Computer popped

Metspitzer wrote:

The pop, I think, is a big clue. I may go ahead and order a Power
Supply tester.

Have you tried the paperclip test, where you bend a paperclip into a
"U" and plug it into the big power connector so one leg goes to the
green wire and the other led to any black wire (either wire next to
the green)? That should turn on the PSU, but you'll have to measure
voltages.

I wouldn't buy a power supply tester because unless it has a digital
readout, it will give only a very rough indication of the PSU's
condition and may say the voltages are OK even if they're too low to
operate the computer. Testers with digital readouts cost more than a
multimeter and a bunch of power resistors that can test the PSU more
realistically.

On Fri, 22 Jun 2012 23:26:16 -0400, Metspitzer
wrote:

My nephew said his computer popped he smelled smoke. I took it
upstairs and opened it up and unplugged the mobo and hard drives and
powered it up and nothing happened. I wish I had thought to check and
see if the mobo light was on, but I didn't. I pulled out the power
supply and checked the connections with a tester and everything seemed
to be working.

I took some compressed air and blew all the dust out. I put the
powered supply back in and connected it all back up. It worked!

Dust? Really? I think that may have been the actual problem.

Update
I guess my mobo is bad. The machine has a new PSU but is displaying
the same symptom.

The computer will come on and web surf, but playing a video or sound
is choppy. The machine is used mostly for web surfing. Am I risking
damage to hard drives or the new PS by just using the computer for
surfing?

Since I know the PSU is good now, it really does have to be a bad
mobo, right? There are no signs of smoke, but I don't see too good. I
even looked with a magnifying glass.

On Jul 11, 2:48 pm, Metspitzer wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jun 2012 23:26:16 -0400, Metspitzer
wrote:

My nephew said his computer popped he smelled smoke. I took it
upstairs and opened it up and unplugged the mobo and hard drives and
powered it up and nothing happened. I wish I had thought to check and
see if the mobo light was on, but I didn't. I pulled out the power
supply and checked the connections with a tester and everything seemed
to be working.

I took some compressed air and blew all the dust out. I put the
powered supply back in and connected it all back up. It worked!

Dust? Really? I think that may have been the actual problem.

Update
I guess my mobo is bad. The machine has a new PSU but is displaying
the same symptom.

The computer will come on and web surf, but playing a video or sound
is choppy. The machine is used mostly for web surfing. Am I risking
damage to hard drives or the new PS by just using the computer for
surfing?

Since I know the PSU is good now, it really does have to be a bad
mobo, right? There are no signs of smoke, but I don't see too good. I
even looked with a magnifying glass.

Choppy video may depend on the video program installs, codec links,
raw processing power, to include a video card.

Choppy sound only, however, is pretty hard to screw up for duplication
across a wide range of audio players, although calling choppy sound an
audio track underlying simultaneous video feed is something of a
misnomer in that regard.

A failing MB is a very nasty customer, as well will exhibit all kinds
of failure behavior linked to running programs, to include difficulty
in keeping the Windows OS stable. A randomness to reboots or locking
the OS may be somewhat difficult to pinpoint at first, as severity
increases when power supplies prematurely age, not to rule out failure
of associative hardware devices, such as HDs or memory modules.

The Golden Rule of Age: At some point everything becomes so dated,
it's not longer relevant or particularly worth noting its manufacture
date. When nobody knows to cry when you bury it with honors, it's
probably because they're all too busy fiddle farting about on facebook
with a tablet on the highway at 90mph.

Metspitzer wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jun 2012 23:26:16 -0400, Metspitzer
wrote:

My nephew said his computer popped he smelled smoke. I took it
upstairs and opened it up and unplugged the mobo and hard drives and
powered it up and nothing happened. I wish I had thought to check and
see if the mobo light was on, but I didn't. I pulled out the power
supply and checked the connections with a tester and everything seemed
to be working.

I took some compressed air and blew all the dust out. I put the
powered supply back in and connected it all back up. It worked!

Dust? Really? I think that may have been the actual problem.

Update
I guess my mobo is bad. The machine has a new PSU but is displaying
the same symptom.

The computer will come on and web surf, but playing a video or sound
is choppy. The machine is used mostly for web surfing. Am I risking
damage to hard drives or the new PS by just using the computer for
surfing?

Since I know the PSU is good now, it really does have to be a bad
mobo, right? There are no signs of smoke, but I don't see too good. I
even looked with a magnifying glass.

So the computer is actually working. Think about all
the things that have to be working right, for you to
even see any video plus audio.

Choppy playback can come from too low a CPU speed.
Like, the CPU isn't running at the right clock setting.
Check the BIOS, and see if the basic settings are correct
or not.

It could also be caused by a competing process, like the
AV scanner running at the same time as you're viewing video.
Or the file Explorer computing thumbnails or video preview.

Open Task Manager, while your video test is running.

Sometimes, when I've got a problem like that, I enter the
BIOS and disable Intel SpeedStep. On my current motherboard,
to keep the CPU running full stock speed at all times, I also
have to disable some C-state options. And then it stays at
3GHz. I use that, if I've got some multimedia issue, and
I want to verify it isn't being complicated by a power state
issue.

If you're in a giant rush, you can go out buying new hardware
components, but without any assurance things will be better
later.

