• Welcome to The Truck Stop! We see you haven't REGISTERED yet.

    Your truck knowledge is missing!
    • Registration is FREE , all we need is your birthday and email. (We don't share ANY data with ANYONE)
    • We have tons of knowledge here for your diesel truck!
    • Post your own topics and reply to existing threads to help others out!
    • NO ADS! The site is fully functional and ad free!
    CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

    Problems registering? Click here to contact us!

    Already registered, but need a PASSWORD RESET? CLICK HERE TO RESET YOUR PASSWORD!

Interesting computer problem

saratoga

saratoga

Unpaid Help
Messages
4,552
Reaction score
101
Location
Lithia, FL
Sitting in the living room watching Modern Marvels tonight and I smelled something burning strong when the AC kicked on... I'm running around like a madman trying to find it, the fire alarm hooked to my security system goes off, the damn alarm monitoring company calls ***after they already called the FD*** asking me what's going on. WTF I have no idea what's on fire... they tell me to get out of the house, which I'm not about to do... a deputy and a fire truck show up approximately .08 seconds later... dammit my mind doesn't function with this many things vying for my attention all at once... the lady with the alarm company is talking to me, the cop wants to know how many people are in the house... firemen were trying to come inside with crowbars and shit....

I finally found it in my office... smoke pouring out of the power supply in my PC. Crisis averted. Everyone may go home now.

Needless to say, I won't be leaving the computer turned on when I'm not in front of it anymore.
 
Let me guess... it's a Dell.

Take the PS apart and see what popped... bet it's a capacitor.
 
All of this scares me. I have a Dell. Maybe I should un-plug it. I have NO luck with computers, I'm sure mine will do this sooner or later.
Glad ya caught it before anything real bad happened.
 
A Dell??? Who do you guys think I am, Daddy Warbucks or something?:nono:
It was a soon to be resurrected HP. :sifone:

Anywho, give the Canadian a Molson... then again, Molson's too expensive, make that a Canadian. ):h

The scorched wires and PCB are a nice touch.
 

Attachments

  • DSC01227.jpg
    DSC01227.jpg
    55.6 KB · Views: 22
  • DSC01228.jpg
    DSC01228.jpg
    68.5 KB · Views: 22
Wow that scares me. I have several computers running all day. We don't shut down anything in our house...
 
Dell and HP had some issues about 2-3 yrs ago... there was a bad batch of cheap capacitors on the market, and that's where they ended up. Most of the Dell ones are on motherboards, but some in Power supplies - almost all the HP ones are in power supplies, and if you notice, HP power supplies don't have enough cooling at the best of times.

I've changed out I-don't-know-how-many HP power supplies in the past couple years... they definitely have a shelf life. Shutting off the PC doesn't help, either, 'cause if you notice, that capacitor is in the high side of the power circuit and they stay 'live' all the way to the motherboard... that's why they call it a 'switching' power supply. The old ones had a manual switch on them, but not anymore.

As for the Dell motherboard capacitors, they only cost about $5 each, and they aren't that hard to change out, but it takes time, and that's pricey. There's a real lesson here for building almost everything... what does the Fram guy say? Pay me now, or pay me later?

Use cheap parts, you get cheap machines. There's a reason why HPs are sold at Walmart and bestbuy for next to nothing...
 
Last edited:
Damn, the main computer in my home office has been ON 24/7 for the last 4 and 1/2 years along with a file-server, an 8-port router, plus an 8-port hub, two wireless access points, 2 printers and a FAX machine. My answering system is on this computer, so if I want the answering system to work, the computer has to be on. It's NOT a Dell or an HP though.

The laptop is usually shut off at night unless I'm working on a hot project when it may stay on 24/7 until project is done.

Hmmmm ! ! ! I'm going to have to investigate some type of automatic electrical shut-off if there is any smoke in the office.
 
My server has been on about that long, too. It is an HP, but it got a new powersupply in the first month I had it. The old one was so BARELY able to cope with the damands of the bare system, when I started adding stuff, it got warm real quick.

