A surge could definitely blow caps, but how big of a surge would depend on the power rating of the caps themselves. Since other people's shit was fine the cause being just a surge is unlikely. About how old is this PSU? It could be that you have capacitors that are faulty [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague], but this seems unlikely since you have a good power supply.SICK0_ZER0 said:Well it was a 750 watt, expensive PSU (80+ certified, 5 year warranty etc) which was far from overloaded (running only a few basic programs, powering only a single 6950 and an i5 2500k). I'd assumed it was simply crap build quality and the capacitor exploded for the hell of it, but is there a chance a power surge caused it? Would it not have to be a massive surge to destroy the PSU? My flatmates electric devices had no problems, and their electricity didn't cut off either.The Heavenator said:If the capacitors were electrolytic which it sounds like the they were what they exploded was their electrolyte, which is mildly acidic. Most of you stuff should be fine as the it is really acidic enough to only bother PCBs, so hopefully you got that gunk off you computer parts. As for why the capacitors exploded, a power surge could definitely do it. Alternatively you could have overloaded your PSU since the cheap ones will often not perform as advertised.