[SOLVED] Explosion like sound from the pc

[kokotas]

Hello there,

This is a rig I built back in 2015 and I have given to a friend to use a month ago. I know they had spring cleaning the day before but that shouldn't matter as it had worked perfectly for many hours before this happened. Note that they have many devices on the same power line, so that day it's possible that the limit was exceeded.

The noise happened while gaming, and it was a dull loud short noise like something had popped. The computer froze completely and I had to turn off the psu. After a restart there was no video output, but I'm not sure if it was posting at all.

I held the power button while the psu was turned off to discharge the capacitors and that's how I was able to get video output and log in windows. After a while there was another loud grinding but continuous noise this time.

I followed the previous process again and I logged back to windows. Only to get to a blue screen of death when trying to load the game again.

I entered bios to undo an old stable OC, left only xmp.

Removed rams and tested ram dims and sockets using memtest. Everything was fine.

Tried to render a 3d model on maya loading the gpu and the computer froze up in 10 minutes.

I removed xmp and retried the render but at that point I had to leave.

What do you guys think is happening here. Surely this must sound like a psu issue due to bad power but I'm worried if this has affected the mobo in any way.

thanks in advance and sorry for the long read...

edit: psu is a titanium rated 850w evga supernova.

 

[Math Geek]

a popping sound like that is usually a capacitor blowing. though it can be other things as well.

you should stop powering it on until you know what the problem is. inspect the motherboard for any obvious blown parts. both sides need to be visually inspected. while it is apart, inspect the gpu as well for any blown caps or other obvious damage. any other add-on cards should also be inspected for any damage. basically you are trying to rule out everything but the psu.

if all looks ok, then the next step is to try a different known working psu. buy a new one, use an old one, steal one from another working rig. whatever you have to do so you can see if that fixes the issue. popping, grinding and other noises are never a good sign and need to be thoroughly investigated. with the psu out of the system, look through the holes to check for any obvious damage there. you won't see everything but often you can see enough to se clear damage. you can't fix the psu but if all works with a different one, then you know the psu is dead and ready for the scrap heap.

 

[kokotas]

Thank you for the thorough reply! I won't be able to be at my friend's house again soon due to the lockdown but I will make sure to take it apart and look for blown capacitors. I will post any update as soon as possible.

 

[kokotas]

Friend told me that he got another random blue screen while playing football manager last night. He will bring the pc over to my house so that I can have a look at all the components.

At this point, with the availability in psus being so limited, I'm thinking of getting a 450/500w bronze rated one by a reputable maker along with a 650/700va ups and call it a day. IF I don't see anything blown on the motherboard or gpu that is.

Edit: What is the possibility of the psu randomly going bad and blowing a capacitor? I remind you that this is a premium titanium rated psu that has been working perfectly for 5 years in MY house. One month at my friend's house and this happens...

I know that when they turn on both AC's, the circuit breaker switches off so the pc turns off as well as it is connected to the same power line. Thing is at that day they had two heaters on, but the circuit breaker didn't switch off.

With that said one more question comes to mind. Is it possible that because of the heavy load, the psu asked for a little bit more power which the line could not deliver and as such it caused the psu blowing a capacitor without triggering the circuit breaker?

 

[kokotas]

Well, took everything apart... Motherboard had burn marks around the vrm's, so bye bye. Everything else looked good though. I'll have to change the psu as well for good measure I guess.

It will be fun looking for a z170/z270 board lol