SMOKE from case!

Smoke was coming from my case not too long ago & I haven't used the comfuser since. Today I opened the case to inspect its components. As you can see from the pic below, a SATA connection was cooked.

The SATA was going to my optical drive, so that may be a relief. But even after the SATA is disconnected, it still smokes if I try to start the comfuser. My questions are:
Is there a way to check the rest of the components before I go out to buy a new PSU (which I will do anyways)?
I was thinking of cutting off the burnt SATA connection & twisting the end off into a wire cap, will that work well? I'd like to test the rest of the comfuser just to make sure the PSU is the ONLY item that needs replacing.

Power down the system and flip the switch/unplug the PSU from the back. Hold down the power button on the computer for 10-15 seconds to make sure all the power is drained. Unplug the PSU and take it out. If you have another power supply laying around, use that to plug in the ESSENTIALS and see if it will boot. Probably best to trash the old PSU. If you want help picking one out, let us know what your system configuration is and we can go from there.

If you have another computer at your disposal, or a friend has one, you can test out some components such as drives and cards before you buy another PSU. If not, best way is to just buy another PSU and plug it all up and see what's what.

Paul, I think your problem was not enough case fans! Airflow is an important part of any rig.

Another good reason to go modular