vantim
01-24-2007, 02:18 PM
I had a tech call from one of my customers last night. When I answered my phone he said "I'm using my computer in the office and it starting slowing way down, then locked up. Then when I looked up I noticed smoke coming from the back of the tower"
I then told him to shut it down and I'll be right over to take a peeksy at it. Well, when I arrived, he said "yeah, watch...." He then pushed the power button. Next was just short of amazing.....
A flame about 18" long shot out of the back of the PSU. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I ran over and pulled the plug out of the back. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and took aim. I told him to hold on. I couldn't see any fire through the PSU, so I put my hand on the side panel. It was pretty warm but touchable. So I opened up the side and looked.
The CPU cooler had a nice candle flame coming off it. What had happened was... There was a boatload of dust bunnies caked around the cooler, and a fan wire shorted out from being rubbed by the cpu fan. The bunnies started to smolder and smoke came out the back. When he turned it back on the bunnies caught fire and the PSU fan sucked the flame into it, which ignited the bunnies in the PSU and shot the flame out the back like a titan rocket. The CPU fan, ribbon cables, some of the power cables, and one stick of ram just melted. It was truly amazing.
I've never seen one go up in smoke this badly. If I only had a video camera, the look on both our faces must have been truly astonishing. I'll get some pics when I go back. I gave him a backup computer to use until he gets another, but that one is toast. Hopefully the drive is still ok. He had a current backup of the hard drive. At least he practiced what I always preached to him. Backup Backup Backup...
I then told him to shut it down and I'll be right over to take a peeksy at it. Well, when I arrived, he said "yeah, watch...." He then pushed the power button. Next was just short of amazing.....
A flame about 18" long shot out of the back of the PSU. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I ran over and pulled the plug out of the back. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and took aim. I told him to hold on. I couldn't see any fire through the PSU, so I put my hand on the side panel. It was pretty warm but touchable. So I opened up the side and looked.
The CPU cooler had a nice candle flame coming off it. What had happened was... There was a boatload of dust bunnies caked around the cooler, and a fan wire shorted out from being rubbed by the cpu fan. The bunnies started to smolder and smoke came out the back. When he turned it back on the bunnies caught fire and the PSU fan sucked the flame into it, which ignited the bunnies in the PSU and shot the flame out the back like a titan rocket. The CPU fan, ribbon cables, some of the power cables, and one stick of ram just melted. It was truly amazing.
I've never seen one go up in smoke this badly. If I only had a video camera, the look on both our faces must have been truly astonishing. I'll get some pics when I go back. I gave him a backup computer to use until he gets another, but that one is toast. Hopefully the drive is still ok. He had a current backup of the hard drive. At least he practiced what I always preached to him. Backup Backup Backup...