I have a power problem I believe. I've had my same computer now for about 1 1/2, with only minor hardware additions over the time. Last addition months ago. Was playing a game on system when all of a suddenly the power shut off to the system. Not sure but thought heard fan speed up a little but just guessing. Also thought smelt burnt solder. Waited for computer to cool down, but couldn't start it up again - absolutely nothing would happen when tried to turn computer on. So went out a bought new power supply 350w, and attached it all in. Turned on computer it started up for about 5 secs and then shut down again. Again, not sure but thought heard fan speed up and smelt burnt solder being exhausted by one of the fans inside. Attempts to turn power on again result in nothing happening. Any clues, ideas??????

Well. If something is burning up. