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Capacitor Blowout in Desktop: Is it more than just the PSU
Hey all, it's a sad day when your PC suddenly doesn't turn on.
This morning, I went to turn on my desktop to do an AP comp paper, and nothing happened. Soon after I discovered a mysterious smell coming from the PSU. For months, my PSU (Epower E-series 500w) had been making an odd squealing noise, especially when under stress. Last night actually, the hard drive hiccupped twice; once while idle and again during Black Ops II. Now it's officially given up on me. Upon removing it from my desktop, I noticed chunks of something falling out of the fan grille. Looking inside the PSU I noticed that one of the ceramic-disk capacitors had literally split in half (see picture).
Now the question is, how much damage did it cause? Did this blowout cause unrestricted voltage to go to my mobo and GPU, or did nothing happen to them at all? Should I try to send it in for RMA (this is my second one--first one's fan broke), should I try and fix it, or dump it and get a new one?
Thanks in advance!