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Hi all! Okay, quite a few months ago before I got my new computer, disaster hit my old PC. My brother was playing World of Warcraft and something odd happened. I'm not too sure what, I wasn't there, but I heard a big BANG, so I went to see what had happened. My brother said he turned the PSU off from the switch at the back (it was some old 400W), and it blew up right next to his hand! We got rid of it right away and replaced it with an unused 500W.

We thought that was then end of our problems, but it wasn't. Ever since the PSU blew up, the graphics card kept overheating. It was an ATi Radeon X1650 Pro. I tried everything, new drivers, thorough cleaning etc. Nothing helped at all. It smelled like an iron after a while! We ended up building a new computer, but that old computer is in a cupboard somewhere as a spare with an nVIDIA FX 5200 (rubbish i know, but it works). I've just found out my friend is interested in buying a PC, so I mentioned our old one. I told him it had no graphics card anymore, he said that was fine he'll buy another one. But if i could get the ATi working again, that'd be great and he'd be so pleased!

I looked all over the internet for a fix and came across something called the oven repair? It's to be used as a last resort, you do it when all else fails. It's meant to melt the solders (or something) back into place. All you do is preheat the oven to 200° and cook the GPU for 10 mins. If this fails, you might as well chuck it. I knew the ATi wasn't gonna repair itself, so I had to try. I just did it an hour ago. I'm afraid of testing it though.. two reasons:

1. One of the capacitors seem to be leaking an orange goopy liquid, almost like toffee. maybe acid or something? I don't know if the oven did this or maybe this was the whole problem all along.

2. i don't want to damage the whole PC!

What do you think has happened? What do you think happened to the GPU when the PSU blew up? What's this orange liquid? Is it too dangerous to etst if I'd fix it? Wow this was a long post, I hope people can be bothered to read it and help me. If you read it, thanks for bothering and I hope you can help me! =D

It's possible he might have not switched the PSU off, instead just changing the voltage selector switch. Which would have resulted in epic lulz and likely an explosion.

Don't plug the new card if the capacitor has blown. It likely won't work anyway but chances are that if it does the cap will blow properly and fill your room with acrid smoke.

I'd call it a day.

Bugger, all that effort. Guess I better chuck it away then.

i remember my 1st build of a pc
connected it all up and it didnt even turn on, then seen the red switch on the PSU.... and BOOM
had to go buy another psu

Ah, that sucks! Umm, what does that red switch actually do? =3

Switches the PSU input voltage form 230v to 115v, i think it's 115v anyway.

yeah i think it switches between voltages, blew it anyway lol

anyway i bought 1 which has no voltage switch and monitors it all automatically lol

Oh god. xD