Most of the cheapie consumer systems have very little margin in them; add a few things and you're over-drawing the PS.

Fortunately, changing out the PS for a 500-watt ATX one is fairly cheap, gets you a whole bunch of extra plugs, and comes with a high-capacity fan. Good insurance.
 
Well my PC is now usually off. My Mac Runs all the time. I has a lot of ventilation. I have a power PC with 9 fans... Plus all my other stuff. I know what you mean about the power supply I have a nice 650 supply in the pc.. I am not sure whats in the mac....
 
I found a 630W ATX power supply for $48... definitely think I'll go that route instead of the 300W that was in there.
http://www.atxpowersupplies.com/630-watt-power-supply.php

The PC is a couple steps above the $199 wal-mart ones... I got it from the now defunct CompUSA because it's an XP Media Center deal with a TV tuner and a bunch of AV input/outputs. I usally have it turned on 24/7 and use it as a DVR and have a super g router and set-top box that allows me to stream video through my wireless network to the TV in the living room. It's got a 500G 7200RPM SATA HDD, 4G SDRAM, and a 3GHz dual core intel deal. Pretty sure it was on the brink of overloading that cheap 300W power supply as it was.
 
Nice, Grady. You can never have too much power!

Hey, my son has one of those HP MediaCentres! When he first got it, he bought an additional 500g Personal Media Drive and chained another 500g SATA in there... then we changed out the PS for a big one and put his little one into an old workstation I had.

Gave the workstation to my neighbor's kid.

Both are still going strong! I like those MediaCentres!
 
Important note to those who want to shut their PC right off...

ATX power supplies (most newer PCs) have no external 'On/Off' switch... they still have power to them, even when the PC is off. That means ... what happened to Grady's PC can happen with the PC turned Off, too.

If you really want to shut them off, shut them off at the Power Bar.

(you NEED a good Power Bar with Surge protection, anyway... and you already have one of those, right? :))
 
My brother had a good surge protector.......plugged into a non-grounded receptacle. Just make sure your surge protector is plugged into a grounded receptacle, otherwise the surge/lightning has no where to go. Well it does, you just don't want it going there.
 
LOL. My buddy fried his Motherboard with a powersurge... I told him the surge bar's warranty should cover MB replacement. Then I went over to have a look and pull it apart for him.

<snicker>

he had his 'puter pluged into this hi-tech surge bar, and had it plugged into

<I can't stand it... hee hee>

a 2-prong household extension cord, and had IT plugged into the wall.

He cut off the ground prong on his surge bar so it would fit... ROFLMFGAO......

About all I could manage to get out was "here's your sign"...
 
happy to hear there was no extension to the house. hope you can fix the problem and save everything on the computer.
 
JiFaire said:
LOL. My buddy fried his Motherboard with a powersurge... I told him the surge bar's warranty should cover MB replacement. Then I went over to have a look and pull it apart for him.

<snicker>

he had his 'puter pluged into this hi-tech surge bar, and had it plugged into

<I can't stand it... hee hee>

a 2-prong household extension cord, and had IT plugged into the wall.

He cut off the ground prong on his surge bar so it would fit... ROFLMFGAO......

About all I could manage to get out was "here's your sign"...
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's equatable to selling your car for gas money. Why spend the money on a surge protector, when you're not even going to give it the ONE thing it needs to work. I have a customer who wants me to no install lightning protectors on the fire alarm panel anymore. His business (a marina) is on a large lake. So obviously it gets hit all the time. The data loop is much more sensitive, so has a more sensitive protector. Most people would never even know they'd been hit, but these protectors are hardwired in and lock to ground, thereby causing a ground fault on the panel. In one breath he complains about paying $50K for a fire alarm system, and the next he wants to get rid of the protection???:confused:
 
I've seen my share of lightning related casualties in the form of expensive electronics. Got a whole-house surge protector installed at the meter that I lease from the electric co for a whopping $5 a month, the AC condenser has one installed at the outdoor disconnect, the air handler has one installed at the indoor service panel and anything electronic inside the house is plugged into a (properly grounded) surge protector strip.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top