One flavor of hardware issue, is an "interrupt storm". It's possible
for a piece of hardware, to keep asserting an interrupt signal, even
when no interrupts are present. I might use Process Explorer to check
for something like that, as I think it has an interrupt counter.

Other than that, make sure the processor is running full speed,
and there isn't a cooling issue causing the processor to
throttle back.

Processor throttling can be viewed with RMClock if you want.

http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml

"RightMark CPU Clock Utility (RMClock)"

Article on using it...

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/cpu/in...res-core2.html

Paul

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:57:38 -0400, Paul wrote:

Metspitzer wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jun 2012 23:26:16 -0400, Metspitzer
wrote:

My nephew said his computer popped he smelled smoke. I took it
upstairs and opened it up and unplugged the mobo and hard drives and
powered it up and nothing happened. I wish I had thought to check and
see if the mobo light was on, but I didn't. I pulled out the power
supply and checked the connections with a tester and everything seemed
to be working.

I took some compressed air and blew all the dust out. I put the
powered supply back in and connected it all back up. It worked!

Dust? Really? I think that may have been the actual problem.

Update
I guess my mobo is bad. The machine has a new PSU but is displaying
the same symptom.

The computer will come on and web surf, but playing a video or sound
is choppy. The machine is used mostly for web surfing. Am I risking
damage to hard drives or the new PS by just using the computer for
surfing?

Since I know the PSU is good now, it really does have to be a bad
mobo, right? There are no signs of smoke, but I don't see too good. I
even looked with a magnifying glass.

So the computer is actually working. Think about all
the things that have to be working right, for you to
even see any video plus audio.

Choppy playback can come from too low a CPU speed.
Like, the CPU isn't running at the right clock setting.
Check the BIOS, and see if the basic settings are correct
or not.

Checking the BIOS (like I would know what I was looking for ) is a
good idea. But the computer popped. Would that be the CPU? I sure
don't have another CPU to swap.

It did have a video card in it, but I took it out after the pop. How
would you go about cleaning up the video drivers? The videos I was
testing with are avi quality that should play in the slowest computer.

It could also be caused by a competing process, like the
AV scanner running at the same time as you're viewing video.
Or the file Explorer computing thumbnails or video preview.

I am not sure the computer even has AV software but I can check that
too.

Open Task Manager, while your video test is running.

Sometimes, when I've got a problem like that, I enter the
BIOS and disable Intel SpeedStep. On my current motherboard,
to keep the CPU running full stock speed at all times, I also
have to disable some C-state options. And then it stays at
3GHz. I use that, if I've got some multimedia issue, and
I want to verify it isn't being complicated by a power state
issue.

If you're in a giant rush, you can go out buying new hardware
components, but without any assurance things will be better
later.

I never have any assurance things will be better.

One flavor of hardware issue, is an "interrupt storm". It's possible
for a piece of hardware, to keep asserting an interrupt signal, even
when no interrupts are present. I might use Process Explorer to check
for something like that, as I think it has an interrupt counter.

Other than that, make sure the processor is running full speed,
and there isn't a cooling issue causing the processor to
throttle back.

Processor throttling can be viewed with RMClock if you want.

http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml

"RightMark CPU Clock Utility (RMClock)"

Article on using it...

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/cpu/in...res-core2.html

Paul
Good suggestions.
Thanks

"
"Metspitzer" wrote in message
...

My nephew said his computer popped he smelled smoke. I took it
upstairs and opened it up and unplugged the mobo and hard drives and
powered it up and nothing happened. I wish I had thought to check and
see if the mobo light was on, but I didn't. I pulled out the power
supply and checked the connections with a tester and everything seemed
to be working.

I took some compressed air and blew all the dust out. I put the
powered supply back in and connected it all back up. It worked!

Dust? Really? I think that may have been the actual problem.
"

What did you expect to happen by unplugging the mobo ? Ofcourse then nothing
is going to work ?

Anyway it sounds to me like a power surge of some kind, a similiar situation
is when the power supply is configured at 120 volts and receives 220 volts.

Bye,
Skybuck.

Skybuck Flying wrote:
"
"Metspitzer" wrote in message
...

My nephew said his computer popped he smelled smoke. I took it
upstairs and opened it up and unplugged the mobo and hard drives and
powered it up and nothing happened. I wish I had thought to check and
see if the mobo light was on, but I didn't. I pulled out the power
supply and checked the connections with a tester and everything seemed
to be working.

I took some compressed air and blew all the dust out. I put the
powered supply back in and connected it all back up. It worked!

Dust? Really? I think that may have been the actual problem.
"

What did you expect to happen by unplugging the mobo ? Ofcourse then
nothing is going to work ?

Anyway it sounds to me like a power surge of some kind, a similiar
situation is when the power supply is configured at 120 volts and
receives 220 volts.

Bye,
Skybuck.

Skybuck. Your WLM 15 client, doesn't quote USENET articles properly.

We can't tell where the original post ends, and your comments start.

Try another news client. Thunderbird is an example.

Other examples of clients that quote a little bit, are WLM 14
(the older version), or use the procedure to enable the hidden
copy of Windows Mail and use that instead. But with so many
third party news clients, there are better choices than WLM 15.
It sucks as a tool for USENET.

Paul

I know, I use " " to solve that.

"
Your posting
"

Bye,
Skybuck.