Power supply blew up!

Synkboy · 04-08-2008, 03:31 PM

Built a new PC ,and upon switching it on for the first time it made a low whining sound and wouldn't switch on.

I then opened the tower up and checked that everything was connected together, and it was, so I tried again.

The power supply made a large "pop" noise and there was a slight burning smell, it also tripped the fuse box.

Now the power supply was the one that came with the tower, it was 230w, I'm thinking that it wasn't powerful enough to run the PC.

Inside I had two IDE hard drives, 1 SATA DVD Rewriter, Biostar Motherboard, and a Dual Core AMD Athlon 64 processor.

I am about to purchase a new power supply, obviously I am going to go at least 600w.

Does anyone know of any reason why the power supply would blow like that on the first time it was run?

Tumbleweed36 · 04-08-2008, 05:56 PM

That is called a "stress" blow. You are putting too much load on it and it simply will not handle what you are expecting it to do. It is kind of like a fuse, except instead of tripping a breaker, it simply ruins (they pop at times) the capacitors in there. You will be very lucky if it didn't also fry your motherboard and ram (or even more). I would find yourself a good brand name PSU and see what runs and what does not. Let us know if we can help you pick a good power supply and read HERE for more information that will help you select a good PSU.

04-08-2008, 03:31 PM	#1 (permalink)
Synkboy Registered User Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 5 OS: Windows Vista SP1	Power supply blew up! Built a new PC ,and upon switching it on for the first time it made a low whining sound and wouldn't switch on. I then opened the tower up and checked that everything was connected together, and it was, so I tried again. The power supply made a large "pop" noise and there was a slight burning smell, it also tripped the fuse box. Now the power supply was the one that came with the tower, it was 230w, I'm thinking that it wasn't powerful enough to run the PC. Inside I had two IDE hard drives, 1 SATA DVD Rewriter, Biostar Motherboard, and a Dual Core AMD Athlon 64 processor. I am about to purchase a new power supply, obviously I am going to go at least 600w. Does anyone know of any reason why the power supply would blow like that on the first time it was run?

04-08-2008, 05:56 PM	#2 (permalink)
Tumbleweed36 Asst Manager Hardware Join Date: May 2005 Location: USA Posts: 14,165 OS: XP Professional	Re: Power supply blew up! That is called a "stress" blow. You are putting too much load on it and it simply will not handle what you are expecting it to do. It is kind of like a fuse, except instead of tripping a breaker, it simply ruins (they pop at times) the capacitors in there. You will be very lucky if it didn't also fry your motherboard and ram (or even more). I would find yourself a good brand name PSU and see what runs and what does not. Let us know if we can help you pick a good power supply and read HERE for more information that will help you select a good PSU. __________________ ----------