2

I bought a new PC, I had it on for about an hour, and it went POP and I smelt burning, it instantly turned off. I have not been able to turn it on since.

The problem is, I had other hardware in there, like an EMU 1820m soundcard (expensive) and a 500gb hdd.

If the PSU was faulty and fried my other hardware, does the vendor have to replace it? What about data loss on the HDD if that is gone?

I'm in the UK if it makes a difference.

Improve this question
  • This is pretty location specific. Your country definitely makes the difference. For example here in Finland vendor do not have to pay, unless they knew it's faulty and anyway sold it. – Olli Feb 27 '11 at 17:08
  • Which PSU had you installed in it? Not one of those so called "budget" PSUs I hope. – vvsraju Feb 27 '11 at 17:10
  • @xubz it was a budget psu sold with mobo + case assembled – Tom Gullen Feb 27 '11 at 17:29
  • Also it was a seperate parts system, not prebuilt, I assembled it all myself. All the new parts where from same company – Tom Gullen Feb 27 '11 at 17:30
  • 1
    Ouch! I think this is the risk you take with cheap PSU's, but if the other components are still under warranty you may get lucky. – Phoshi Feb 27 '11 at 17:43
3

Was the computer a whitebox system or a system from Dell, HP etc?

Im guessing, that if it was a propriety system (from Dell or other), that you cannot claim replacement of "other" parts that you have included into the system yourself. Essentially you have broken their warranty agreement by opening the case. If it were a whitebox vendor, then you may have a chance. If you built the system yourself, you can only try with the supplier.

As a business owner I would question you on the procedure you performed to add in the parts and many other surroundings. I would maybe offer you a service to recover data, but would charge you.

It becomes a very hard issue to prove or disprove that your parts didn't cause the shortage.

I'm from Australia, where our laws are pretty close. You then have to contend with, questions such as , was your system plugged into a surge protector, what is the power like in your house. Im pretty sure proprietary vendors will state in their fine print that your should use surge protectors etc.

Very hard question to answer. In the short term I would say NO. No replacements, no data recovery. They may offer replacement of power supply and original components. To use an anaolgy, if you put a turbo on a car and engine blew because its water system wasnt up to speed, who do you blame.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.