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Originally posted by Loke666
HPs PSUs are crap and fixing it isn´t worth the work.
Lets instead hope that it didn´t fry the rest of the computer, while it probably didn´t it is not impossible.
Just get a new one, and maybe something good this time? From someone who actually know how to build a PSU like Corsair?
Rule #1: Never buy a brand desktop, they will just sell you old crap components and HP is the worst of them all. If youcan´t build the computer yourself of know the part go down to small geeky computer store and have them help you get one of their prebuilt ones instead, people like that usually have proffesional pride and don´t put whatever crap they can get into the machines.
The best way however is posting a thread here about it, there are plenty of competent people that can find you a lot better stuff for a lower price than what HP and Dell try to sell you.

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+1
If you dont know how to do it, goto that small comp store that sells parts and ask them. Their eyes will light up at you asking them what they think is good/better and why.

Power supplies generally don't overpower a rail when they go they just -stop. with that being said if your mobo fires it can cause component failure, - but I've had ps die on more than one occasion and no problems downline.

 - B916

I had this happen to me once....funny burned plastic smell can only mean one thing ...new power supply.

Originally posted by Ridelynn

All those big cylinder things are called capacitors.
They can store hundreds of volts, for days and months at a time. They store enough power that if you short out the leads with a screwdriver, it will weld the screwdriver to the chassis and vaporize the leads... true story.
Very dangerous to go tinkering around in there.

Aside from that.

Power supplies almost never die alone. When they go (and yours went in glorious spectacular fashion), they almost always take other parts of the computer with it. RAM almost always dies, motherboards are fairly common to die, video cards and hard drives aren't unheard of. CPU's tend to live, but once you need a new motherboard, most of the time that means a new CPU anyway.

You can just replace the power supply and hope for the best, but I wouldn't be surprised if you turn it on and it just sits there black screen, or beeps wildly and never starts up.

 lol cool story :P

 I didn't physically touch anything inside the power supply though, at most took a q-tip to the metal casing I removed from it to take off the caked on dust and just carefully vaccumed around the rest.

 I'm fairly certain it didn't fry anything else atleast, since it was still powering on and was opperating normally. Well apart from stinking anyways lol, I guess I caught it early.

 I havn't had any luck locating an identical power supply around here, so I may not bother at all.

 In the meantime I think I may just upgrade this older PC for a few bucks until I can just afford a new PC. It's from about 2000-2002 if anyone could give some advice or suggestions.

Currently it is:

AMD Athlon XP1800+ 1.54ghz

768MB ram (has 3 slots)

 and that pitiful video card - Nvidia Vanta 16mb

 Easiest would probably be RAM and video card, I think I know what type it needs already but not 100% sure. For RAM it would be DDR1, and video card has to be AGP?

 I've found some parts being sold in local ads, but i'm not entirely sure they will work:

 Two 1GB DDR 400MHz RAM and an AGP ATI Rage 128mb video card.

 A wide selection of AGP Video Cards ( there is a pic  http://truro.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-computer-accessories-AGP-Video-Cards-10-Each-or-50-for-all-W0QQAdIdZ342929332) Not sure what any of them are lol still waiting for them to contact me back.

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Originally posted by just2duh
 I havn't had any luck locating an identical power supply around here, so I may not bother at all.
 In the meantime I think I may just upgrade this older PC for a few bucks until I can just afford a new PC. It's from about 2000-2002 if anyone could give some advice or suggestions.
 
Currently it is:
AMD Athlon XP1800+ 1.54ghz
768MB ram (has 3 slots)
 and that pitiful video card - Nvidia Vanta 16mb
 
 Easiest would probably be RAM and video card, I think I know what type it needs already but not 100% sure. For RAM it would be DDR1, and video card has to be AGP?
 I've found some parts being sold in local ads, but i'm not entirely sure they will work:
 Two 1GB DDR 400MHz RAM and an AGP ATI Rage 128mb video card.
 A wide selection of AGP Video Cards ( there is a pic  http://truro.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-computer-accessories-AGP-Video-Cards-10-Each-or-50-for-all-W0QQAdIdZ342929332) Not sure what any of them are lol still waiting for them to contact me back.

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What are you going to try to do with the PC?

If it's just to get on the web, check email, maybe do some school work - sure, a bit more memory and it'll run Windows XP->Windows 7 fine. (I wouldn't pay a lot for that RAM, but you may be able to find some at a decent price). If you can get at least 2G, you'd be golden, although WinXP will run on 768 with a lot of swap, and Win7 on 1G. You won't get the fancy Aero interface, but that's ok.

If your planning on gaming - just forget it. No amount of upgrading will get that thing to run nearly any DX9 game well.

 Well for the parts mentioned i'd be looking at about $20-30.

 It'd be worth it for that much, but only if they fit/work. That's what i'm concerned about at this point, if they don't then yeah I won't be putting any money into it either.

EDIT: found a little prog called  CPU-Z, it tells you everything about what is in your PC, what it's running at, etc. Those parts look to be the type it uses. May even be able to do some overclocking (if I bother figuring it out lol).

 As far as gaming on it is concerned I probably play old games the most anyways, actually a lot of which I originally played when this rig was brand new (and had it's original GFX card..) haha. 

 20-30 bucks to play most of them again seems alright to me, better than being stuck with nothing for a few months.