Found a roasted power supply in a client's office last Tuesday

I was swapping out an old Dell Optiplex for a small law firm in Austin, and when I pulled the tower out from under the desk, the power supply vent was completely caked in dust. Took the side panel off and the fan was seized, the whole unit was discolored like it had been running hot for months. The guy said he'd been getting random shutdowns for like 3 weeks and just assumed it was Windows updates. Has anyone else run into a PSU that looked totally fine from the outside but was toast inside?

3 comments

3 Comments

daniel_lane3020d ago

Hang on, I gotta push back a little bit here. I've seen plenty of PSUs that look like they were used as ashtrays and they still work fine for years. Sure, dust is gross and you should clean it out, but a seized fan doesn't automatically mean the unit is about to explode or catch fire. Most of those older power supplies have thermal protection built in, they'll just shut off before anything really bad happens. The guy probably wasn't in any real danger, he just needed to blow the dust out and maybe replace a cheap fan.

diana2021d ago

OH MAN that is WILD. I practically gasped when you said he blamed it on Windows updates for THREE WEEKS while the thing was clearly cooking itself alive. I had a client once who said their PC was "just being slow" and when I opened it up the PSU fan was completely welded to the frame from all the heat. The dust was like a solid brick of lint and cat hair. How do people not SMELL that burning electronics smell before it gets to that point?

holly_walker7621d ago

Before this I thought people overreacted about PSU dust but now I always check those vents first.