[Cialug] Burned out power supply

[murraymckee at wellsfargo.com]

I bought a new computer 2 1/2 years ago, summer '07.  After 18 months, about Christmas time '08, the power supply went out (smoke rises from the back of the computer) and fried the mother board.  This Christmas ('09) the same thing happened again.  (Well, almost.  There was an electrical hot smell and I went over and powered down the computer.  It was running fine at the time and shut down normally.  I thought I'd gotten it down before the mother board was damaged, but apparently no such luck.)  A new power supply didn't solve the problem.  (It wouldn't even boot far enough to display the info about what is connected that is displayed before the OS is engaged.)  With both a new mobo and power supply and I'm back in business again.

I run this computer 24 X 7 to record some radio shows and put them on an MP3 player for my wife to listen to when she has the time.  

There is not a lot in this system.  1 CD/DVD writer, a 3 1/4 floppy, and 1 hard drive.  Well, physically there are two hard drives, but the second one is not connected to either the power or data cables.  I do have a modem board in a slot.  (We live out in the country so no cable or DSL available.)  Other than the connectors built into the mother board, that's all that is in the box.  

On the outside there is a keyboard & mouse, the USB radio for the afore mentioned recordings (when ever I've touched it the USB memory stick sized device has felt like room temperature), and a parallel printer plugged into the parallel port.  Oh yes, speakers and microphone are plugged in.  And the USB MP3 player is plugged in to transfer the data and recharge the battery about 1 night a week.

I'm not seeing anything that appears to me to be a big power user here.  The case has room for several more 3 1/4 hard drives and 2 more 5 1/2 drives.  (OK, capacity and ability are not necessarily the same thing.)  But one of each shouldn't be beyond what is expected of a machine like this.

Aren't power supplies capable of running for more than a year?  Yes, I replaced the surge suppressor power strip when I replaced the power supply the first time.

The first one may have been my fault as there was a fair collection of lint over the air inlet grill of the computer which obviously restricted the air flow, but I've been vacuuming it off every three or four months since the first time I replaced the power supply and there has never been any significant accumulation this time.  While not pristine, there wasn't much dust and lint inside the case either when I opened it up.

What can I do to prevent the power supply from burning out again?

Thanks,

Murray McKee 
Operating Systems Engineer
WFFIS - Wells Fargo Financial Information Systems 
800 Walnut Street
MAC F4030-037
Des Moines, IA 50309-3605
WORK (515)557-6127 Cell (NEW) (515) 343-6630  FAX (515) 557-6046
MurrayMcKee at WellsFargo.com 
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