lots of things can make a pc smoke when you turn it on, and none of them are good if i was you i would unplug it and open the side and look for what it is that was smoking, you will see the discolouration and if your not sure what it is take pics and post links.
It's a yes, BUT they're by no means the only possible cause. If any have leaked, it will be obvious - check. If anything I'd say leaking caps are a lot less likely to cause smoke than a faulty PSU.
I know for a fact it is not the psu because it was a new unit from a working computer. When it lite up the cover was off and could see it was around the fan that was the source. The capacitor is leaking that is obvious what is not obvious is where exactly the huge burst of smoke came from.
If there's a leaky cap, it could be the result of a failed component, not the cause of the smoke - you should still have the PSU tested, transplanting a working unit into a different PC is more likely to cause it to break than it randomly going wrong.
Well, since you don't care to listen to any wisdom about the possibility of the PSU causing the problem, then it is the capacitor. Put your PSU back into the computer it came out of, and see if it blows that one. :wink:
capacitors don't smoke but transistors do. if a capacitor finally lets go then it goes off like a firecracker & blowing the metal casing off & blowing the paper inner core all over the place. the nickname we gave transisters when i was at devry in 80-82 was smoke generators.
thanks for the responses hopefully my friend can get his computer running again. Computer is back up and running it was just the capacitor that caused problems(not the psu).
