why is it that nothing ever works out... as i was installing a third power supply into my case yesterday i came across a problem... well i already installed an extra 300W one at the front, just cut some parts out of the front to make the cables fit through and installed it at the front, then i tried to make another one fit on the floor between that and back of the case and have the 92mm fan exhausting the heat through the bottom of the case. i had it fitting almost perfectly, there was ~1mm between the side of the power supply and the pci slot, and the same amount of clearance on the other side. but then i couldn't get the power cable to fit, well i found a suitable power cable, and installed her... then i hadda take my 60mm fan off my gf4 cause there wasn't quite enough clearance between that and the power supply... i got her installed perfectly, extremely snug fit. then i tried her out... there were a couple of sparks, and she died! oh how it saddens me, it appears that she had attained a some dust buildup since she's been lying under my bed for a couple of months, (i never thought i'd need her again) and despite my futile efforts to blow off the dust before starting her, she died of dust poisoning. does anybody know how one might go about resurrectiong her? there ain't any noticeable physical damage anywhere but she still won't start, and i'll probably never get a different model of power supply to fit in the hole, and i'll never find a replecement of this model. oh the humanity!
If it was just a quick spark and not a loud bang with a burning smell, it will hopefully just be a fuse. Some PSUs have removeable fuses, others are soldered onto the board. Check the fuses visually or with a multimeter, if they are ok then it could be the fuse in the mains lead.
Just outta curiousity what are you using the third PSU for; you got peltiers in there? (and for that matter why do you have a third if you already have two?!)
well... i added a power supply to the front, but the original power supply died on me when a certain silly sod tried to switch it to 110V to "test the action", but they forgot that it was still plugged into the wall, and it exploded. thing is, that i have a case that takes a non-standard kind of power supply, and so i couldn't just install a new power supply at the back, and so the origional one's still in place, but i'm now stuck with only one actually functional 300W power supply in there, and since i'm having stability probs ATM in various programs, and i wanna rule out the possibility of it being caused by a lack of power, and at the same time be the first person on my block to fit three power supplies in a case that's this bloody small. and since i'm strapped for cash atm, i'm all for it. just this small obstacle in my way.
That doesn't really sound like it was caused by dust. Dust would just lead to overheating. The fact that you had sparks leads me to believe you'd wired something up wrong, or you had something shorting out parts of the PSU.
there was only one spark, and it didn't work after that... it's weird, cause i hadn't changed any wiring in the power supply , just a small amount of modding, and even if you did short the molex out or soming, it'd just turn off, and work again after that. i'm baffled and frustrated at this.
