Crack and then a burning smell

[shaithis]

Seeing as no smoke or sparks have been witnessed coming from the PSU and later tests show that the problem may be elsewhere, I wouldn't be so hasty condemning the PSU.

[this_is_gav]

Seeing as no smoke or sparks have been witnessed coming from the PSU and later tests show that the problem may be elsewhere, I wouldn't be so hasty condemning the PSU.

Yeah, agreed - if the sparks came from either the motherboard or graphics card, then I'm fairly confident they're the source of your problem and not the PSU. Both the motherboard and graphics card have systems in place to regulate the power from the PSU to a degree, so should filter out some of the noise or surges if that's what was happening. I'd be looking very, very closely for scorch marks from where the smoke came from and condemn whichever part has them. Capacitor leaking onto the one of the circuits?

[rox0r]

Sparks can quite often be from a short somewhere.

[scrandman]

It's very difficult to diagnose problems without actually being able to physically see the parts. There are a lot of folks quick to condemn the PSU when the evidence being presented is to the contrary.

While it is possible the PSU is at fault, you should have some degree of confidence that Seasonic are one of the better brands - their PSUs are less likely to take the entire system out in the event of a failure. Many folks are recommending you get a Corsair 520W PSU as a replacement - these are also made by Seasonic.

If you have a digital camera, try to get some good quality photos of the motherboard and graphics card from the area where the sparks were coming from and post them here.

Edit: When disassembling the system, make sure you don't have any metal standoffs wrongly positioned and causing a short.

[iranu]

Yeah, agreed - if the sparks came from either the motherboard or graphics card, then I'm fairly confident they're the source of your problem and not the PSU. Both the motherboard and graphics card have systems in place to regulate the power from the PSU to a degree, so should filter out some of the noise or surges if that's what was happening. I'd be looking very, very closely for scorch marks from where the smoke came from and condemn whichever part has them. Capacitor leaking onto the one of the circuits?

Where would the noise or power surge come from? Surely it would come from the PSU. He also says in his first post that the smell is not coming from the GPU or CPU but appears to be from the PSU.

I have had a couple of gfx cards and a mobo die on me and they simply stopped working, no fireworks. I've never heard from friends of this happening when their bits have died nor from mmy brother when his entire system was taken out. Shorting could cause the problem but seeing how his rig was working fine for a good while then I'd rule this out.

Once a power supply dies it ceases to do it's job i.e. regulate and supply correct voltage. Using a suspected broken PSU is asking for further trouble and I would suspect that turning the machine back on has caused a surge or increased voltage to the other components in the system and that's the reason for seeing sparks near the gfx card.

If there were problems with mobo or gfx card then there should be some evidence, burning, split capacitors/badly bulging capacitors.

If the rma to the manufacturer is successful then the PSU was borked.

[this_is_gav]

Where would the noise or power surge come from? Surely it would come from the PSU. He also says in his first post that the smell is not coming from the GPU or CPU but appears to be from the PSU.

Yes, it would come from the PSU, as I said, but what I also said was that the GPU and mobo have a degree of voltage regulation in them, and so should filter most of it out. Things such as hard drives don't however (as far as I'm aware anyway). Also bare in mind that due to the very nature of PSU's, they'll always smell. It's often hard to distinguish a heat smell from trying to detect a fault. Monitors and PSU's always give off strong smells.

I have had a couple of gfx cards and a mobo die on me and they simply stopped working, no fireworks. I've never heard from friends of this happening when their bits have died nor from mmy brother when his entire system was taken out. Shorting could cause the problem but seeing how his rig was working fine for a good while then I'd rule this out.

I remember a period, perhaps 4 or 5 years ago now, where I think it was MSI motherboards seemed to have a habit of randomly catching fire, for no obvious reason. It does happen. There's been cases of entire sections of circuit boards burning completely through.

[alexander]

Ok, I think I have found where the sparks came from when I stupidly tried the PSU again, I think it was a capactiorlabelled 1R5. The capactior's copper wire seems to be singed slightly and



Also on the back of the card something is burnt, in this picture:



Could anyone give me a rough guess as to what this means? I guess it's ******, am I right?

[Ciber]

Well I can confirm that your graphics card pictured there is dead. As to the PSU causing it or if it is the cause of the original sound etc, can't say for sure..

[alexander]

Ok, that defiantely isn't good.

If I was to try and test the graphics card when my corsair PSU has arrived, is there a chance that the ****** graphics card may break the PSU, or does it only happen the other way round. Is there anyway to check if my RAM, HD and CPU are ok? they all smell and look ok.

[GoNz0]

if the PSU spun up with the wire trick i would try it again with the blown card out the PC, if its ok it will fire up and run a few no VGA beeps, thats a good sign, if not you wiped the motherboard out with it

that 8 pin chip is the culprit.. might work with a new one and coil from the other pic..

[Ciber]

The PSU should be protected against another component shorting out, but not 100%. I once had the inverter ot a cold cathode die/short out and it made my PC shut down very quickly, but after I took all the cold cathodes out of my case and put them in the bin, eveything was unharmed, a relief as I was fairly sure my PSU would have died.

Anyway, the grahics card is definitely dead and likely unsafe, put it in the nearest bin. No point testing something in your PC that has definitely had it., it could damage your mobo or PSU, if it hasn't already.

[alexander]

So are you all saying that it was the Graphics card at fault in the first place??

I am frightened of using the PSU and blowing something else up like the CPU or RAM etc??

Please could someone advise on which way round you all think it is as I was under the impression that the graphics card blew because of the dodgy PSU?

[scrandman]

You could always open up the PSU and check for any signs of burning / scorching in there. If it's clean and shiny, it's most likely the graphics card was the culprit on it's own (and therefore worthy of an RMA). If the PSU shows signs of a burning then it's likely it is kapput also.

This method is not 100% guaranteed, but you did report a burning smell from the first incident and like they say - there's no smoke without fire. So if the PSU was originally at fault, then there should be some evidence of overheating / scorching.

Alternatively you could get the PSU checked out by a repair shop or if you have some old (disposable) hardware around, you can test it on that.

Either way, its good that you now have the opportunity to do some additional testing before forking out on a new PSU that might not actually be needed.

[SHare]

Don't open it for christ sake, not unless you are not going to RMA it. Opening it will void the warranty. Just RMA the thing, reading this looks like it fried, then fried everything you had attached to it on your attempt to run it second time.

I'd also bet that if the GPU was going you'd have seen artifacts, or it would have hard locked before turning off.

[GoNz0]

if you already tried to power on after the card blew you have either done damage to the board and possibly the CPU as well, either when it blew or when you hit on again. but if it did not power on at that time and you have since removed the card and the PSU has spun up on test then you have nothing to lose, if it lights up without a viddy card and throws some fault beeps then get a new card, if not consider an insurance claim?


chance is the motherboards already shot, but it could have been the card stopping the power up.

test it, you may be lucky and it starts to POST.

[this_is_gav]

I'm fairly sure it's just the graphics card which is dead - 95% sure. You could have struck unlucky if some of these apparent falling sparks and things touched the motherboard (or card under the graphics card, such as a sound card) and shorted it's circuits, but otherwise the more I think about it the more I'm sure it was a simple failure of a component on the graphics card only.

I certainly wouldn't have any hesitations using the PSU again. Hell if you want to send it up I'll test it for you.