First major setback

[seanp]

Well, I've had some ups and downs, but had my first MAME cabinet working pretty well.  I have a fighter-style control panel in a Berzerk cabinet (long past recoverable - I only know the model because Eyedoc told me about it when I got it from him).  I found a coindoor on Ebay for cheap, and was wiring some lightbulbs to the computer power supply.  In my eagerness to see if they worked, I didn't tape off the wires...  well Murphy's law, they touched, and the whole computer went dark.  As best I can tell, I blew the power supply.  Hopefully everything else survived...  I haven't had the heart to pull everything out, swap the supply, and try to power it up.

I don't really have a question, just wanted to share my pain.  STUPID STUPID STUPID.  Be carefull with electricity, boys and girls.  This is why I don't mess with arcade monitors.   

-Sean

[paigeoliver]

I have shorted +5 in a computer multiple times in the past. Sometimes the power supply will actually start working again in a short period of time, the times it didn't it turned out everything else was still good.

[RayB]

It will depend on the power supply. Some PSU's will shut down when shorted, rather than get damaged. I learned when I went and cut off a small fan's wires while the PC was power up. Didn't occur to me that my pocketknife would bridge the two wires! DUH! The PC immediately turned off (and of course i got that sinking feeling) but it booted back up just fine. (Power supply is a high-end newish P4 style one)

[Hoagie_one]

you have a ghost in your computer, sell it on Ebay for thousands

[daywane]

you also might get lucky and find a blown fuse inside of power supply.
I did.
see we all ahve had our head up there also.

[seanp]

I'll try swapping the power supply tonight.  I tried turning the computer back on this morning, and still got nothing.  I did realize today though that I haven't checked the surge protector... 

Luckily I have a spare power supply ready to go if needed.  I just didn't have the heart last night to attempt it - I just sat there looking stunned at the machine...   

Thanks for the help guys!
-Sean

[hatrick]

Just another vote of confidence here...
It is most likely just the power supply and nothing else. I've found they are usaully protected very well and are designed to be the weak electrical link to protect your mobo.
I've done a few dumb things on PC's and the Power supply always saved me. I actually managed to press down on a mobo to make sure something was seated all the way and shorted the back of the mobo to the PC case. PC shut down and I thought I was screwed. Flicked the power switch and everything worked fine.

So to make a long post short, if you fried anything, it probably was just your power supply. 

[PaulG]

It will depend on the power supply. Some PSU's will shut down when shorted, rather than get damaged. I learned when I went and cut off a small fan's wires while the PC was power up. Didn't occur to me that my pocketknife would bridge the two wires! DUH! The PC immediately turned off (and of course i got that sinking feeling) but it booted back up just fine. (Power supply is a high-end newish P4 style one)

Ah, carelessness around fans.  I can relate to that.  About a year ago I bought some Panaflos to replace some old Antecs.  Well, for some reason, my brain was not getting how to replace the bare leads with the 4 pin (AT) connections I bought for them.  Anyways, I kept dicking around trying to merge the leads with the adaptor I bought (Instead of completely replacing) and finially got impatient and start seeing if my handiwork had worked.  Installed one of the fans and it worked.  But the wires were loose and it was kinda shorting in and out (But I was hot and irritated and didn't have the sense to shut down and rethink what I was doing).  Well, finially, the original wire on the fan and the replacement cable I bought came loose, had an "incident", and the wires literally ignited like a fuse on a firecracker.  I still don't know what I did, but I'm pretty sure I grabbed the fan and ripped it out as quickly as possible and threw it.  I then either quickly hit the power switch or it shorted out.  But the 2 wire threads were completely melted into one another, the room stunk to high heaven, and I was sure I killed components in mass.  When I made sure everything was where it was supposed to be and hit the power button, however, I was completely amazed to see everything was still working.

[vader]

SMOKIN!!!!

[JackTucky]

I posted same problem in everything else forum last week.  I waited about 45 minutes, and everything was ok after that.

hope it works out for you.

art