Broken hardware, need to figure out what's gone

Psyk

Psyk

Psyk

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Location
Leamington Spa
Came back from lectures today with a nasty surprise. There was a burning smell emanating from my PSU (it's a Hiper 580W). When I switch the PSU on the CPU fan starts spinning and the LED on the motherboard lights up. The motherboard is an Asus A8N-E. Nothing happens if I press the computer power button.

I have no spare parts available to test it so is there any way to figure out what the damage is? I take it the PSU is fried, but I want to know if the motherboard has been taken with it. Does what I describe suggest it has? I can see this being a very expensive day :mad:
 
Id do the following

Check your PSU, you can do this by completely removing all connectors from every component in your pc, now take the 24pin atx connector, and short the green and any black wire, a paper clip works well for that. If the PSU fans start to spin up you can assume your PSU is working, at least to some extent, if they dont the PSU is dead, RMA the psu and try again with a new one, if however the psu does spin up it becomes more difficult without another system. u can hazard a guess by spelling for burnt pcb (a truly horrid smell) if you can find scorch marks or obviously fried chips then thats pretty conclusive evidence of a dead component but they are rare, normally a dead mobo wont show any physical sign or something so small youl never see it. Atm no one could possible say with any confidence whats causing the problem.
 
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Unfortunately when a PSU goes it often delivers a power spike when it does as some of the capacitors discharge. This can overvolt the fragile components of a PC and kill a lot of hardware. Its quite likely that the mobo is fried, and other components could be too. Its normally pretty bad. If your PSu is still under warranty you might be able to claim for the dead parts off the PSU manufacturer
 
If it is a good quality PSU, which it is, then it is far less likely to take anything out with it. Having said that it isn't guaranteed so you really could do with finding someone who is willing to have their system pulled to bits while you test your components.

SiriusB
 
This Hiper 580 thing is getting very common. How long did you have it and did you have any other problems with it before it went kapuut?
Mine has been making an electrical pulsing noise when my computer is turned off and I think the reedy chirping noise (like a cricket), when the PC is turned on, is coming from it. After reading some of the horror stories on here of people who've had them go i've bought a new PSU. Hopefully this one will last until the new one arrives.

Edit; If you've got a local independent computer store it might be worth taking it in to be checked out.
 
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I've had it for about a year and three months. Absolutely no one can help me test it, they all have laptops. I'll try the PSU thing smurfy said. Nearest PC shop is about a half hour walk away and I don't have any other way of getting there (the bus services are so poor it would probably take longer).
 
Do you not have a mate who drives? That way you can take your whole PC and they can hopefully find if any other hardware has been zapped.

SiriusB
 
SiriusB said:
Do you not have a mate who drives? That way you can take your whole PC and they can hopefully find if any other hardware has been zapped.

SiriusB
Click to expand...
No one really drives here. Parking is just way too much hassle.

The PSU acually powers on (fans seem to spin) when it's switched on at the back. But it makes strange noises and i dont think the fans spin at full speed. So the thing smurfy suggested doesn't do anything.
 
Had the same thing with my hyper PSU recently, came home to burning smell and pc was off. Turned pc on got a few sparks from the psu, so i turned it off again.

I replaced the psu with a spair i had and it worked fine.
 
Ok that's good to hear. Well for now I'll see if I can get a new PSU. I think it's safe to say I will need a new one of those so it can't hurt. I can figure out where to go from there.

Oh btw I lied when I said I don't have any other PCs, but the only other one I have is an old shuttle so I don't suppose that will help. I don't think the PSU has the right connectors let alone anough juice to even power the mobo + CPU.
 
It's exactly the same as what happened to my Hiper as well. About the same age too. Bloody rubbish!! Took out my motherboard too so you are lucky. That's a lot of Hipers let go in the past month. At least a dozen from here alone.
 
hi Psyk i would say its just the psu thats gone. but what every you do dont use that psu on another system or it might take out things

ive fixed load of pcs over the years and seen loads of strange things that still power up. from what you said thats fine ive seen loads that do that with the Cpu HSF fan spin up and led lights on.

the only other part that could have gone is the motherboard. but im sure thats fine
replacing the psu should sort it.

reset your bios, befor u power up the system with the new psu then detect your hardware.

thats about it really. good luck
 
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