Computer do not want to boot. Not even to BIOS.

Big update.

My friend tested my PSU in his PC. Result : PSU blew up. Time to get the warranty kick in for this legacy PSU (according to SilverStone).

Is that a figure of speech (PSU blew up), or are you actually pulling shrapnel out of the walls?

Glad you found the cause so easily!

PSU actually went boom boom (on pressing the power button) and smoke was seen and smelled. In the process, he lost both of his cd/dvd drives and hard drives He endures a big lost atm. Some stuff he had was as old as 10 years. Fortunately, one of his hard drive was on warranty... I doesn't know if he kept the recipe... finger crossed.

Ouch! Sorry to hear that - what a nightmare. I hope he is a very good friend!

What a drag, so sorry for you and your friend. There are lessons here to be learned. Hopefully it only turns out to be money and time lost and not memories and vital data. Keep us advised.

TVeblen said:

Ouch! Sorry to hear that - what a nightmare. I hope he is a very good friend!

He wasn't mad, just VERY downed by that. No one could have expected that the thing would blew up on his PC.

jumanji said:

Terrible. My sympathies to your friend. I think you should send a note to the manufacturer expressing your anger and anguish. Anyting that fails should fail safe. Otherwise it is a pointer to a bad design.

I agree to the fail safe part... but do we wish everything should be like that.

dustywoodworker said:

Actually - when you mixed suspect parts with good parts as a trouble shooting tool - you were asking for trouble. You should have TESTED the PSU without connecting to a computer at all.

How do you know that something other than the PSU caused all that smoke and smell.

As for warranty - GOOD LUCK. You violated the terms of any warranty I have ever read.

How does testing a part void any warranty? I don't understand. And do the companies NEED to know what really happened? I'm sure not.

linnemeyerhere said:

What a drag, so sorry for you and your friend. There are lessons here to be learned. Hopefully it only turns out to be money and time lost and not memories and vital data. Keep us advised.

He hopes that he can change the controller of the 500GB hard drive he has so he can maybe retrieve the data. Like I said to him, that's nowhere near anything I know of. He can only wish someone in town knows how to change it if he can exactly the same HDD model too. The 500GB is actually the one under warranty and the one that has his most precious data.

Anyway, I sent an e-mail yesterday evening to Silverstone... still awaiting a reply.

Still no news from Silverstone... I'm starting to think that they ignored me.

EDIT

They've got some weird return process... I need to fax my form, wait for RMA # then ship it?! Oh and, long distance from Canada to US since they have to free numbers. And I don't have a fax.

So looks like I'll be buying another one. It will be a Xigmatek and bought it from a local shop (was suggested to me) so it'll be problem-free if anything happens during warranty period. Those factor, listed below, discouraged me to get the warranty for my Silverstone :
- Legacy product (according to website)
- Need to Fax to get a RMA. (Fax to US rates apply x2)
- No guarantee I'll get a new one since it's legacy. Otherwise, it'll be repaired and don't want a repaired PSU
- Shipping costs.

So yeah. The Xigmatek will be 700W+ depending of what features I need :
- 8-pin to power mobo
- 2x6-pin PCI-Express for graphic card.
- At least 4 SATA Power cables.
- Modular

Gonna have to pay for that next Monday/Tuesday. If I couldn't have something local, it would had been a Corsair HX750 or Thermaltake Toughpower XT TPX-775M.
Saga ends here.