prabs
Herald
In the last few months I have had a lot of problems. My speakers went up in smoke, external exhaust fans (2) that I had used with a custom built chimney went up in smoke on separate occasions and a month or 2 back my entire PC - 2 HDDs, a graphic card, SMPS, Motherboard and DVD writer.
The culprit back then was said to be my APC 500 VA ups. The batteries had weakened and would give a jerk when the LED went from amber to green. If the PC was switched ON while it was amber it would turn Red and beep or would turn to green with a jerk. This only happened at the start and this was the time when it killed components as well. Stupidly I couldn't figure it out and if I did I didn't want to mention it and kept on using it. The computer technician told me not to use it at all and since I reside in Mumbai I don't need it anyways. I got rid of it.
Since I was not sure if spending on a whole new system would be wise until I could say the problem was totally resolved I decided to use what survived and scramble together some old parts to build a temporary PC. If this survived for the next 2-3 months without any issues I will buy a new rig. As I was tired of buying new speakers, fans etc.,
Old components used - Processor alongwith the fan, RAM sticks and the cabinet.
The technician gave me an old Asus motherboard, PSU, 80 GB Hdd (a far cry from my 2 TB + 500 GB Hdds) and DVD writer.
Prologue ends here.
The new PC made from Old components was running fine until 2 or 3 weeks back. I had kept the CPU on but speaker and monitor Off for downloading stuff in the night. I heard a loud bang like a huge pop corn had just popped and woke up, turned on the monitor and everything seemed okay. I went to sleep keeping the PC on.
Last week the problem cropped up again, I was using the PC and there were 2 loud pop noises, I wasn't sure if it was from the cabinet or the sub-woofer. Fearing I would loose this machine as well - the next day I got the entire house checked by a licensed electrician who checked everything from my socket to the electric meter and said everything was A-Okay and may be it was the PC itself.
A minutes back the same thing happened again. I took out the PSU which seems very flimsy, there is a slight smell coming from it, nothing from the motherboard atleast I can't see any burn marks or bulging capacitors. The smell doesn't last long and the PC keeps working normally. Despite 2 pop noises it was working perfectly today. I could have continued using it but I didn't want to risk it.
I have asked a friend to get a PSU he has in a system that is lying around to see if the problem re-occurs.
The PSU that the technician gave me is an el-cheapo i-Ball PSU which barely weighs 50 grams I think it is that light. I wonder if there is anything inside it?
What do you guys think is the problem?
The culprit back then was said to be my APC 500 VA ups. The batteries had weakened and would give a jerk when the LED went from amber to green. If the PC was switched ON while it was amber it would turn Red and beep or would turn to green with a jerk. This only happened at the start and this was the time when it killed components as well. Stupidly I couldn't figure it out and if I did I didn't want to mention it and kept on using it. The computer technician told me not to use it at all and since I reside in Mumbai I don't need it anyways. I got rid of it.
Since I was not sure if spending on a whole new system would be wise until I could say the problem was totally resolved I decided to use what survived and scramble together some old parts to build a temporary PC. If this survived for the next 2-3 months without any issues I will buy a new rig. As I was tired of buying new speakers, fans etc.,
Old components used - Processor alongwith the fan, RAM sticks and the cabinet.
The technician gave me an old Asus motherboard, PSU, 80 GB Hdd (a far cry from my 2 TB + 500 GB Hdds) and DVD writer.
Prologue ends here.
The new PC made from Old components was running fine until 2 or 3 weeks back. I had kept the CPU on but speaker and monitor Off for downloading stuff in the night. I heard a loud bang like a huge pop corn had just popped and woke up, turned on the monitor and everything seemed okay. I went to sleep keeping the PC on.
Last week the problem cropped up again, I was using the PC and there were 2 loud pop noises, I wasn't sure if it was from the cabinet or the sub-woofer. Fearing I would loose this machine as well - the next day I got the entire house checked by a licensed electrician who checked everything from my socket to the electric meter and said everything was A-Okay and may be it was the PC itself.
A minutes back the same thing happened again. I took out the PSU which seems very flimsy, there is a slight smell coming from it, nothing from the motherboard atleast I can't see any burn marks or bulging capacitors. The smell doesn't last long and the PC keeps working normally. Despite 2 pop noises it was working perfectly today. I could have continued using it but I didn't want to risk it.
I have asked a friend to get a PSU he has in a system that is lying around to see if the problem re-occurs.
The PSU that the technician gave me is an el-cheapo i-Ball PSU which barely weighs 50 grams I think it is that light. I wonder if there is anything inside it?
What do you guys think is the problem?
