Exploding PSU's

[Ghost]

How many of you have had power supplies or other PC components go out in a dramatic blaze of glory? A couple of days ago my 4 month old CoolerMaster GX 750w exploded several times, filling the room with smoke and knocking the electricity offline, as well as splattering corrosive acid over my desk and possibly over other expensive components (all those awards overpriced PSU's have really do count for shit, I guess).

I'm sure a lot of you have been as incredibly unlucky as me, any stories to tell?

 

[Canadamus Prime]

No can't say I have. I've heard horror stories about computers belching smoke, bursting into flames, etc etc. but have never had that happen to me. Most I've ever done is nearly fried a stick of RAM because it wasn't properly seeded. Fortunately I was able to kill the power in time to salvage the stick, it did get hot enough to partially melt the label on it though.

 

[Fiad]

Mine went out a few weeks back and made the entire house smell like burnt plastic, but no glorious explosions or fire luckily. Luckily also I had a spare power supply laying around.

 

[Ickorus]

Oh yes, and there is, in fact, a story behind it:

One fine day there was a release for a brand new MMO that I had been looking forward to for years by the name of 'Aion' on that day whilst waiting for the servers to come online I was on a popular fansite for the game. One of my fellow forumites posted a video of a man climbing on top of a train and then for some odd reason grabbing the power cables above the train and electrocuting himself.

I, being the funny man that I am, decided to screenshot the moment the gentleman fell over and edit it a little bit for comic effect, about 15 minutes later the servers for the game opened and my power supply exploded.

Im assuming Karma was firing a warning shot that day.

Spoiler: The offending image

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

Nope only thing even remotely related is a small fan with an exposed wire that made sparks and a smokey smell. Threw it out of course.

 

[redisforever]

I had a hot glue gun power cord explode once. That's about it really. Oh, and my motherboard melted once. That sucked. Pulled the hard drive, got a new PC, shoved it in along with the included one, and off I went.

 

[MorphingDragon]

How many of you have had power supplies or other PC components go out in a dramatic blaze of glory? A couple of days ago my 4 month old CoolerMaster GX 750w exploded several times, filling the room with smoke and knocking the electricity offline, as well as splattering corrosive acid over my desk and possibly over other expensive components (all those awards overpriced PSU's have really do count for shit, I guess).

I'm sure a lot of you have been as incredibly unlucky as me, any stories to tell?

I don't think you're unlucky. I think the power in your house/local grid is dodgy.

 

[Ghost]

I don't think you're unlucky. I think the power in your house/local grid is dodgy.

I'd considered that, but i'm nearly certain a capacitor blew and leaked stuff onto the rest of the PSU. Or is there a chance that a surge of power can blow a capacitor? From what I know they only really explode due to crap build quality or being real old, but i'm no electrician. It was probably just a bad PSU, it wasn't even under any stress (I only had a web browser, media player and instant messaging client running).

 

[mikey7339]

I had my giant aftermarket CPU fan hooked up to a rail not giving it enough voltage. The PSU went dead one day. I replaced it and hooked up the fan to a proper voltage rail...and it was hooked to a rheostat on full tilt.

When I hit the power button the big ass CPU fan went full blast and about a year or so worth of dust just belches out. I realized immediately what I did and laughed my ass off covered in dust.

 

[Firstmark_Bannor]

I've never had my PC explode or even really die, But I did once drive a bayonet through a printer. A couple of years back through a series of lucky breaks i ended up with this pretty high quality giant printer. For a while (about 6 months) it works fine but slow. But then it just kinda craps out, maybe one in eight times would hitting the print command actually result in something getting printed. Needless to say, Moving this 500lb printer was a pain, worse still considering the ink cartridges ranged from $70 to $125, having it worked on was outta the question. So one day the printer annoys me for the last time, out comes the bayonet and I stuck right in the top of the printer. The bayonet stuck in that printer for about a two weeks until I could drag it out to my backyard and beat it savagely. I sold the remaining ink cartridges I had and bought a new better printer that only weighed 5lbs.

 

[BlackWidower]

I never thought Power Supply Units had any real impact on performance. I'm still pretty much an idiot on a lot of this stuff, and one question I've never had an answer to is: What do I get out of spending hundreds on a power supply instead of going with the cheapest one I can get my hands on?

I think this guy just answered that question. Am I wrong?

So do you know how it exploded anyway?

 

[Loonyyy]

I've got two: There was a story I heard about a joke involving setting the dodgy PSU from 50Hz to 60Hz, changing the AC frequency (Different Countries have different frequencies). The guy who switched it told his mate to work out what was wrong with it and get it to boot as a sort of prank. Without even a thought, instead of looking at it, the guy switched it on. BANG-dead computer.
Another one I had just died spontaneously, belching black smoke and dust out the back. No explosion or anything, just instant death.

Also, @SICK0_ZER0 , most of the big manufacturers guarentee their products, and you can probably get them to reimburse you, and if the other parts are damaged, you can probably get them to pay for that. But on a similar note: PSU's are a lump of inductive coils, wires, and capacitors, so I'm not sure if there is much corrosive substance inside, so barring and shorts, your other stuff should be fine. I haven't actually pulled one apart, so there could be something I'm missing. You should email the retailer and the manufacturer anyway, I hope they do right by you.

 

[DivineBeastLink]

What do I get out of spending hundreds on a power supply instead of going with the cheapest one I can get my hands on?

http://www.technibble.com/why-you-should-avoid-cheap-power-supplies/

You tend to avoid the very situation the OP mentioned. It'll still happen because you can't make an invincible, everlasting power supply, but cheap PSUs won't be anywhere near as reliable as the tried-and-true brands.

Also the good brands tend to have ridiculously good warranties.

 

[Karthesios]

Had a PSU in a system I had a few years back go up in a symphony of buzzing, sparking and ending with smoke pouring out the back of my system. Thankfully it didn't damage anything else and I was able to replace the unit. Should've acted sooner anyway since my dad said he smelled ozone when he was in the room with the computer in the days leading up to the blowout.

 

[Ghost]

I never thought Power Supply Units had any real impact on performance. I'm still pretty much an idiot on a lot of this stuff, and one question I've never had an answer to is: What do I get out of spending hundreds on a power supply instead of going with the cheapest one I can get my hands on?

I think this guy just answered that question. Am I wrong?

So do you know how it exploded anyway?

This was an expensive one, Coolermaster are one of the best brands and I spent a lot on this PSU (there were ones 4 times less). I guess cheap ones are more likely to blow up and if they do, they take everything else with them. Mine seems to have at least shut itself off before killing any other component. Personally i'll be buying Antec or Corsair PSU's in the future.

 

[GoAwayVifs]

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.

 

[Gamblerjoe]

I chose my PSU very carefully before building my system. At $80 it was nowhere near overpriced, though it only has a bronze rating. Id say im using about 40% of my 750W, which isnt the 50% you should shoot for, but its in the 40-60 range. I sincerely feel bad for anyone who has had a PSU go kaput and take other parts with it. It sucks to trust in your research and a company only to have it quite literally blow up in your face. I assume the fail-safes will prevent catastrophic failure, but then again, these things are a fact of life.

 

[Zanaxal]

How do you even get that to happen, must have some powersurge or overheating/overcapacity haha.

 

[Ghost]

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.

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.

 

[gabe12301]

But what happened? was there a horrible storm? did lightning hit your transformer? was there a creeper under your desk?