grr@ my PC

So, a few nights ago, my wife was lookin something up for me on the internet. She found what I was lookin for, then went on to whatever she was lookin for. As soon as her site loaded, she heard a POP. I opened the cabinet that holds the tower, and, sure enough, the warm, tangy smell of blown capacitors, melted resistors, and cooked transformers. Opened the power supply to take a look around, and well, theres one capacitor that blew tiny bits of insulator onto a transformer and a few micro-resistors that fried themselves.

At least it gives me the excuse to throw in a bigger power supply.

Also, thanks Mike and John for helpin me out in trying to figure out which p/s to buy.

Fry's Electronics is the POO! I thought Pricewatch.com had a screamin deal (Mike's words, not mine!) for an AMD 650W p/s for 25 USD, turns out it was a ChiefKing.

Mike steered me toward a product he has used extensively: ThermalTake. Frys had one for 45 USD (after rebate). ThermalTake 500W Frys Electronics

Again, thanks for the help and advice, yall. The p/s should be here in a few days, then we'll be back up and running.

Brands mean a lot when it comes to PSUs. The trusted guys typically have better line conditioning and can hold the loads better.

I just ordered parts for a budget gamer yesterday, but I'm going to need a new PSU. My current one is only a 350w Enermax, I need something up in the 500w range for the new build a future upgrade abilities.

Here's a good deal on one that might be identical to yours: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153052

Newegg.com is the only place I buy PC parts.

No problem, hopefully its just the PSU that is fried. I've had systems that I've worked on and had a blown powersupply, but ended up taken the MB, HDD, etc. with it....

Hey Rick,

Good to hear you got the info you needed. Sorry for not calling you back the other day. Was home visiting the family and it slipped my mind pretty quickly.

Yea, I love Fry's Electronics. They've only let me down once, so I wish there was one closer than the 25-30 minute drive I have to take now.

Rook: I was gonna buy a ChiefKing unit, thinkin it was AMD. Steered away from that pretty darn quick. Bummer I do have a bit of a budget, otherwise I woulda snapped up a 650 Antec or ThermalTake for about 100-125 USD.

Mike: I SURE hope I didnt lose my D: drive. That has SO much information on it that I can never replace. The MB and CPU...eh. Id rather not buy those...AGAIN, but thats not too high on my concern list. C: Drive can fry for all I care. I can buy another and reload all that crap on it later.

John: Not an issue. You were still able to throw some good information my way that I needed, in that very short time we were on the phone. You may also wanna hurry up and post again. You callin down to hell right now. (666 posts) LOL.

More then likely the PSU took the blow... but this is why I recomend a external USB HD that you keep stuff backed up to, cuz drives fail often, and when you have stuff on there that you have to have, you need a backup.

stop scaring me, Mike. That aint nice.

Im goin external HDD shopping right now.

External Drives are very nice... I personally don't have one, but I did mod my xbox and put a 160GB HDD in there so I send all my goodies over to it via FTP.

Before christmas there was some sick deals on ext HD. Should be some good deals still.

Hey, Arc and Bobby: I sure appreciate yall's time and knowledge this weekend.

I should be receiving my PSU tomorrow by DHL, so expect me to be back on here by dinnertime tomorrow.

WHOOHOO!!! My wife just called and told me that my PSU just arrived! I'll be back up and running tonight! she dun made mah day!

honey, you mah hero...

Congrats. Maybe the 'puter will be happy now.

I could only hope.

One thing I noticed about this 'puter is that I hafta remember EVERYTHING I put into this damn thing. I cant say "Oh, yeah, its a Dell OptiPlex 745, and I need a PSU for it..." oh, no, now its: "well, ya see, I bought the MB about a year before the processor, which was about 6 months before the..."

IT WORKS!!! FRANKENSTEIN WORKS!!! Darn these new PSUs and all their extraneous connectors. I barely have any room left for my MB and drives. But I am up and running. Finally.

You just need a bigger case.

LOL, good luck convincing my wife about that