PC completely dead (sparks n flames n stuff)

[martward]

Hi all,

 

So since yesterday my pc is completely dead. I was just playing a game of space engineers with some friends, and all of a sudden my pc shuts down (not like a blue screen but just completely power off). So I tried to turn it back on, but there was just no response whatsoever, not even the fans would spin. I though it was likely to be either the PSU or the motherboard.  So today I tried a different PSU, one that had been in exactly this pc just two months before. At first I only connected the motherboard, and I noticed that the power supply made a lot of noise, but I didn't really think in to it. So I attached my GPU to the power supply to see if I could get my pc up and running, and my GPU kinda caught fire, there were sparks and an actual flame. So I pulled the plug immediately. The PSU does run fine in the new system I put it in after I replaced it for a new one though, so the PSU is working and everything. So basically, my gpu is definitively dead, my new psu is definitively dead and at the moment I am afraid that my motherboard, cpu and memory are also likely to be dead. 

 

Does anyone have any idea what component probably caused the problem at first (so yesterday)? I would like to return the defective components, but I am afraid that if I don't know which component actually caused the problems every vendor will just say it's the fault of one of the components I bought somewhere else.

 

Thanks

[GoZone]

Yeah your PC is dead and you can't fix it, they will laugh if you tried to return it.

[Brennan Price]

Did you get any posts/beep codes when you tried to turn your PC on?

[GoZone]

2 minutes ago, martward said:

Hi all,

 

So since yesterday my pc is completely dead. I was just playing a game of space engineers with some friends, and all of a sudden my pc shuts down (not like a blue screen but just completely power off). So I tried to turn it back on, but there was just no response whatsoever, not even the fans would spin. I though it was likely to be either the PSU or the motherboard.  So today I tried a different PSU, one that had been in exactly this pc just two months before. At first I only connected the motherboard, and I noticed that the power supply made a lot of noise, but I didn't really think in to it. So I attached my GPU to the power supply to see if I could get my pc up and running, and my GPU kinda caught fire, there were sparks and an actual flame. So I pulled the plug immediately. The PSU does run fine in the new system I put it in after I replaced it for a new one though, so the PSU is working and everything. So basically, my gpu is definitively dead, my new psu is definitively dead and at the moment I am afraid that my motherboard, cpu and memory are also likely to be dead. 

 

Does anyone have any idea what component probably caused the problem at first (so yesterday)? I would like to return the defective components, but I am afraid that if I don't know which component actually caused the problems every vendor will just say it's the fault of one of the components I bought somewhere else.

 

Thanks

It can be either the PSU or motherboard.

[HrutkayMods]

 

2 minutes ago, GoZone said:

Yeah your PC is dead and yo

Maybe not, make sure nothing grounded out on the motherboard. I had a pcie extension ground out and short once. I unplugged it, and the PC booted right up with no damage. GPU on the other hand might be dead

[iamdarkyoshi]

PSU likely failed. Shame that you live in the netherlands. I want to do an autopsy and repair attempt. Wouldnt be easy.

[martward]

1 minute ago, GoZone said:

It can be either the PSU or motherboard.

Well all the components are less than a year old, and I didn't do anything. So one of the components died on it's own, I don't see why I wouldn't be able to return at least the component that died first.

 

1 minute ago, HrutkayMods said:

 

Maybe not, make sure nothing grounded out on the motherboard. I had a pcie extension ground out and short once. I unplugged it, and the PC booted right up with no damage

I don't have any integrated graphics, and the burned pcb of my gpu tells me that thing won't work anymore. The psu also doesn't do anything anymore.

 

4 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

Did you get any posts/beep codes when you tried to turn your PC on?

No, that's why I assumed it was either the psu or the motherboard, otherwise it would've at least told me there was a problem

 

2 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

PSU likely failed. Shame that you live in the netherlands. I want to do an autopsy and repair attempt. Wouldnt be easy.

That's what I thought, any idea why the gpu burned when I connected the other psu?

[ThomasD]

4 minutes ago, martward said:

... At first I only connected the motherboard, and I noticed that the power supply made a lot of noise, but I didn't really think in to it. So I attached my GPU to the power supply to see if I could get my pc up and running...

This is not completely clear to me. 

 

When you attached the new PSU to the motherboard did you try to power the system on prior to remounting the GPU?

 

If so what happened when you powered the system on?  Did it boot?

 

If you did not power the system on, how/why was the PSU making noise?  And what sort of noise was it making?

[HrutkayMods]

Just now, martward said:

 

 

I don't have any integrated graphics, and the burned pcb of my gpu tells me that thing won't work anymore. The psu also doesn't do anything anymore.

 

try to find a cheap card to test or see if it will at least run without a card, it should still power on

[martward]

2 minutes ago, ThomasD said:

This is not completely clear to me. 

 

When you attached the new PSU to the motherboard did you try to power the system on prior to remounting the GPU?

 

If so what happened when you powered the system on?  Did it boot?

 

If you did not power the system on, how/why was the PSU making noise?  And what sort of noise was it making?

