WaitDontSh00t

Lol.. No, I did take it out of course to examine it. I did not find anything abnormal! I just received the PC back and am currently on it. Everything seems fine, but I am so worried still! Though I have a UPS, plugged into a brand new Surge Protector as well. Fingers crossed nothing happens again...so weird..! I would for sure feel more comfortable if I knew what happened, so of course that makes me nervous everyday now not knowing lol

When it first happened I wanna say that the smell was coming from the back of my case,where the PSU is. Though I can't smell anything anymore,so who knows if by the time the tech looked at it if it still smelled, but they claimed they couldn't. They also never took the PSU out of the case to check it, which I thought was a bit off. But he claims it tested fine. So if it tested fine and the strip has the protected light on,I have no clue what could have happened.

So do you still speculate that it could be the strip? I don't know what else could have been the cause/issue.

Attempting to see if I could open it up. There are 4 screws that are an odd shape and my kit doesn't have anything thatl work to open it, so I'm testing to see what I can use. I know it's hard to tell on camera. EDIT: Yeah. There's no way these can come out

I know I'm not crazy, but I don't see any damage anywhere..not in the computer,I checked and Microcenter did a full system test and the claim nothing is wrong. Which leads back to the strip, I don't see any damage on it. No damage on the outlet. The PC was on my desk and the strip was on the wall behind the desk so I know it was either the PC or strip. It's just so weird that between that bang, smell and there's no physical evidence which I don't get unless it's somehow internal.

The weird thing with this Belkin one the grounded led says "Not Grounded", so I guess that only lights up if it's not grounded? As a precaution I picked up a UPS, but how do I know what "VA"/Watts I need? I think the one I got is 1350va and 810 watts. Do I need a more powerful one if my PSU is 1200watts and have additional things plugged into my ups? And no known issues before at all with the outlet or strip. I tested it with another power strip that has an actual grounded led as well and it says it was. So I'm not sure.

As you can guess,that's why I'm so confused. The outlet it was hooked up to looks fine and is working. Microcenter claims they tested the PC and everything is working and they tested the PSU. So if it's not the PC, what the heck was it? It literally had to be the strip or PC because there is nothing else there. I don't understand how this pop and burning smell has no source. I was almost sure it was the PSU because the smell was coming form somewhere between the back of the PC and strip. But they claim it's all fine,so I'm completely at a loss.

I'm not quite sure what else to check or what the cause was. Microcenter tested everything and said it was fine. They even tested the PSU voltage,etc.. Any clues??

So I just checked and only "Protected" is lit.

If it was the strip, would it be safe to test all the outlets? I just worry that if something did happen to it, that could be a fire hazard. And I get that, I probably should have explained a bit better. Yes, it did sound like a mini firework (one loud bang). I didn't see anything on the PSU. Which brings up Microcenter again, they said the PC doesn't seem to have damage. That's why I was so confused because there was a literal burning smell after the noise. Hard to say of anything else was affected, I had other things plugged in the strip, but I was on my PC when it shut off like that and only when I tried to turn it back on, that noise and smell happened.

It's so hard to tell.. Everything "looks" normal though?

I had it plugged into a Belkin Power Strip. I don't see any damage on the strip though. I did end up getting a 1350va, 850watt UPS by Cyberpower though. Just to be safe when I get the PC back. Do you guys think it was the power strip or something internal of it? I had other things plugged into it and they seemed to work fine afterwards. (No longer plugged in now though)

Okay.. So I brought my PC into Microcenter to take a look at it. They finally were able to take a look at it. They claimed everything was fine? They were able to get it to boot and it was running fine. But it doesn't make any sense because of that pop/explosion noise and the smell of burning electronics. How can this be? I'm so confused..

I understand that, I was just stating that I couldn't see any damage on the Mobo. Inspecting the PSU, I can't see anything looking inside. Or anything that looks out of the normal. It does smell really bad though and I can't trace that smell to anything else in the system. Though the "explosion" seemed almost exactly the sound of a capacitor blowing in online videos I've seen. I'll keep inspecting it with a light though and see if I can notice anything.