PSU blew the other day, did it take my MB with it?

gillmanjr

gillmanjr

Member
So on Monday I was in the middle of typing an email when all of a sudden my computer just shut down, it also caused the UPS that it was plugged into to go into battery backup which made everything else in the room flicker. I could smell a faint burning smell. I shut everything off and unplugged everything and then just turned the PSU back on and did some tests with my multimeter to verify that it was dead (and it was completely dead). I ordered a brand new Corsair Gold 850W PSU that I just got yesterday and installed, but you know whats next....still nothing. Now the MB power light is on but when I press it I just get a click noise and nothing happens (no fans turn on, nothing). I have a Gigabyte Z77 MB that is less than 3 yrs old so it is still under warranty. I called Gigabyte tech support yesterday and we went through a couple steps (reset the BIOS, unplug everything, etc) but still nothing. I just removed the MB from the case and checked it out and I see absolutely no indication of any shorts, burns, etc. It looks perfectly fine to me.

My questions: Is it pretty clear that the MB is fried? What about the CPU, could it also be fried? Is there any chance that my hard drives could have been damaged by this? I am going to call Gigabyte again today to see if I can get this thing replaced or repaired under warranty but I've pretty much settled on upgrading to an 1150 MB and i5 anyway. I am just praying that my storage drive was not damaged. I have two hard drives, one 80 GB SSD for the system and one 500 GB that I used for storage, games, music, etc. I have most of my stuff backed up on an external 1 TB drive, but some of my stuff would be lost if that drive is damaged or has to be re-formatted after the MB change. The SSD I don't care about because I am going to buy a new one and re-install Win 7.

Any advise you guys can offer would be appreciated, I've never had a computer fail like this before, I guess I've been lucky. Would you guys recommend that I try to have the MB repaired/replaced or should I just upgrade to an 1150 MB with an i5 4670?

My current system:
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UDH4
Intel i3-3220
8 GB Gskill RAM
HD7870 GPU
OCZ 550W PSU (the one that blew), now a Corsair 850W
80 GB Intel SSD (being replaced by 250 GB Samsung SSD)
500 GB Velociraptor storage
 
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Kind of hard to tell what exactly is damaged without replacing parts until it works. But most likely it's just the motherboard.
 
So I just decided to go with a full on upgrade, across the board. Bought an ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 mobo, new i5-4670k, and I am selling my HD 7870 and either going to go with a GTX970 or an R9 390....which one do you guys recommend for gaming on a single 1440p monitor? I am most concerned about being able to play Fallout 4 at or near max.
 
The R9 390 is slightly faster. It is worth noting that FO4 is known to use NVidiaWorks. What impact that will have on performance isn't known since it's not out yet, but is worth knowing. I'd get the 390, particularly since it's got double the VRAM too.
 
Darren said:
The R9 390 is slightly faster. It is worth noting that FO4 is known to use NVidiaWorks. What impact that will have on performance isn't known since it's not out yet, but is worth knowing. I'd get the 390, particularly since it's got double the VRAM too.
Click to expand...

The released the specs and the recommended GPU for Radeon is a R9 290 4GB. You SHOULD be able to get solid performance out of that combo. FO4 is very intensive from what they are saying, and will struggle to run high-max on most budget builds.
 
C4C said:
The released the specs and the recommended GPU for Radeon is a R9 290 4GB. You SHOULD be able to get solid performance out of that combo. FO4 is very intensive from what they are saying, and will struggle to run high-max on most budget builds.
Click to expand...

Given that the engine is a modified engine in Skyrim (which runs well) and based off the screenshots, I'm a bit leery of the validity of the recommended specs. Also being 1440p will push the recommended specs up since 1080p is still considered the standard.

A 390 or 970 will be able to run it well, I'm not contesting that, but being able to max it at 1440p with one of those seems a bit optimistic.
 
Darren said:
The R9 390 is slightly faster. It is worth noting that FO4 is known to use NVidiaWorks. What impact that will have on performance isn't known since it's not out yet, but is worth knowing. I'd get the 390, particularly since it's got double the VRAM too.
Click to expand...

I saw that and it made me kind of lean towards the GTX970. But there are going to be other games I want to play in the future, especially The Division when it comes out, and I think the 390 will be better in the long run, its also slighty cheaper for the MSI that I want to get. I would love to get a GTX980 but I'm not spending over $500 on a GPU, its not worth it to me.
 
So guys, you aren't going to believe this because I can't really believe it. Basically it is worse case scenario stuff and I'm just shocked that it happened. I got my new mobo and processor in the mail yesterday and just finished rebuilding. Plugged everything in and STILL THE SAME THING, computer would not start. So I started unplugging hard drive power cables, the computer wouldn't start until all of the peripherals were unplugged, ALL OF THEM. Both of my hard drives, my blu ray drive, and my fan controller are all BLOWN, if any of them are plugged into the power supply it won't turn on. Even though I have a backup external drive I still lost a lot of stuff that I had on my internal 500GB drive, not to mention I now have to buy another new hard drive, a new disc drive, and a new fan controller (which I might just wait on). WOW
 
Well then... Quite the sad moment there. You checked your RAM and all the cable connections? Must have been quite the surge :(
 
Remember to also protect yourself against surges from external sources. Have a professional come and check that your buildings wiring is up to code, my village has experienced many surges over the years which have damaged neighbors electrical devices, but so far no surges made it past my homes circuit breakers. Its also a good idea to use surge protectors like this that can protect from surges traveling through phone lines, networks and antennas as well:

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If you have important devices, especially devices containing precious data then BACK IT UP, its also recommended to use uninterruptible power supply (UPS) on such devices.
 
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Guys I had an OCZ 550W power supply that wasn't cheap and I have an APC UPS and surge protector that my computer and monitors are powered off, and my internet line is protected. I think this happened because the power supply overheated from not enough ventilation. The case I have (Rosewill mid tower) has terrible PSU ventilation setup. Needless to say I modified the case prior to rebuilding this time and elevated it off the floor on a stand that I built. That won't happen again.
 
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