Hi guys, I’m at a loss here. Put a brand new PSU in my computer after hearing a very loud pop the other night and it shut off and has no life at all. It hissed for about half a second and then shut off again. Is it my board that popped instead of my PSU or something else?
A pop generally has a visible and olfactible aftermath in electronics - especially when hissing is involved. So a quick inspection of the board should be able to determine if it was the board that went or not.
With that said, though, when a power supply goes it’s hard to tell what (if anything) gets taken with it. Unfortunately it’s going to be a case of trial and error if nothing is visibly wrong. Start by unplugging everything and confirming that the new PSU fires up on its own (bridge the green wire on the ATX12V 20-/24-pin connector to any of the black wires using a metal object, like a paperclip or staple). Then start plugging in devices one-by-one and trying to boot - start with the motherboard (both ATX12V and ATX12VO 8-pin), then add graphics card/s, harddrives, etc, after verifying it at least fires up each time.
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Are you sure everything is connected correctly? Are you using the old cables? Most likely it’s an operator error on something simple. I’d recommend disconnecting everything and starting over. If that doesn’t solve it, try the old PSU. If it boots up, then it is a problem with your new PSU. If not, then it could be the mobo.
Sounds like something that happened to me in past - back when the Pentium 3 was current.
For me, I suspected I was just drawing more power than the power supply could support since it happened right after I plugged in one more USB device. The same sequence of popping and hissing noises happened. Thinking it was the power supply, I disconnected it, removed it from the case, and heard something rattling around on the inside. When I popped it open, two shells of capacitors fell out.
You might have a popped capacitor on your motherboard somewhere. Just 3 or 4 months ago a friend of mine had a similar experience — loud pop, computer shut off — and came to me for advice. I figured it was the PSU, so he bought a new PSU (an overkill, super high quality one even) and installed it to no avail. We started digging deeper and underneath the corner of his graphics card one of the motherboard’s caps had literally popped off of the board.
So naturally, we had to replace his motherboard. Got a slightly newer revision of the same model, no trouble so far (fingers crossed).
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No way of knowing until you test the Mobo with a good PSU
I remember questing in the barrens on my P3.