Best reason for computer failure

[dneprrider]

Recently I had a spectacular computer failure. My Silent AOpen I855GMe-LFS, Pentium M 1.5GHz, GBPVR PC has been running continuously for 1.5 years. I was away recently for a number of weeks and one night the family noticed a funny burning smell, after investigating they couldn't find any noticable buring items.

Well the next day the GBPVR system didn't boot up when the kids tried to use it. I could only attempt so much tech support over the phone from 3000km away. The best remedy was to unplug it from the power and check it out later.

Upon closer examination I found that one chip had basically erupted. That would cause a failure and a nice burnt smell. I had never seen that happen before so I took a pictures just in case others wanted to see what could happen.

Has this happened or similar to anyone else's GBPVR PC?

[HarryH3]

Ahh, you let the smoke out! All IC's are filled with smoke at the factory. If you let the smoke get out, then the IC doesn't work any more.

[bgowland]

Has this happened or similar to anyone else's GBPVR PC?

Not to my PC but I've seen quite a few chips (CPUs included) with similar eruption damage over the years working with electronics and computing.

I even saw a chip erupt in front of my eyes many years ago. It was in my teens and a friend had just finished soldering together some circuit or other. He wired the bare board to his 15V bench PSU but neither of us spotted he had the +/- connections the wrong way around. He reached over the board and flicked the ON switch - it blew a small hole out of the top of the main chip and the residue hit the underside of his forearm. Ouch!

Nearly thirty years on - I wonder if he still has the scar.

Cheers,
Brian

[stustunz]

yeah i wouldnt be using the power supply again without checking it
may not have been the cause but its about the only thing other than a power strike(lightning) that would normally cause something like that

[bdgbill]

I used to work in an electronics factory. My job was testing and repairing huge and sophisticated (for the time) PC boards for Kurzweil electronic pianos.

Quite often when boards were powered up for the first time something would explode. Once, a large capacitor that had been inserted backwards exploded and launched a baseball size fireball across the room which melted through five or more plastic bins before setting the floor covering on fire.

I would guess your Pentium M burned up because the CPU fan failed.

[pastro]

yeah i wouldnt be using the power supply again without checking it
may not have been the cause but its about the only thing other than a power strike(lightning) that would normally cause something like that

That's exactly what happened to a system of mine. Power supply when south, blew up a chip or two on the motherboard, melted the solder off the ram chips (they were in the bottom of the case when I opened it) and wiped out all my drives.
I would be very carefull using that power supply. Test the voltages.

[walt12]

Thats the Southbridge on the board that blew up. If it was a voltage spike then other ICs would have had issues too. More likely it was a bus issue, or something related to the peripherals that are routed off the SB.

[-Oz-]

wow, i've never seen anything like that. Sucky for you but kinda cool.

[Deusxmachina]

I would guess your Pentium M burned up because the CPU fan failed.

Pentiums have always had good thermal shutdown. If the fan fails, normally it will shut itself off if the temps get too high. But, yeah, it's still possible.

[stustunz]

Thats the Southbridge on the board that blew up. If it was a voltage spike then other ICs would have had issues too. More likely it was a bus issue, or something related to the peripherals that are routed off the SB.

bollocks