So here I am in my 'office' (spare bedroom with the 'puter) talking on the phone to company about getting replacement windows put in my house. Suddenly I hear zzzztt zzzztt and look over at the computer area and see some reather bright orange flashes. 8O Well let's just say I got really excited and started pulling power cords out of the wall. I thought I had lost the computer (and was on the way to loosing the house) but as it turns out the Uninterruptable Power Supply went bad. At least that's what it seems like since I'm using the same computer to type this.

Can't help but wonder what would have happened if I had been in another room or the garage or even had ran to the store. Funny thing is I've taken the power supply apart and I can't find any componets that smoked themselves (yes it stunk in the room for a while).

"can't find anything that smoked themselves"


Maybe they completely disinegrated! :lol: Your're pretty lucky though!

I had the side of my case removed on my computer, still do now matter of fact, dunno why, it's just such a pain to take off and replace.. anyway, I turned on my machine and a 5" blue bolt shot out of the case.. needless to say the machine was fried and the smell of burned/hot electronics filled the room.. I dunno what happened, power supply went nuts I think, but only a couple of components survived that one. Rebuilt the machine, pretty much had to get all new computer, and have been no problems since.

Hey Poltergeist, if you had not been in the room, the fuse/fuses in the system would have blown. If they did not blow, the circuit breaker in your home's power distribution panel should have tripped, saving you a fire.

Maddening:

Your problem probably was dust. With the case off, it collects due to the static at a fantastic rate. It shorts across the printed circuits, and poof!

It's good to take the case off and vacume, but not leave it off.

Good luck, at least the prices are still coming down on PC's.

Elky77

Hey Poltergeist, if you had not been in the room, the fuse/fuses in the system would have blown. If they did not blow, the circuit breaker in your home's power distribution panel should have tripped, saving you a fire.

The fuses did not blow. I saw they were intact during the autopsy.

Hopefully the breakers would have tripped. My house was built around 1945 and as far as I know the breakers are original. 50/50 on them tripping. And if they did not trip fast enough (they didn't during the flashes I saw which was something shorting) the unit could have caught fire. Luckly it's all a mute point now.