The GPU was still mounted, but I didn't connect the power. The fans started spinning but I obviously had no visuals. I turned the pc off, connect the power to the gpu and turned it back off. That's when the gpu started to burn. The noise the PSU was making sounded like the fan going completely bananas, when I placed it back into the system it is in now it ran fine though.

 

2 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

try to find a cheap card to test or see if it will at least run without a card, it should still power on

Well the psu certainly isn't doing anything, so I would need to replace that one too. Might try this, but I am afraid that if the problem is in the motherboard, I will fry my cpu and memory (if I haven't already).

[iamdarkyoshi]

Just now, martward said:

That's what I thought, any idea why the gpu burned when I connected the other psu?

It had likely been damaged and getting power again released the magic blue smoke. See if you can RMA basically everything.

[martward]

1 minute ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

It had likely been damaged and getting power again released the magic blue smoke. See if you can RMA basically everything.

I will call the shops tomorrow, really curious to hear what they will say. Thanks 

[HrutkayMods]

first off see if the pcie slot looks damaged from the GPU meltdown (melted/bent pins) (sometimes the board will still work if you unbend the pins but the slot might be and probably is dead if damaged) also the motherboard should hopefully shut off before anymore damage occurs, in fact there are tons of fail safes for the CPU, and I think ram so they should be safe.

[ThomasD]

Just now, martward said:

The GPU was still mounted, but I didn't connect the power. The fans started spinning but I obviously had no visuals. I turned the pc off, connect the power to the gpu and turned it back off. That's when the gpu started to burn. The noise the PSU was making sounded like the fan going completely bananas, when I placed it back into the system it is in now it ran fine though.

 

The original PSU may have nothing worse than a blown fuse.  Based on the limited description of events is appears the problem may have started in the GPU - some sort of failure that caused the PSU to shut down (again, maybe a blown fuse, maybe some sort of over voltage protection.)

 

The second PSU may not have been so well protected from a bad circuit - which resulted in it giving the GPU all the power it needed to really go off (the flames were probably an electrolytic capacitor rupturing.)

 

Of course, when bad things like that happen the it can lead to secondary damage all over the system. 

 

The first thing I'd do is disconnect the PSU and use a multimeter to verify it is delivering correct voltages at each pin.  Then I'd reconnect as suggested with some sort of cheap graphics card and try to boot the system.

[Mkander99]

17 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

 

Maybe not, make sure nothing grounded out on the motherboard. I had a pcie extension ground out and short once. I unplugged it, and the PC booted right up with no damage. GPU on the other hand might be dead

"might" IT CAUGHT ON FIRE

[martward]

2 minutes ago, HrutkayMods said:

first off see if the pcie slot looks damaged from the GPU meltdown (melted/bent pins) (sometimes the board will still work if you unbend the pins but the slot might and probably is dead if damaged) also the motherboard should hopefully shut off before anymore damage occurs, in fact there are tons of fail safes for the CPU, and I think ram so they might be safe.

I checked, the pcie pins seem to be just fine so that might give me some hope. 

 

2 minutes ago, ThomasD said:

The original PSU may have nothing worse than a blown fuse.  Based on the limited description of events is appears the problem may have started in the GPU - some sort of failure that caused the PSU to shut down (again, maybe a blown fuse, maybe some sort of over voltage protection.)

 

The second PSU may not have been so well protected from a bad circuit - which resulted in it giving the GPU all the power it needed to really go off (the flames were probably an electrolytic capacitor rupturing.)

 

Of course, when bad things like that happen the it can lead to secondary damage all over the system. 

 

The first thing I'd do is disconnect the PSU and use a multimeter to verify it is delivering correct voltages at each pin.  Then I'd reconnect as suggested with some sort of cheap graphics card and try to boot the system.

A blown fuse sounds like what could be the problem, since (as far as I can see) it's not powering anything anymore. So basically getting another psu and gpu might allow me to see if the motherboard/cpu/ram is also defective. Thanks

[soup]

16 minutes ago, martward said:

I didn't do anything.

Quote

At first I only connected the motherboard, and I noticed that the power supply made a lot of noise, but I didn't really think in to it. So I attached my GPU to the power supply to see if I could get my pc up and running, and my GPU kinda caught fire

 

[martward]

2 minutes ago, soup said:

 

Well yeah I did that... But in my defense the pc was already not working when I did that, so it doesn't count.

[soup]

6 minutes ago, martward said:

A blown fuse sounds like what could be the problem,

 

"Might work they were only small flames"

[martward]

1 minute ago, soup said:

 

"Might work it was only small flames"

I meant the problem with the psu, obviously the gpu has a slightly bigger issue.

[ThomasD]

3 hours ago, soup said:

 

"Might work they were only small flames"

Flames aren't the problem.

 

Letting the magic smoke out is the problem.

 

Electronics only work when the magic smoke stays on the inside.

[Prysin]

3 hours ago, martward said:

 my GPU kinda caught fire, there were sparks and an actual flame.

pic's or it didnt happen

[martward]

9 hours ago, Prysin said:

pic's or it didnt happen

Sorry, I was kinda busy with cutting the power and swearing so I didn't think of just letting it burn in order to make pretty pictures :p.