PCA Forums

Recently opened tower to clean also replaced ram from 96MB(pc100) to 256(pc133).After that I installed windows xp everything was running fine up north, then when I came home I hooked it back up,but I could not remember where the speaker wire or the yellow wire coming from the monitor cable went, I plugged the yellow plug into the jack that said input and the speaker wire into the output jack on the card in one of the bays.
Now I started up the computer I heard the speaker making a crackling noise and could not adjust or control it then about 30mins later I heard a "pop" from the tower, I saw that nothing had changed on the screen but I quickly shut off the power and took the tower to my bench I pulled the cover off the side and was greeted with a burnt plastic like smell, I took off the power supply to see around more, but nothing was obviously wrong, but I could still smell the remnants of the burnt smell, but I could not get a fix from where it came from.
Now I'm freaked out and don't know what to do, if anyone could help I'd appreciate it,thanx.

Well I doubt it had anything to do with the speaker and mic jacks - no way that plugging them in wrong would cause that unless your speakers are defective and there voltage going down the line.

I'm can almost guarantee that the pop and burning are coming from inside the power supply and it's probably toast. However, more than likely a short circuit caused it so swapping the PSU right now may only fry another one.

You said "everything running fine up North" so I assume you traveled with this rig? I'd guess that the rattling it took on the trip loosened something. Maybe a loose screw is wedged under the mobo shorting it out, or a piece of scap metal is on top of the mobo, or fell into a memory slot shorting out some traces.

Could be an un-used power supply connector touched metal somewhere (I've seen this happen many times and that's why I ALWAYS cover unused connectors with a piece of scotch tape.

Okay there were exposed plug in the tower that I have now taped off, do you think I should try to run it and see what happens?

Are you sure that was the problem?

Frankly since I suspect your power supply is toast, I'd be nervous about firing it up and damaging the motherboard. I'd feel more comfortable testing the power supply with a dummy load (it's a tester that allows you to fire up a power supply without connecting it to a motherboard - I carry one in my kit).

If you want to try and test it I would unplug all the drives first and then just briefly turn it on and see if the fans spin. If they do see if the computer POSTS and watch for smoke. First sign of smoke kill it.

I'd really recommend you get someone to look at the power supply to see if that's what burned. Even if it seems to be working, if the PSU is damaged it'll cause you problems down the road.

If you don't have any tech friends then consider taking it to a mom & pop computer store (avoid retail chain stores - they'll rip you off). If you catch them on a slow day they might pop it open right there in front of you and check the PSU real quick.

I'd say if you put your nose right up against the power supply vent (with the power off) and smell something burned you should replace the PSU.