[elegantlywasted (OP)]

Hey guys, its good to be back but it wont last very long  [] Earlier today my computer exploded (im using one of my roommates right now)

Okay so my computer didnt blow up into millions of little pieces, but it shot out some sparks and possibly short circuited. Now it will not turn on, and I'm stumped for ideas as I know next to nothing about how a computer works. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. []

I will be missing you as tomorrow is the only day that I will have access to a computer, I start spring break on monday. PLEASE OH PLEASE HELP ME!!!

[Karen W.]

So sorry Meg!!! lets hope george or someone sees this and knows someting.
My old one did that but it was fried! some kind of weather related power surge!
Hope it is a easy fix! Good luck!

[BenV]

Explosive computer issues usually start in the Power Supply Unit (PSU).  The PSU is the bit that takes mains power, and distributes it to the component in the pc. These are pretty easy to replace, and not too expensive, but in the process of failing could have damaged other components.

Herein lies a problem - if it wasn't a PSU fault, a dodgy component will cause your shiny new PSU to break, but it's hard to test these things out at home without a new PSU.

Whereabouts did the sparks come from?

[another_someone]

Dramatic sparks will almost always involve a capacitor somewhere, which means either, as Ben suggested, the PSU, or the motherboard (or even the failure in one bringing down the other).

Unless you are doing the work yourself, or have some tame technician who can do the work for you, I suspect it is one of those cases where the cost of fixing it exceeds the cost of a new machine.

[elegantlywasted (OP)]

The sparks came from somewhere behind the computer. I'm not exactly sure...

I am completley inept at fixing tech like things so I will definatly be getting a pro to look at it. Thanks for all the input guys, as much as I dont want to hear any bad news... and being a student, I can't really afford a new computer right yet... oh the joys of my life []

[lyner]

Look for the 'brown bits'. That can give you a good clue about which part actually went wrong. Your data is probably quite intact.

[another_someone]

Look for the 'brown bits'. That can give you a good clue about which part actually went wrong. Your data is probably quite intact.

The data is probably in tact, but unless someone is willing to open up the machine (and Meg does not strike me as a girl with a screwdriver - although I may be underestimating her range of skills), it could get expensive to get someone to recover that data (ofcourse, the other problem is, if there is anything sensitive in the data, you want to be careful about how you dispose of it).

[ukmicky]

I would get someone like a friend to look at it before purchasing a new pc because if it turned out to be the power supply a cheap new one can be had for £15 and they only take 10 minutes to replace.

Data wise the chances are the hard drive will have suffered no damage and the data will not be corrupted allowing you to simply repair PSU etc and continue with the pc's use or remove the hard drive (4 mounting screws ,one pull apart data connector and one pull apart power connection) and simply plug it into a new pc or a freinds using his pc's  spare internal mounts and connectors.

[JimBob]

Meg, All you need is a nerd friend to try to figure it out. I am sure there is one lurking around somewhere. Computers are not that illogical. Find that friend, get your friend or the person you are taking advantage of, and they can at least take out the hard dives and see if there is any data still left. You can get inexpensive IDE drives these days - I have two sitting on my desk for backups and file storage, one 250 gig and one 500 gig and neither cost me over $150 US.

[Professor Gaarder]

Alternately, to prevent this in the future (which I doubt, but I worry about my XP as much as the next nerd) you could get a four gb flash drive pretty cheap. I use one, and I'm actually realizing that that's a lot of space.

[elegantlywasted (OP)]

Ok so good news! Turns out my computer is fine, its the power bar I had my computer hooked up to, so thats a sigh of relief. Thank you all for your help!

Oh and George, I have a full tool box, screwdriver included... I even have a drill []

[Karen W.]

 YAYYYYYYYYYYY!! Glad you fixed it Meg! 

[another_someone]

Alternately, to prevent this in the future (which I doubt, but I worry about my XP as much as the next nerd) you could get a four gb flash drive pretty cheap. I use one, and I'm actually realizing that that's a lot of space.

Flash drives are not designed for intensive usage - they have a limited number of read/write cycles before they will fail.  Not a problem if you are just backing up to them, but ought not to be your primary online storage device (I know this is one of the question marks over the XO, as that is designed to use flash drives for their primary storage medium).

[Professor Gaarder]

Ah, well.