I have a bit of a unique problem here, a smoking comp problem...My dad was going to use the family comp (a K6-400), and he presses the power button to turn it on. Normal same old thing right? Nottttt today! My dad said that the instant he pressed the power button, the whole comp let off a lot of smoke and died making clicking sounds (suspecting mobo failure). It would not even show any sign of life after that. I wasnt there to witness this...but I am hoping that its the power supply. But what about the smoke??? (I smelt it, it smells like something caught fire!) I know THAT never happened before when a power supply failed.Ok help me out here, nobody touched the internals. Nobody messed with settings. That power supply was just put in a month ago, and it was working just fine (Voltages right where they were supposed to be, and the fan was indeed working).In case you wanted to know, the system specs are (not my machine):VIA MVP3 motherboardAGI 230W Power supplyAMD K6-II 400 MHz192MB RAM (64MB+128MB)Voodoo Banshee 16MBAny help is appreciated. I'm clueless, theres no way that power supply would of smoked like that, and I cant test anything....

Nothing is certain, but it is quite probable that it is the power supply what smoked. Especially if it was recently installed.... many components that fail, will fail very early in their life. If there was smoke, you will almost certainly be able to see a heat-darkened component. Check the mobo (and the video board, disks... etc.) carefully for such. If you find one, it will mean repair/replacement of that board.You do not want to disassemble the power supply if it is on warranty, but you may be able to see the evidence of darkening, even without disassembling. If you cannot find a darkened component on any of the boards, you might try booting up with another working power supply right now, if you can get one. If it WAS something on the mobo, it is unlikely that you will damage it beyond what has already been damaged. If it boots up with no problem, it will answer the power-supply question immediately.Art.

wouldn't cost much to rule out power supply...that's the most vulnerable part during a transient surge...B

I can do that, since I can swipe a power supply from one of my older machines pretty easily. Its a AT power supply, and I got a few of those in my house. I got a 275W power supply inside my little 486 box, that ought to work (used to be in a Pentium 200 system LOL). Its gonna be semi difficult in this computer though...since its a tiny baby AT and everything is very cramped inside that case.

>I can do that, [snip]...since its a tiny baby AT and >everything is very cramped inside that case. Is this an old case that has up upgraded with a new power supply, mobo, cpu???If so, the "cramped" may be a clue to your problem. As you get into these gigahertz machines, the heat is getting up there, and you may have had a component fail after a month of excessive heat. You may need to consider a new, modern-design case.Art.