What an awful weekend.

My Internet has gone down and doesn't look like it's coming back any time soon (Tiscali hijacked the line). Then my power supply blows up and makes an awful smell (like a mix between TCP and mercury). I'm on a Fedora 8 ThinkPad T41 at McDonalds right now, making my keyboard greasy, checking my emails etc.

I'll be back online during working hours Monday - Friday 8:30 - 17:00 from now on.

I will explain the situation with my ISP when I get back online on Monday.. I've nearly finished my Big Mac and my lady wants a go on the laptop!!

Wow, that really sucks!

Your power supply blew up? Do you mean you 1KW Tagan? Wow, incredible, any idea how?

Hang on, is this the beastage PSU he has for his meaty pc with that huge monitor?

That's what I thought, which is why it's confusing. It's a high quality PSU with more power than needed by a long shot, so it shouldn't explode.

too much of one thing is a bad thing

Like alcohol, eh, Brat?

That's the one, the 1.1kW Tagan Turbojet. I'm placing an RMA for it today, and buying the replacement pretty much as we speak... it's not a Turbojet though.

I have absolutely no idea how. We have good circuits in our house, and I run the PC off a Belkin surge protector. Considering the machine uses about 400W under heavy load, the power supply is hardly breaking a sweat, and should be very reliable and accurate.

This explains the burning smell I was getting a week ago when I brought the machine in to work - the machine would power off randomly, or my graphics card wouldn't display anything (not getting enough power?) followed by a system shutdown. It had a smell like TCP or Mercury or something, not very nice. I could always smell it if I spun up the DVD drive like when I was watching a film or something.

I got fed up of the system turning itself off, so took the motherboard out of the case, the hard drives, DVD drive, power supply etc. and powered on the system to see if there was anything that I could identify as being a problem. It was only at this point that I could very obviously smell it coming from the power supply. I put the system back together inside the case, powered it on and I had a bit of a pop followed by a feint hiss from the power supply. I then got a very strong smell from the system and just thought... no way am I touching you. I turned everything off, disconnected the power button from the motherboard, unplugged everything from the mains etc.

The only thing I'm worried about is if it over-volted something. It could have fried the motherboard, the processor, the memory, who knows! I guess I will know... when I replace the power supply.

Edit: I have called Overclockers UK and the RMA has been placed. hey could have picked up the power supply tomorrow, but I asked them to pick it up Wednesdsay as I have no way of getting it in to work tomorrow (staying at my girlfriends place tonight!) ... very quick, very good service from Overclockers UK, as always!

Hmm, sounds a bit like something got inside and shorted it out to me. Hope the rest of your system is OK.

What replacement you bought?

Nothing at the moment... might just opt for a full refund until after Christmas now, because I just bought something else.

Ah, you said you were buying a new one in your last post!

I think I know what else you've bought!

Well, I might just get a cheaper replacement under the RMA. But I am going to wait now. I was going to buy it yesterday, but because I had plans to buy something else I've had to hold it off.

Well what you going to do with your computer in the meantime then?

Let it collect some dust

BLASPHEMY!

To be honest, I think I will get a cheaper replacement under the RMA and get refunded the difference.

Fair enough, make sure it's modular!

We'll see. They may just give me a straightforward replacement, but I did put a note in with the PSU that I hope they will take in to consideration.

Ah, cool make sure you get a modular one if you can. What wattage will you be looking at?

Probably about 750W. That seems realistic. I can get a good modular one at that wattage. I'm going to pick the brand I have always used - Enermax. I've used 3 of their power supplies so far and none of them have gone wrong!

Sounds good, I've heard decent things about Enermax.

Seems like I didn't have a choice... they've shipped the old one back to me. I'm expecting delivery today

Ah, OK, the old one (fixed), or a new one of the same model?

Yea, soz peeps for not being on the forum for a while, ive been lazyyy

but anyways, how come loadza topics have been deleted @_@ lol

No topics have been deleted, they may have slipped off the bottom of the first page, though.

It's a new one the old one was returned to the manufacturer.