my pc fried. Here is what happened. 1.- Smelled burning electrics 2.- Lost power to the display monitor 3.- Something is shorting inside , when I plug it into the mains, the fan and lights are immediately on , either the on/off switch is stuck or something is shorting inside. What steps do I take to find out which individual part is at fault ?

What i would do and is open up the computer case and this may sound weird but us your nose to see where the burning smell is coming from. Most likely it will be your motherboard but you may notice some discoloration on the motherboard. Next if you don't notice anything on the board i would look to the power supply by swapping it with another. Web Design Barrie

thank u for your reply , I did some tests ,the following devices still work. 1- Hard drive 2- Display card 3- Cd drives At this stage I know that the power supply has definitely been fried , I think I will not be able to find out if the motherboard still works until I swap it over for a working one, so question - Do all PC power supplies give out the same voltage ? meaning I could use any? Number 2 -if I find the motherboard is dead ,can I salvage the CPU ? they are a b---tard to get out , stuck under their little fan- are there any links that shows me how to remove them ? Its a gygabyte motherboard ,but notice that this company have old small ones and the newer ones are a bit larger. The one Im trying to remove is of the large type with 2 levers that loosen the fan, problem is once I push the 2 levers ,the fan only loosen ,but still will not come out when I try to pull it out, any ideas ?