pistonbroke Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 I was sitting at home on Saturday afternoon watching TV when I started to smell a burning smell. My initial thoughts was that my 18 month old son had been playing with the cooker. However, on walking into the kitchen, there was no smell. I went back into the living room and quickly traced the smell to my (expensive) desktop PC. The PC was turned off, but there was a funny fan noise coming from the PSU at the back, like the fan was spinning half speed. On touching the case, it was red hot, I reached over the back to remove the main kettle lead and burnt my arm on the case, it was that hot!. As I pulled the lead out, a huge spark followed by a flicker of fire shot out the vents at the back. I yanked all the wires out and managed to get the side of the case off. The PSU has all charred insides from fire damage. I count myself lucky that I was in when it happened. My biggest concern now is, what are the chances that the rest of the components in my PC have survived.? I've just installed an Nvidia 295GTX GPU less than a month ago !. I also have over 2 terabytes of saved data that I've accumulated over several years. There is no visible damage to anything else, it was like opening and oven though when I took the side off. I've ordered a new PSU which hopefully arrives today or tommorow. Fingers crossed the rest of my PC has survived. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 Your probably ok. Out of interest, what model PSU did you have, and importantly what did you order? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted June 15, 2009 Author Share Posted June 15, 2009 It was a 750w jeantech, 18 months old from PC world. I've now ordered some mega bad boy one that is more than capable of dealing with dual GPU's. The name however escapes me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 Jeantech.....NFTW! Utter tripe, I have dealings with lots of dead Jeantechs in the past. How they get away with it I do not know! Just remember, its not just about wattage when choosing a PSU. Such an underated part on computers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted June 15, 2009 Author Share Posted June 15, 2009 I bought the jeantech when my last PSU failed. I didn't have access to another PC so I had no other choice than to go to PC world. I bought the most expensive one they had which happened to be this firestarter model. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porky1978 Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 I bought the jeantech when my last PSU failed. I didn't have access to another PC so I had no other choice than to go to PC world. I bought the most expensive one they had which happened to be this firestarter model. In my experience, PC world are quite expensive and will always try to sell you the more expensive items, beleiving people go there who dont know much about computers. (a friend of mine is a manager at a stoke on trent branch) Try http://www.overclockers.co.uk for some good deals at decent prices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted June 15, 2009 Author Share Posted June 15, 2009 Yeah, overclockers, scan etc etc is where I buy all my PC parts. but without a PSU, I had no internet, so PC world was the only option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseys Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 I kindly remind you, if you have 2Tb of data you've collected over the years that you really would like to keep... do some backups. Get a NAS box or start storing your data on an external array. Fire + data = not good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andygood Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 Same thing happened to me before, but as with yourself, thankfully I was in the house at the time! All the PC components were fine though, so you should be ok with a new PSU. I'd echo DamanC's comments about them being an underrated part. Also, it's worth remembering that even though your PC is powered down, the PSU is still active and sucking the odd watt or two. If you get one with a power switch on, remember to switch it off when not in use... Jeantech are utter cr@pola though. You probably fell victim to the old Bad Caps issue... If you see a cap starting to 'bulge' on the top, you have a problem. One of the caps in my PSU popped and sprayed electrolyte everywhere, resulting in smoke & sparkies... I've used Corsair in my last few builds and haven't had any issues with them. Nice and quiet too... A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted June 15, 2009 Author Share Posted June 15, 2009 I kindly remind you, if you have 2Tb of data you've collected over the years that you really would like to keep... do some backups. Get a NAS box or start storing your data on an external array. Fire + data = not good. I know, I keep telling myself to sort out some external storage device. If it has survived the inferno, I'll sort out an extenal device ASAP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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