My PC exploded!!! Blue smoke, fire, anarchy & mayem.

  • Thread starter Thread starter [H]omer
  • Start date Start date
H

[H]omer

OK, it wasn't *that* bad, but ...

I was obviously asleep in class on the day they covered this in Physics
101, so maybe someone can enlighten me.

The configuration is as follows:

UK 220V mains socket ->
5amp plug on a kettle lead ->
APC SmartUPS 1500UI ->
Standard female2male kettle lead ->
Antec 550W PSU.

Suddenly a loud *BANG* followed by a burning smell, and an odd smell
coming from the direction of my pants :)

Upon examination, *both* the plug that connects the UPS to the mains
*and* the PSU, have fused. How can that happen? Especially on a system
protected by an UPS?

I would have thought that if there was a sudden power surge from the
mains, the wall plug would fuse, and that would be all.

Or if the surge was caused by - e.g. - a short on the inside of the case,
the PSU would fuse, and that would be all.

But *both* at the same time???

Weird ???

Was anyone here awake in class on that day?

-
[H]omer
 
[H]omer said:
OK, it wasn't *that* bad, but ...

I was obviously asleep in class on the day they covered this in Physics
101, so maybe someone can enlighten me.

The configuration is as follows:

UK 220V mains socket ->
5amp plug on a kettle lead ->
APC SmartUPS 1500UI ->
Standard female2male kettle lead ->
Antec 550W PSU.

Suddenly a loud *BANG* followed by a burning smell, and an odd smell
coming from the direction of my pants :)

Upon examination, *both* the plug that connects the UPS to the mains
*and* the PSU, have fused. How can that happen? Especially on a system
protected by an UPS?

I would have thought that if there was a sudden power surge from the
mains, the wall plug would fuse, and that would be all.

Or if the surge was caused by - e.g. - a short on the inside of the case,
the PSU would fuse, and that would be all.

But *both* at the same time???

Weird ???

Was anyone here awake in class on that day?

-
Click to expand...
One of my friends had the same problem, without UPS however. There was also
a "big bang", with burning smell. I examined the power supply and noticed
that one of the capacitors had litteraly exploded ! The result was of course
a dead PSU, but also a dead motherboard, VGA card, memory chips, network and
sound card. The disks and floppy were still ok. Surprisingly, the CPU had no
damage...
 
One of my friends had the same problem, without UPS however. There was also
a "big bang", with burning smell. I examined the power supply and noticed
that one of the capacitors had litteraly exploded ! The result was of course
a dead PSU, but also a dead motherboard, VGA card, memory chips, network and
sound card. The disks and floppy were still ok. Surprisingly, the CPU had no
damage...
Click to expand...

A neighbors kid had a similar problem . Capacitor seemed to have
leaked. There was brown stuff in the PSU from the cap. That seemed to
have shorted out the PSU and he said there was a loud bang and a
burning smell. This was years ago. Thats when a lot of people were
using who knows what kind of PSes.



http://www.stalphonsos.com/~chad/exploding_caps.html

http://www.abit-usa.com/news/2004/20040303a.php
 
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