I'd put my money on the PSU, and if I were feeling lucky I'd go for the
longshot of it probably being one of the caps.  Maybe they used one of the
"cool" failure mode mica caps.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard Winter" <HDRW@H2ORG.DEMON.CO.UK>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 11:33 AM
Subject: [OT:] "The computer went Bang!"


> My girlfriend lives in New York (I'm in England) and last November while
visiting I built her a computer (Midi
> tower case, AMD Athlon 2600+, etc).
>
> Last night she rang me and in a shakey voice said: "The computer went
Bang!  There was a loud bang and a smell
> of smoke, and now it's dead!"
>
> Apparently a nearby table lamp, fitted with a low-energy flourescent
"bulb", went off at the same time, but
> came back when switched off/on - I presume the electronics in this freaked
when a strange thing happened to
> its supply.
>
> Now I've built many machines before, but I've never had one go bang - at
least not when they're 6 months
> old...
>
> I got her to look around inside, but there's apparently no sign of
burning, discolouring, melting or any of
> the usual visual accompaniments of a good "Bang"!
>
> I suspect that the power supply (made by Zalman, the people who do the
"flower" and other strange CPU coolers)
> has given up its magic smoke, but I am 4,000 miles away and can't do any
debugging.
>
> How likely do prople think it is that the PSU itself has failed, as
against something else shorting?  Bearing
> in mind this machine is standing on the floor, so it's unlikely that
something *moved* and shorted.
>
> Does anyone know of any friendly, reliable, honest (!) computer repair
shops in Queens, NY, who could have a
> look at this?  Otherwise she'll be computerless until my next visit in
October...
>
> Cheers,
>
> Howard Winter
> St.Albans, England
>
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