Is EVERYTHING fried?

crap shoot at best

all none some

"Consumer" wrote in message
...
I got a generic PII system from a friend who said it doesn't work anymore
due to the power supply actually blowing up or catching fire. He said that
smoke came out and that it wouldn't boot at all. I checked it out and it
looks like a cheap power supply. Other than the Intel CPU, the system
appears to have fairly cheap parts/case.

The hardware appeared unharmed physically, but I assume that the PSU's
circuitry probably screwed up everything local. After a dusting, I tried
the
video card in a functioning system, which failed to display. Is it
possible
that ANY of the hardware would be able to survive the damage? I don't feel
like disconnecting a perfectly good system only to verify dirty lemons...

Also, is there possible harm in swapping a good PSU into the system or
could
it be fried too?

Hi,

Yes, you could drop a new PS to the board and fry the new PS.
One of my reminders of this is me remembering hooking a used floppy drive to
a system and blowing the mb. Rare, of course, but if you happen to short the
right leads you can put an overcharge on resistors or caps that have no
business carrying that kind of voltage or amperage for that matter.
If you're adventurous and don't mind the risk, or have an extra ________
lieing around, and you're irresistably curious then certainly it's worth the
effort. Or, if you're desperate, and need the part bad enough then it may
also be worth your time.

--
Jan Alter

"Consumer" wrote in message
...
I got a generic PII system from a friend who said it doesn't work anymore
due to the power supply actually blowing up or catching fire. He said that
smoke came out and that it wouldn't boot at all. I checked it out and it
looks like a cheap power supply. Other than the Intel CPU, the system
appears to have fairly cheap parts/case.

The hardware appeared unharmed physically, but I assume that the PSU's
circuitry probably screwed up everything local. After a dusting, I tried
the
video card in a functioning system, which failed to display. Is it
possible
that ANY of the hardware would be able to survive the damage? I don't feel
like disconnecting a perfectly good system only to verify dirty lemons...

Also, is there possible harm in swapping a good PSU into the system or
could
it be fried too?