Ugh. PC assembly was going great, then explosion (fuse?) At PSU ruins everything.

[watercooled]

If it's any consolation, it's unlikely a catastrophic AC side failure is any fault of yours. Aside from plugging the cable in you don't really have an involvement with it, and even if you somehow shorted out something on the DC side (which doesn't seem likely as the PC was working for a while), that shouldn't cause bangs in a decent power supply.

Does the PSU seem cheaply made or feel unusually light?

[dudefellow]

If it's any consolation, it's unlikely a catastrophic AC side failure is any fault of yours. Aside from plugging the cable in you don't really have an involvement with it, and even if you somehow shorted out something on the DC side (which doesn't seem likely as the PC was working for a while), that shouldn't cause bangs in a decent power supply.

Does the PSU seem cheaply made or feel unusually light?

I didn't think so.

I bought a Corsair 600M today, and seem to have successfully completed the build and installed Windows 7. Unfortunately the speedtest result is poor compared to my phone, despite having installed all relevant drivers - I am concerned that the Mobo was damaged in some capacity. I will try using a different means of connecting to the internet and gauge the performance.

[watercooled]

Are you connecting with WiFi?

[dudefellow]

Are you connecting with WiFi?

Yeah sadly I'm distant from a router in this house so I'm without many options.

[watercooled]

It could just be down to different WiFI throughput rather than some damage caused by the PSU failure then.

[peterb]

Glad to hear you have made some progress!

It is possible that the mono was damaged, but I think it unlikely. It depends on the failure mode of the original power supply, but that seemed to be on input circuitry (from your description) so the chances of a power surge on the output side is less. The fact that you could get it up and running and complete an operating system installation is also a good sign.

I'd agree with water cooled that there may be other factors affecting wi-fi performance. First thing really is to move the machine so you can get a wired connection to the router and test ithat connection.

Even if you can't improve the wi-fi performance, for whatever reason, if the wired interface is operating, you could use a power line connection back to the router.

But I suspect that just moving the computer and/or the antenna, may result in a performance improvement.

[dudefellow]

Glad to hear you have made some progress!

It is possible that the mono was damaged, but I think it unlikely. It depends on the failure mode of the original power supply, but that seemed to be on input circuitry (from your description) so the chances of a power surge on the output side is less. The fact that you could get it up and running and complete an operating system installation is also a good sign.

I'd agree with water cooled that there may be other factors affecting wi-fi performance. First thing really is to move the machine so you can get a wired connection to the router and test ithat connection.

Even if you can't improve the wi-fi performance, for whatever reason, if the wired interface is operating, you could use a power line connection back to the router.

But I suspect that just moving the computer and/or the antenna, may result in a performance improvement.

Hopefully. I'll do a wired connection test at the router tomorrow. I may purchase a separate wifi adapter from a store.

Anyway, thanks a bunch for your input and support everyone. I'm playing Half Life 2 at 100% specs at 1080p for the first time ever, all while Crysis is downloading (very slowly!) in the background, never played a game at above minimum settings before. All the effort and worry was well worth it.

[MrRockliffe]

Are you using a printer or anything wireless close to the machine? Keyboard and mouse wireless?

[OilSheikh]

Did you see magic smoke when your PSU blew up ?
I did some fan modding to silence a cheap PSU once and the extension lead's fuse blew up.

[DanceswithUnix]

Hopefully. I'll do a wired connection test at the router tomorrow. I may purchase a separate wifi adapter from a store.

Anyway, thanks a bunch for your input and support everyone. I'm playing Half Life 2 at 100% specs at 1080p for the first time ever, all while Crysis is downloading (very slowly!) in the background, never played a game at above minimum settings before. All the effort and worry was well worth it.

I would suggest something like: http://www.ebuyer.com/517100-tp-link...ck-tl-pa451kit

That one only has 100Mbit/sec ethernet ports on it so can't go full speed, but then across my house (via the consumer unit with all the circuit breakers on it as machines are on different mains rings) I only get about 80Mbit/sec. Still, that is faster than my broadband speed and reliability if far better than I have ever had out of WiFi. If the distance is lower, you can get gigabit port models for a bit more.