My PSU is spitting flames!!

[xxORBxx]

Last night i was looking at my case and i realized i had 2 CDs, 1 HDD, and a 9700 pro plugged into one strand of wires of my PSU. I figured i should distribute it among other strands so i put the 9700 pro on a new one but then i plugged a fan on the end of the 9700 one. Everything seemed to be plugged in correctly.........I hit the power button and my PSU made a popping noise and then flames and sparks shot out! I pushed myself away and flipped over in my chair. I got up and ripped out the power cord. Now why did my PSU flip out and try to set my house on fire? I dont see anything wrong that i could have done..could it just be a crappy capacitor or what? I havent really heard of anything like this before. BTW its an Antec True Power 430w. Anyone one know what happened here?

[IFMU]

Ouch, thats not too good.
Odds are I would say it was on its last legs when you swapped everything around. When you powered it up, just pushed it over the edge.
To bad, Antec 430's are some pretty nice PSU's....

[xxORBxx]

Well i think i can get a RMA so its all good. I just wont be able to use mine for a while

[felix88]

the PSU may have damaged some of your other components, so be prepared when your computer doesn't boot up with a new PSU.

[shray]

Aww man ur makin me nervous.. I have one of those!!!

[xxORBxx]

lol Sorry. Is there anyway that i could fry another PSU by hooking it up to my computer now?

[felix88]

if there aren't any burn marks on the motherboard or any other components, you should be fine.

[CCW]

did u get ne pics? nah only kidding, with the gear u say was attached to it its not as if there was a lot of stuff to "overload" it as such, any surges recently?

[antipop]

I don't thing the psu was on it's limit, i think it's more a shortcut somewhere that blew your psu.

[felix88]

you know, i had a Sparkle PSU and the 5v and 12v lines were swapped on one of the molex connectors. of course i noticed it before i plugged it in and swapped the wires. plugging something like that into a HD or CDROM might blow up the drive, but i don't see how it could blow up the PSU.

hah, and another time i was checking my voltages with my DMM and i forgot to switch it out of current mode. it was basically the same as sticking a paperclip between 12v and ground, it just caused all of my 12v devices to stop working for a moment, and then the computer locked up. i guess harddrives don't like turning off like that.

[antipop]

Originally posted by felix88
you know, i had a Sparkle PSU and the 5v and 12v lines were swapped on one of the molex connectors.

Lucky you noticed it, i don't know Sparkle reputation but that doesn't make me want to buy a psu from them

[CCW]

guy that writes the hardware section of PCGamer (itsd not technical at all) blew up his PSU by adding a hdd to it with 3 already in there, a cd rw, dual athlon, gf4 ti etc

just put too much pressure on it

[xxORBxx]

There arnt any burnmarks anywhere so i hope im good. There wasnt really anything to take a picture of except when it was acually blowing up. I called Antec and left a message. I hope the RMA it.

[CCW]

Originally posted by xxORBxx
There wasnt really anything to take a picture of except when it was acually blowing up. I called Antec and left a message.

thats what i meant but i was only kidding hope you get the RMA otherwise ull lose money

[antipop]

Originally posted by xxORBxx
There arnt any burnmarks anywhere so i hope im good. There wasnt really anything to take a picture of except when it was acually blowing up. I called Antec and left a message. I hope the RMA it.

I've dealt once with antec customer support and it was a really good support (it was about my case). I told them my problem, they only asked for my adress and two weeks after i receive a replacement part. Hope it goes well with you either

[xxORBxx]

Hope it goes well with you either

Me too, thanks.

[Tilmitt]

I had a LAN recently and 3 of the boxes including mine were all plugged into extension cords plugged into extension cords all leading back to one socket. For some reason when one of my friends pulled out the power for his speakers my other friends PC's (called Frank ) PSU just blew and he was the only one not turned on! Luckily he didn't see that his PSU blowing was caused by my other friend, although it wasn't his fault really. We decided that Frank's PSU blew because he was a mere Pentium and couldn't cut it like our Athlon's

[CrimInalA]

We decided that Frank's PSU blew because he was a mere Pentium and couldn't cut it like our Athlon's

that's SOOoo true .. :p :smileysex

[antipop]

ROFL I agree