Sparks were seen! New Power supply neededFollow

Short version is my PSU died with popping sounds and a few sparks few out of the power supply fan, before I could cut the power off and pull out the power cord. there was smoke and in opening up my computer, there is no visual damage to any of the boards, so at them moment I'm either looking at just having to get a new PSU or a whole new computer. Budget wise I'm hoping that the rest of my computer is ok, and spend a little less then the cost of an emachine, on a decent 400w supply.

So is there any hope for Elne's computer? or does she have to settle with a cheap computer, that might if I'm lucky allow me to play LOTR:O and maybe Civ:5 that I had hope for my birthday/Christmas present.

Long story is about bugs, that the spiders are not doing their job killing for me. Living in an old row house in the city means you will have a hard time keeping bugs from invading your house. Cockroaches are specially hard on people like me, who can't be around a lot of the chemicals in insecticides.

So I expect them occasionally getting into my electronics and do allow Jonwin to spray around the computers as long as I'm not around when the flumes are strong.

This year has been specially bad, as we have had new tenants move in and out of the houses next door. So when my power supply started to act up recently I wasn't surprise to see one come flying out the PSU fan not long ago. still other then a few times my computer would power down suddenly, nothing was getting fried, so I crossed my fingers and prayed to the computer Gods.

Sadly when you are face with a creature that likes the heat of electric wiring, and they have 6 legs, the chances of them causing a short circuit goes up, as their population increases. Why it kills the roach in the process, you often can end up with dead electronics, that cost far more then a year supply of Raid sprays and roach hotels. Before this week the only other thing they have tired killing themselves on, was the power switch on my stereo, which is now stuck on always on, which is better then always off.

Still I'm stuck with a non working computer and no spare power supply to test how bad the damage is, since Jonwin's computer has an older supply without the proper connectors. I can take it to local computer repair place, but hate to spend money on something I normally could do myself from spare parts lying around the house. The problem this time was this is the first build were the only thing that I could still use from my last one was the case, hard drive, one cd-rw drive and an old Creative sound card, of which the cd-rw has died, but that's ok as I had added an new DVD drive at the time.

So the question is should we just pony up for a new computer for me, or gamble that a new PSU will give Jonwin his computer back and make me happily able to play LOTR:O again.

If you do plan to buy a new PSU I would wait till Newegg's Black Friday deals go up. They may redo the power supply sale they had on the 4th, 20% off Antec and 10$ off Corsair PSUs.

As a side thought you may want to see if you can get any of those green, plastic mesh, strawberry containers. IIRC the dimensions properly it should be a good fit over the fan opening, which should prevent the bugs from getting in.

Edited, Nov 23rd 2010 2:12pm by Shaowstrike

That corsair isn't bad. You do want a bit higher wattage so you'll be able to utilize the newer video cards someday. I'd look at 550 watt as an absolute minimum, as thats what the newer nvidia and ATI cards require.

Chances are if the power supply smoked, you are looking at just the power supply, or worst case scenario a power supply and a motherboard. The CPU will almost certanly be intact, the ram might have taken a hit, but it's not as likely, and ram is still fairly cheap anyways. The add in cards should have been protected by the motherboard microfuses in a worst case scenario.

Newegg has the 550VX at the same price as the 450
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004

You shouldn't have to mod the case at all. The fan can point down, into the case and draw from the front to back airstream. A nice vent on the top to cycle only cool air wouldn't hurt of course, but it isn't necessary.

As to building a new PC or staying with the existing one, that would largely depend on what hardware you have inside. If its a much older AMD or a pre core 2 Duo Intel, it may be worth the effort to spend another $200-300 and get a new motherboard, CPU and ram combo along with the PSU and have essentially a whole new machine in terms of performance.

I ended up going for 650 watt Corsair TX PSU and a new Optical DVD RW drive, from amazon for less then new egg or tiger direct was selling by 40%. Jonwin went out and got me a 1 TB western digital HD that best buy had on special for Black Friday, for my birthday next week. since I went with super saving shipping, I will have to wait until after my birthday to get my computer back up and running.

Now I know I can not only have enough power for a good video card some day, but also a better mother board and cpu and memory when I have the money for them.