My exploded PSU!

[Guest_imported]

OK, so I don't know if anyone would be able to help me on this, but any help would be gratefully recieved.

A couple of days ago I noticed that my PC was no longer recognising my SCSI CD-Writer, I discovered that when I had moved my PC the day before to plug something in round the back I had managed to loosened my PCI SCSI card (it connects to a sampler, via a lead with little slack - I assume this pulled the card loose).

So, I unplug my PC, ground myself by touching a radiator, open the case and push back into place the loose card. I put the cover back on, reconnect everything, and turn on my PC, it starts to go through the BIOS startup before suddenly: POP! and that nasty burning electrical smell.

Trying to turn on the PC again just brings a high pitched whine, and after unplugging everthing from the PSU, the high pitched whine still occurs if I press the 'on' switch. Taking the PSU out and having a look inside there is what I assume to be a capacitor - electronics is not my strong point - which has exploded (the fuse is intact however!)

So does anyone have any idea what will happen if I put in a new PSU, will this explode again, might I need a new motherboard, should I throw away the PCI card, how can I find out without paying someone a lot of money (which I don't have) to look at it? Or could it simply be a dud PSU (it's about 3 years old).

ATX case with what was a 250 watt PSU
Abit BE6 motherboard
Adaptec SCSI card.

 

[paparazi]

Not that it's gonna help you much but PSU's especially generic low wattage units are amongst the most unreliable components in a modern system.
Because of the ever increasing demands by suppliers to sell cheaper cases the quality of power supplies has taken a nose dive.
It is the most likely component and the symptoms you describe are not uncommon of a PSU failure which may not necessarily have taken anything with it.
Good luck!
Replace with an AMD/Intel recommended unit of higher wattage. Martin Vote if you found this post helpful please!!

 

[HugoGuessit]

I would agree with paparazi, but recommend also that you remove your scsi adapter card first, just in case you also shorted out the pci card slot. Then, if you pop the ps when you put the scsi card back in, you'll know exactly what caused the ps to fry.

 

[Guest_imported]

Thanks for the help guys, I think I'm going to try on a friends spare psu first, and if everything works, I'm going to buy a beefy 350watt for future upgrading (I'm buying a friends dual p3 1gig + motherboard when he upgrades soon - should make a difference to my p3 450!)