Power supply burned out?

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leeor_net

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I've never experienced this problem before, but here goes.

I was working with my computer normally. Suddenly, I heard a loud snapping kind of sound and the whole system went dead. I immediatly turned all the switches off and pulled all the plugs.

As I was doing so, there was a smell of what I guess I could describe as burning electronic components.

I opened up the case and touched the side of the power supply. It was abnormally hot, or, at least I thought so.

I pulled it out and could feel heat radiating from the fan exhaust. One side of the power supply was almost too hot to touch.

Did the power supply burn out? Is this a common thing? Whether it's common or not, why did it burn out? What could have caused it?

BTW, it's a 400w power supply. There are 10 fans inside the computer. 6 of them are lighted, 4 of them are about 40mm (one is a hard drive cooler with two fans , the other is a drive-bay freezer with two fans.

Two of the lighted fans are on the video card (GeForce FX 5950 265MB DDR RAM).

The other 4 lighted fans are standard 80mm fans. Two are mounted to the processor, one blows air into the case across the processor and the last fan sucks air out of the case from the side.

I also have 2 hard drives, a floppy drive and 2 optical drives. The motherboard is a standard ATX form factor running an AMD 64XP 3200+.

There is, naturally the fan on the power supply. Did it maybe fail? Am I running too much power through the system? Should I get a higher rating power-supply?

Sorry for the length of this message but any insight would be extremely helpful.

Thanks!

Leeor...
 
Try a new power supply and see if your system works. If it does not, you may have a bigger problem on your hands.
 
It was a PowerMax. It came with the case.

Actually, the computer's been running fine for several months. I'm on my Bro's computer searching for answers.

I see that there are 600W PSU's out there. Should I get one of those? Or should I get a 480? 580?

*sigh*

Hehe... I guess there's a first time for everthing.

Leeor...

EDIT:

Actually, I think I'm gonna go with this one:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=32343&Sku=TC3Y-6001

It's a decent price and has a great deal of power going through it so I figure I won't really blow it that fast. Besides, it fits the look of my PC pretty well... :)
 
that guy says that to everyone. it really is overkill, 75 bucks for a psu is too much. get a thermaltake 420 watt or 480 watt psu, about 40 and 60? respectively.
 
Yeah. $70+ is a little much but I think I'm getting a decent deal with the TigerDirect PSU. However, I'm going to keep looking.

As far as I can tell, it's the power supply. I've checked everything inside the case and all seems right. Nothing's burned and I touched everthing (in safe places) to see their temps and they all seemed normal.

Thanks all for the replies! I *really* appreciate it!

EDIT:
Mind you, I touched the different parts immediatly after I opened the computers' case.
 
With all of those peripherals... You are going to need MINIMUM 480 Watts. I strongly recommend looking into an Antec TruePower / TrueBlue.
 
oh... you got a powmax. i had this exact same problem with a powmax of my own. theyre pieces of shit. get an antec or thermaltake. its probably ust the ps that burnt out, nothing else. do NOT buy that power supply! premium is a terrible manufacturer. get an antec. that premium will burn out faster than the powmax. you dont need more than 480 watts, any more doesnt mean the ps will last any longer!! get an antec
 
knuckle50 said:
that guy says that to everyone. it really is overkill, 75 bucks for a psu is too much. get a thermaltake 420 watt or 480 watt psu, about 40 and 60? respectively.

knuckle, do you have any idea what you're saying here? If you knew anything about comptuers and hardware - you would realize that POS power supplies for that low of a price typically spell trouble / disaster.

Leeor, the power lines in your home usually have sort of variations... slight ups and downs in voltage that is not discernable nor is it very significant (normally). However, that's not good for PC and the components inside.

Well designed PSUs like those made by Antec, Enermax are capable of absorbing small spikes or dips in the electric current. POS units usually are not capable of hanlding such fluctuations and will give out after a period of time.

Bottom line is that if you value the data on your PC and the health of your system, common sense is to shell out the money for a good brand name PSU and dont take an unnecessary risk.
 
dont get GENERIC psu trust me on that one buy an ANTEC and with all those extra fans and lgiths and stuff get a 550watt ANTEC power pack
 
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