Green/black shorting didn't work (although good tip there). So it looks like it's really gone for good.
As you say, hope it didn't take everything else with it, or more importantly, the hdd.

Is there any chance that the mobo/cpu/gfx/hdd caused the psu to blow? It'd be a real kicker to finally get a new one and that blows up too :(
 
I would try the system without any drives so just the bare minimum of mobo, gfx and ram (could be worth removing any other PCIE cards, etc. you've got hooked up).

From what you describe there's no definitive indication of what single component it was, so it sounds like a case of trial & error when you hook the new PSU in.
 
Yeah got the bare min in at the moment. I'll leave it at that when the new one comes tomorrow, and just turn it off and add 1 new thing, rince, repeat. Although if the mobo's gone it's possible everythings blown.

Could be an expensive day tomorrow...
 
My tagan 480W psu went with a bang a few months ago, and i mean a bang, luckily a replacement PSU was all that was needed ,, the rest of the gear was fine.
so fingers crossed for you.
 
Nothing to see really, the hdd socket still smells a bit when I just stuck my nose against it. I'm fearing the worst really.
 
Ok so new PSU arrived, all works apart from when I plug the power into the HDD, then it doesn't turn on. I'm assuming it's fried :(

Do I have any options on getting the stuff restored?

Wont be buying a Tagan psu every again :(
 
When I turned the Tagan psu over.. it rattled, there's a capacitor rolling around in which I can see through the vent. Also a bit of the PCB is brown/black, right under what looks like a diode.
 
KingAdora said:
Opened it up, unplugged/plugged wires, turned it on, spark came out of HDD power plug, and a bit of black smoke :(
Can't get it to turn on at all now.:(
Click to expand...

There's the problem, you let the smoke out.

It's smoke powered you see.

You'll have to buy new smoke. 'spensive ;)
 
does the hdd make ANY noise when you plug the power in?

the fact that it smells doesn't look good tbh..


best way to keep on top of backups, use robocopy, and keep the batfile on your desktop

instead of using shutdown when you leave the pc, run the bat file, and in the end of the file, get it to call shutdown / sleep
 
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