Was working on a paper this morning and suddenly my desktop computer powered off by itself. This is a Q6600 machine that I built a few years ago and has been in nearly constant use since then with little to no trouble. It's been rock-sold and aside from upgrading the video card a year ago I haven't had to touch it.
I waited a few seconds, then hit the power button. It came back on briefly and then shut off again, followed by the smell of overheated electronics. Disconnected the power and opened it up. Nothing was visibly smoking. Took everything apart. Inspected the CPU and it appeared ok. Replaced the thermal compound and re-seated the heatsink. Smell appeared to be coming from the power supply but I can't be positive. Put the bare essentials backtogether (CPU, RAM, video card) and powered it back on. Getting a variety of beep and error codes from the on-board diagnostic unit. At first there was a 1 long, 3 short beep code for the RAM . Reseated and it's gone. POST sequence was hanging on 8.7. (Check CPU Voltage) and now it's hanging on 8.2. (Check Power Supply). I get the sense that perhaps the power supply went bad. However, I really can't afford to be down on this system very long, so if I'm going to order parts I want to do it as soon as possible and not go through a long trouble-shooting process. Thoughts from the collective? Is it likely that if the power supply is indeed the culprit that the damage was contained there? Or should I be worried about the CPU, RAM, mobo, etc? --------- Brian
