Computer went POP, stopped working.

Emporius

Emporius

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I was in the middle of playing Crysis when my desktop made a loud POP, and immediatly shut down. From looking around on the internet, it has been suggested that something is wrong with the power supply, except that my power supply is still lit up, and the fan still spinning. But when I press the button to start up the computer, nothing happens.

Has my power suppky blown a fuse? Is my motherboard fried?

Anyone have any clue what happened?

Power Supply: 550 Watt Velocity Micro® Power Supply
Motherboard: Intel® P55 chipset based mATX Motherboard with DDR3, PCI Express
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 processor i7-860, quad 2.8GHz cores, 8MB Cache
CPU Cooling: Arctic Cooling® Freezer 7 Pro Rev2 Heatsink, Ultra Quiet Fan, Copper Heat Pipes
Graphics Card: 1GB Radeon HD 4890 GDDR5, PCI-Express
 
Have you taken a close look at your components?
 
From what I can see through the window, nothing is melted/smoking/on fire.
 
Mmk, have you ever opened a computer? lol

If I were you I would disassemble your components and take a close look at them, to see if you can spot the part that blew out. If you can't, then it was probably the PSU.
 
Open up your case and use your nose, smell around for burnt toast.

Pay particular attention to the capacitors on the motherboard. Any of the tops popped upwards?
 
Thats your PSU fuse.
trye another PSU if you have a spare
 
The same thing happened to y Uncles PC a few weeks ago both the PSU and Mobo were fried maybe you got lucky and yeah when it happened to him the light turned on a for a split second.
 
my light and fan remain on for several minutes.
 
Did you spill rice crispies into your computer without knowing? Was there a "snap" and a "crackle" before the pop?

Also, your power supply is a piece of crap, so it probably fried something. Switch it out with a new and decent one and hope everything comes back on. Otherwise you'll need to find out what your psu killed and replace it, probably your motherboard.
 
I guess it could be a fuse. I don't even know if I've owned a PSU with a fuse, personally. I guess if you break the warranty seal?

So it could be a fuse, but popping sounds are generally exploded components - like on the motherboard. And under very careful inspection, you should be able to see damage. Best thing to do is follow your nose. If the PSU smells burnt, then it's the PSU...

But when I press the button to start up the computer, nothing happens.
Click to expand...
If your computer turns on and doesn't post, you can suspect the motherboard, RAM, or PSU, but I doubt your RAM would blow up; I haven't heard of that happening.

Would the light and fan still function if it was a fuse problem?
Click to expand...
Like I said, I'm not familiar with PSU fuses, but if the fuse had blown, it wouldn't come on at all.
 
Well let's see what could be a pop.

As has been said, power supply fuses could pop.

An overcharged Capacitor could pop, do you overclock?

If a fan on your power supply died, an overheated processor can explode basically, but that would be pretty noticeable.

Hard drive massive failure could make a pop sound, but you'd see POST.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's something on your motherboard. If you power supply is still working then I doubt it's a fuse. I'm not sure though... I'm not a PSU electrician.
 
Pops are commonly (not always) diodes, surface mount capacitors, or MOSFETs that fail catastrophically. Electrolytic capacitors generally don't pop when they fail, as they have stress relief features built into the end of the unit. Most of these items are going to be surface mounted to your motherboard, and may be tiny. If the failure was loud enough to make a pop, you may be lucky enough to see a small, burnt area (by small, I mean like the size of the flame on the torch on the back of a US dime). I have seen larger ICs fail with a pop, where the only visible damage is a pinhole (which may need a magnifying glass or microscope to find). There's usually a lot of smoke associated with this type of failure though.

Sniff around the computer - there should be an intense smell where the failure took place that can point you in a general direction.

Remove your sound card first, and see if it POSTs. Not likely to be the problem, but it's an easy one to eliminate.

Next, remove your video card and see if it POSTs. It shouldn't, but if the problem was on the video card, the computer should respond with the corresponding beep codes. This is also likely to not be the problem, because the nature of the failure that would cause a video card to die but not be recognizeable in a POST is unusual.

This leaves your motherboard, including the CPU. I would try a different power supply first, as yours may have separate rails driving different parts of the motherboard, for example, and there are certainly parts of a power supply that can fail with a pop. It's also easier/cheaper than changing out the motherboard.
 
Are you sure the pop came from your computer? If you didn't smell anything I doubt something got blown.

Do you have another power supply you can try? The power supply has many voltages all of which need to work for your computer to turn on. So the LED might use the 12V rail and if that works your LED will light up, but that doesn't mean the other rails are working.
 
And how would that make the computer shut down? And not work again?
 
I have seen cases, a PSU went kaput but fan still worked. Yes it can happen.

Good Luck.
 
No Limit said:
When you cut off the signal to your speakers suddenly they can (and usually will) cause a pop sound.
Click to expand...

Again, that still doesn't explain why the computer shut down and won't boot.

Besides, if he said the pop came from the case I'm pretty sure he couldn't confuse that with the speakers. That would just be a different location entirely.
 
I can't confirm where the pop came from, as my speakers are right beside my tower.
 
Vegeta897 said:
Again, that still doesn't explain why the computer shut down and won't boot.
Click to expand...
I am not trying to explain why the comptuer shut down by asking the question. The point is that if the pop came from the speakers that's a much different thing than it coming from a component in the computer blowing; its a difference between replacing a fairly cheap PSU and a expensive ass mobo, cpu, and possibly other components.

I honestly doubt that it was a cap or something electronic blowing, I know that from working around electronics and seeing a lot of things blow you would instantly recognize the smell and could smell it for a long time afterwards inside of the case. Since there is no smell nothing probably fried, but there is a good chance the power supply took a dump. Investigate that first. If you got a meter you can get fancy and measure the voltages. If you don't try finding a PSU from somewhere. When you plug in the new PSU take out the video card, hard drive, any fans, and even the ram. See if you get a beep.
 
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