PSU just blew up on me, is the rest of the rig going to be ok?

[kinkladze10]

Just experienced an almighty bang on the wife's pc and a horrible burning smell which shut off all the electrics in the house.

After switching on the power and it was the wife's pc which didn't start back up.

Looks like the Power supply has blown, which surprised me as it was a Tagan and a good make.

I had this custom made from scan and it's in the second year, I don't have an extended warranty so just wanted to know what my options were?

More importantly will the hard drive and rest of the kit be ok as that a lot of photo's that we hadn't got round to backing up yet ?

Literally it blew and everything was dead in under a second or is that enough time for the damage to have been done?

[Kingofpain]

i have had that happen to me before, sometimes it takes parts and sometimes it doesnt not sure on that part but if ur worried about ur photos u can always try ur harddrive in the pc ur using now just set the jumper to slave or cable select.

[0iD]

It's not unknown for it to fry the more sensitive parts such as ram & cpu. All you can do is plug in a new one & cross your fingers.

[Sema4]

I had an Akasa PSU that went with a bang and a smell just as you describe, when I got the replacement from Akasa, I was relieved to find the computer had survived with no damage at all, but that said, I have also seen a PSU kill everything that was connected to it when it went.

Tagan is a good quality PSU and as such, I would like to think the odd's are in your favour.

If your HD has seen 240v on the 12v/5v input, then it's likely a visual inspection will show IC's blown off the board on the underside, I have seen this before... Give the PCB on the underside of the drive a good visual inspection and see if there is any sign of physical damage and if it looks ok, try it in another computer.

If it's an IDE drive and your adding it as a Master on an unused IDE bus, put it at the end of the IDE cable and make sure the jumper on the drive is set to master.

If it's an IDE drive and your connecting it to an IDE cable that already has a master drive located at the end of it, then set the jumper to slave and connect it to the middle of the cable.

If it's a SATA drive, there are no jumpers to change, just plug it in to a spare SATA connector.

If there is physical damage to the PCB on the hard drive, then it's probable that 240v has passed down the 12v or 5v leads from the PSU, and if thats the case, it's highly likely that anything that was connected to it, will have suffered the same fate...

Once again though, Tagan is a quality product, the odd's are in your favour....

[zpos]

Didn't the Tagan's have a 3yr warranty as standard?

Would be worth having a shifty on the Tagan website http://www.tagan.com/index.php?c_id=40

I know once bitten twice shy, but if you manage to get a replacement, it may lessen the pain a bit.

z

[Agent]

With a big brand PSU, its unlikely to happen. They usually have some form of regulation features that the cheaper units skimp on.

Was the PC already on when it happened? If so do you have a surge protector attached to it? (quite a few broken PSU's can be traced back to the power that was being fed to them).

I had this custom made

What was cutsom made? The PC or the PSU? (Might sound silly, but just checking )

The fact that the PSU caused the trip switch to go is a good thing

[kinkladze10]

Yeah thanks for this, I'll have a look, got to be up early tomorrow for work so it will have to wait till then.

The wife works close to Scan so ill get her to drop in tomorrow after ive called them to RMA it in
will let you know tmw

[kinkladze10]

The plug went directrly into the wall, however after this episode surge protector will be bought, I have one on mine so really should get this on hers too doh

[iranu]

£20 worth of surge protector is a worthwhile investment. The higher the quality of a PSU then the less the chance of it killing anything else. Before you put a new PSU in check the motherboard and graphics cards for any signs of damage. Good luck I hope it's just a simple swap out and that you have you data and bits intact.

Every time i read one of these incidents I say in my head, "mmmn that reminds me I must do some backing up"

[Biscuit]

£20 worth of surge protector is a worthwhile investment. The higher the quality of a PSU then the less the chance of it killing anything else. Before you put a new PSU in check the motherboard and graphics cards for any signs of damage. Good luck I hope it's just a simple swap out and that you have you data and bits intact.

Every time i read one of these incidents I say in my head, "mmmn that reminds me I must do some backing up"

DO IT NOW! seriously mate pics and importaint documents... get them on disk. I accidently formatted the wrong hard drive and although i got all the stuff i really needed back, i lost all the filenames and directories so have thousands upon thousands of pictures to rename and put into folders. Nightmare...

[badger]

thousands upon thousands of pictures to rename and put into folders. Nightmare...

Oh man, I hate it when my porn collection gets messed up too.

[Toobad]

So the power supply released some of that magic Tagan smoke. I suspect Scan's obligation to handle warranty claims expired after one year. You may find yourself being referred to Tagan directly to get the smoke put back in.
Still, it could be worse, it could have been YOUR computer.

[kinkladze10]

What liabilty level do Tagan have? say for example it has fried the rest of the PC will Tagan cover that?

I doubt it

[Biscuit]

What liabilty level do Tagan have? say for example it has fried the rest of the PC will Tagan cover that?

I doubt it

I would read the disclamers to make sure bt this is extremely unlikely

[Blitzen]

£20 worth of surge protector is a worthwhile investment. The higher the quality of a PSU then the less the chance of it killing anything else. Before you put a new PSU in check the motherboard and graphics cards for any signs of damage. Good luck I hope it's just a simple swap out and that you have you data and bits intact.

Every time i read one of these incidents I say in my head, "mmmn that reminds me I must do some backing up"

A surge protector wont help if a PSU goes pop. (If you mean the plug socket variety).
The only protection you have is from the PSU as good make ones have there own surge protection built in.

[iranu]

A surge protector wont help if a PSU goes pop. (If you mean the plug socket variety).
The only protection you have is from the PSU as good make ones have there own surge protection built in.

Yes I realise that if the PSU goes pop anything between the PSU and wall socket won't help, however, a surge protector is a good idea simply because it will protect the PSU from an increase in voltage that could cause it to go pop. It's a very small investment compared to the cost of a decent rig.

Many houses have poor wiring so I simply don't trust the supply 100%.

I have a UPS for my two machines which is probably overkill but I got it free so I might as well use it.