Can a PSU blowing do other damage?

[pompeyfan]

Just got this message.

shaun my pc has just exploaded. do you think you could post a message in the computing forum asking if a power supply blowning usually causes any other damage. I've only got net access on my phone now. if you do it for of i can check the thread on my phone.

Cheers

[Planescape]

Its possible it might power surge and cause problems on the motherboard. Thats just an idea, not guaranteed. Take your psu, stick it in his machine and see if it starts up.

[pompeyfan]

Its possible it might power surge and cause problems on the motherboard. Thats just an idea, not guaranteed. Take your psu, stick it in his machine and see if it starts up.

The only problem with that idea is he's an MSN contact from up North somewhere;)

[gamblor]

When my last PC finally gave up, the PSU was the culprit and caused (at least) one capacitor on my Mobo to blow providing me with a pretty light and smoke show for about five seconds. :(

Scared the Bejeesus out of me when it happened. The blowout on the Mobo was clearly visible near to the power connector.

Lessons learnt:

1- Buy a decent PSU, non of this unbranded with a case shenanigans....
2- LOTS of case cooling if youre PC is on 24/7 and/or overclocked.
3- I'm an idiot.

:brickwall

[werewolf]

It depends on the PSU

When my Antect 380watt PSU went *pop* earlier in the year I was very worried that it might have caused serious damage to some of my other parts, fortunately it hadn't.

However, I have heard of cases where a PSU dying has also taken out practically everything connected to it :eek: that is normally with cheaper models though as the more expensive/brand name ones tend to have pretty good protection on the outputs.

[Taq]

The PSU in one of my machines died and took out the entire computer - even the mouse and keyboard!

RIP my celeron 300A o/c'd to 450 :(

Taq

[Fozzybear]

I had a PSU die a few years ago and it took out the motherboard (and probably stressed the other components at the same time). That was a fairly low-grade PSU and now I only use decent quality PSUs - they don't cost that much and now I definitely feel that cheap ones are a false economy.

[DjSatansfury]

I've had one blow before, and it took out the hard drive connected to it (utterly fried it)

[Nixdorfer]

Fixed a couple of PC's with blown PSU's, one took everything with it except the CD drive

Just luck when they go if they surge or not.

[neilalford]

Yep, I've had a PSU take out the entire system before, including the mouse and keyboard! Pretty impressive, a flash, a big bang, lots of smoke and the CD drive ejected through the clouds of smoke!

[RobDickinson]

Anything that isnt powered is safe. So the mousemat should be fine.

[DJBenson]

Thanks to pompeyfan for posting this for me. It was deffo an unusual case. The PC was powered down when it went bang (i.e. windows shut down but still plugged in). I managed to get a couple of people to post on message boards and IRC about this and nobody has heard of them blowing when plugged in :?:

Anyway, managed to get to Scan and picked up a reasonably priced supply and all is ok (touch wood).

Guess I'm one of the lucky ones seeing as the supply that blew was a cheepie that came with the case (£18 all in). :D

[bumfrog]

a decent psu ain't going to ensure it ain't going to go pop. The only real chance you have of making sure a psu doesn't go pop is sticking in a ups to smooth out and even the power going into your pc. Even then it's not 100% that the psu won't go bang.

[Wiseman82]

Seen quite a few PSU's pop. Don't think I've encountered a situation where the PSU's fried any other components. :)