[RESOLVED, Sort Of] Possible Component Damage?

[EvilM00s]

Last night I went to complete a pokemon trade. The computer was off, and it took me two restarts to boot it properly.

I was in the middle of a conversation in IRC when the screen went blank, and the monitor indicated no signal. I attempted a restart again, and i smelled ozone and burnt plastic. The restart was incomplete, I assume due to insufficient power.

It seems the PSU has reached the end of its lifespan, I get that... I have another on order. What I have no experience with, though, is what effect this event may have on the other components of the system. What is the likelihood of the rest of the components being damaged from the power loss?

[Roph]

Power loss isn't really a problem. Your biggest worry is probably if you were in the middle of copying some data or something, it might now be corrupt or lost.

Power surges are what you want to worry about, though any (good) PSU designed in the last decade or two does everything it can when blowing up / dying to not send that stuff down the wires to your components.

People are usually too worried about this kind of stuff, turning electrics off in storms etc, buying surge protected plugs (what are fuses, again?). You're probably fine.

Open it up if you like (but don't touch any of the big components, some possibly hold charge), that smell is probably from a blown capacitor or choke.

And don't let Sophist recommend your replacement 

[Sophist]

This should probably work for a replacement:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256054

[strike]

I laughed harder than I probably should have.

also, while roph downplays risk, and isn't incorrect. it never hurts to be safe.

also I would like to say this NEVER OPEN A POWER SUPPLY!
I know that's not what roph was talking about, but better safe than sorry.

pretty much if you pop open the PC case and inspect the motherboard, as long as you don't see any charring, corrosion or blown or bulging capacitors the motherboard is likely fine. but you won't know for sure until you power it back up with the new psu.

[EvilM00s]

Groovy, thanks, dudes!

I looked at the cord from the PSU to the wall; THAT was the funny smell. The plug is melted a little.

Power loss isn't really a problem. Power surges are what you want to worry about, though any (good) PSU designed in the last decade or two does everything it can when blowing up / dying to not send that stuff down the wires to your components.

I thought so, but it's REALLY comforting to hear that from you.

pretty much if you pop open the PC case and inspect the motherboard, as long as you don't see any charring, corrosion or blown or bulging capacitors the motherboard is likely fine. but you won't know for sure until you power it back up with the new psu.

Well, the case has a clear panel, and it doesn't LOOK like there's any damage, but I'll do a proper assessment when I pop it open tomorrow morning.

This should probably work for a replacement:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256054

That looks like a fine replacement for the local power company!

In seriousness, I did get a 500w supply that is more than sufficient from NewEgg. It came in today, but I didn't have the time to mess with it. before I had to go to work. Stay tuned, I'll let you all know tomorrow.

Thank you all for your input!
+reps all around

[EvilM00s]

Oh no. The BIOS is asking me to insert a boot disk or choose a boot device. I can only wonder if windows is broken or if the hard drive is fried.

Shit.

Well, I have some resources, I'll find out soon.

[Sophist]

If you have another HDD, load a unix distribution on it to check and see if it will recognize your harddrive. Your windows partition may have been corrupted.

[EvilM00s]

Alright, I'll give it a shot. Thanks, friend!

[PhoenixFire]

I personally suggest Ubuntu for that. You don't even need a spare HDD. You can run it from a live CD/DVD and load it from there. It can read your drive that way as well.

[EvilM00s]

Good to know!

What I'm doing is this: Checking the HDD on a spare computer a friend of mine has ling around to see if the drive is good or not. If so, I'll try to boot it up in the morning. If not, he's going to recover as much data as he can and put it on an external mount.

Either way, I'll try to re-flash the BIOS from a thunb drive we dlownloaded onto. Jeez, I sure hope this works...

I'll still have to replace my CPU heat sink/fan unit. It stopped working too.

[PhoenixFire]

well damn... you're not having much luck with that thing, are ya? I would simply offer my spare parts box, but you're unfortunately in a different state, and I don't know for certain if my spare stuff would fit yours =p

[EvilM00s]

No, I'm not! But, I suppose the system IS over 6 years old, and replacing it even with cheap stuff is an upgrade. I'll be OK with it as long as the HDD works.

And, uh, if one of your spare fans is compatible with AMD f2+ chipset, well, I'll send you my address!

[EvilM00s]

Bad news. After exhaustive testing, it has been discovered that my motherboard and HDD have both suffered fatal damage.

I am strangely OK witht this; it's going to be a pain in the ass to recover everything I've lost, but it will be nice to start fresh.

As far as my projects, FF IV-II is on Mediafire, and I wasn't so far into Astralis that I can't start over. All my games are on Steam, and All I have to do for Diablo II and II is redownload the programs and/or clients. The X took all my pictures and all my music was pirated to begin with. I can start redownloding all the script demos I had tonight... like I said: it's a pain, but no real big deal.

And, I can get a better system for the same money I spent on the fried egg!

Thanks to everyone who offered solutions. Without you, this would have been a much more difficult process.

[strike]

there are some things i would try doing to the old hdd once you put together the new build.  if you are planning on a custom build roph and I can help.

[EvilM00s]

Well, I thought I could try to replace the circuit board on the HDD with an idetical part and see if that wirked. It's a hail Mary, but hey... it just might work.

And sure, I'll post some of the kits I saw for sale and I'd love your counsel.

[Roph]

Better to build yourself =o

[EvilM00s]

You mean buy the parts individually? It's more expensive that way... If I buy the kit I shave about 100 bux off the price, and I still get to have the fun of assembling it.

[Roph]

What do you mean by kit o_O

Either way, what's your budget? And what parts will you re-use? So say you'd need a new board, CPU, RAM, PSU but you can re-use a case, optical drive, GPU etc

[EvilM00s]

Oh yeah, I'm reusing the 2 optical drives, and the GPU... maybe. 

My budget is about 300 USD. I can go a little higher. Tiger Direct has some barebones kits, bundled parts, if you will, that have more RAM, the motherboard and faster chip, an HDD, a bigger GPU and a better case (mine has damaged front USB ports and now nonfunctional headphone and mike jacks) for less than $250.00. I have an OS waiting for me. Oh and it comes with a fan for the CPU and a nice big power supply... which means I'll have a spare FOR ANYONE WHO MIGHT NEED ONE COUGH COUGH.

The kit I have my eye on is an upgrade in terms of HDD space, RAM, CPU speed and GPU. I'll link it in the morning; I'm at work and the web filter won't let me on TD for some reason.

I've ordered from them before and I was satisfied with their stuff.

[strike]

Well, I thought I could try to replace the circuit board on the HDD with an idetical part and see if that wirked. It's a hail Mary, but hey... it just might work.

that is something that can work, just make sure you've got a good idea what you're doing. The place I work we send out drives if they need to have parts swapped out.

my main question is how did you determine the drive was not readable in windows? if you hook it up and install the trial of http://www.hdsentinel.com/ can you see the drive in the program?

[EvilM00s]

Oh no, I just tossed it in an external HD case and tried to read it off of that. It wasn't readable. I totallty missed that program somehow... Lemme see if that works.

[strike]

it's not a recovery program but it will tell you what's up with that drive if it's still usable in some way. some external enclosures don't have the right gear to read the metadata though. it's more if it can detect the drive it should be recoverable in windows (hopefully).