PSU Dead Power Supply?

Ok, so i come home from work this evening, go to turn my computer on, and as i touch the button, I hear a loud bang and can smell electrical smoke, and the computer does not turn on. I assume this means that the powersupply has given up, and I am just praying it has not taken anything else with it! It is an old Antec True Power 380 Watt PSU.

I tried to test the PSU by doing the old paperclip to short pins 14 and 15 trick, and there was no response from the PSU, which I am guessing means it is fried? I have tried both different sockets, and different kettle leads
AV
I have two questions for you guys, firstly, is there any other relatively easy way to test the PSU? or am i going to have to pull a case power button from somewhere?

Secondly, is this kind of thing covered under a surge protection limited warranty? It was connected to a Belkin AV product with a £100,000 connected warranty.

Anyone have an old spare ATX PSU knocking around ;-) ?

Thanks

Hugh

 

Shorting them pins dose the same thing as pressing as case power button. Im not 100% sure but im pretty sure that they directly wire to the powerbutton on the motherboard. least in one way or another anyway.

sounds like its fried.

That would only be if there was a surge. I would of thought it would just be the psu giving up when you turned it on rather than a surge taking it out.

 

have you any way to check the pc still works? you've gotta hope it didnt take any components with it

 

I know, I am really quite worried about it, sods law was that I had just hooked up my backup drive to do a weekly backup! I need a PSU though!

 

hopefully it will be ok, my psu has died before and my system still worked. look to see if there are any burn marks around the mosfets

 

It's dead. Old Antec PSUs use really crappy capacitors; if you open it up, you'll probably find at least one leaking and maybe another blown apart. On the plus side, your hardware is probably fine - buy a new Corsair, Seasonic or Tagan and you should be good to go - though it won't be covered by your CEW if it isn't.

(Pics are from an Antec True380S that blew up in exactly the same way a few months ago.)

 

so much for purchasing a "good" PSU eh? they were highly recommended back in the day! The sad thing is, the cost of a new PSU would probably be more than the old system's total worth!

 

Probably but they're a good investment as a good one will last years, hopefully.