Has my power supply blown??

timberflake

Ok, bit of a story here. I've been having problems with my external HDD in that my pc wouldn'trecognise it. I decided to remove it from its caddy and try connecting it to and ide/power cable in the pc case. When I opened the case up I noticed that there was a spare ide cable but no spare power cable so I removed one from one of my dvd writers. When I tried to boot the pc back up, nothing happened and then smoke started coming out of the back! It smelt like it was on fire.......Has my power supply blown and is is just a simple case of replacing it?

Also, whats going to be the best way to get the info off my external HDD?

tomsolomon

Be prepared for the worst....
If you've connected something the wrong way you could have done serious damage to any number of components in your system. Check over your connections, to see if you have placed something in the wrong place, rather hard to do seeing as most connectors only go one way, with the exception of the FDD connector.
If you still get nothing replace your PSU.
If after replacing your Power Supply Unit you still get nothing, then you may well have to put your hand in your pocket, I'm afraid.

timberflake

tomsolomon wrote: »

Be prepared for the worst....
If you've connected something the wrong way you could have done serious damage to any number of components in your system. Check over your connections, to see if you have placed something in the wrong place, rather hard to do seeing as most connectors only go one way, with the exception of the FDD connector.
If you still get nothing replace your PSU.
If after replacing your Power Supply Unit you still get nothing, then you may well have to put your hand in your pocket, I'm afraid.

Thanks for the reply. The only cable I touched was the power cable plugged into one of my dvd writers and I plugged that the correct way into my ide hdd. There was a spare ide cable so I used that too. The smoke was coming out of the psu itself so I'm inclined to think that its only the psu thats gone. What are the chances that the whole things kaput?

tomsolomon

Best case scenario, you have to replace the PSU.

totalsolutions

Oh dear what happened to you? Its highly unusal to have fire by simply plugging in a power lead, a pin inline molex plug more like you refitted the case side and cut and exposed a cable to chassis. There is a hell of a lot amps waiting to cause problems. I imagine the smoke was from the plastic coating of the cable, now burnt and charred. You can run with the case side panel off.
You need a new PSU, get a good one one that shuts down rather than continue to burn out, (proper, over current protection) a branded one over the £25 range.

mdbarber

Good advice so far, just to had u can get psu testers from most component suppliers under a tenner, might be time for that. as it could be pure co-incidence the psu blew just after you were in the case( wishing on a star there)
As tom stated best case scenario new psu and double check your connections, mentally prepare your self for a new pc tho

timberflake

Ok,lets say for arguments sake I need a new PC, how do I get all the docs,music,pics etc of the old PC?? Thanks for all the replies btw.

PROLIANT

Your PSU is goosed! Don’t waste money on PSU testers they are false economy, buy a new PSU but don’t spend any less than £30-£50 otherwise you will get $hi*te for your money, here is a fact for you, the cheap "Win Power" and "Q-Tec" etc type supplies use the minimum components to get them to operate, they use inferior technologies like fold-back current limiting with the minimal amount of components to get things operational, they are dangerous, they at best if you are lucky give you 1/10th of the stated output current and will destroy your expensive motherboards and other components, the best thing for you is to look on the web for data on good PSU manufacturers, make your choice from there.

tom9980

Well id use your hard drive caddy if it still works easiest way. Otherwise just doing what you were trying to do with the hard drive in the caddy is another way take out the hard disk in your old pc and connect it to the new pc obviously this could invalidate a warranty though so if your old hard drive caddy isnt working anymore buy another they are fairly cheap.

I really think your psu blowing up was a bit of a fluke its almost impossible to wrongly connect wires because the molex connectors are keyed to fit one way only. Most likely there was a fault in the PSU that only showed up when you connected that spare molex, but who knows hope you get it sorted out.

DatabaseError

when you get a new psu go for a higher output than the one you have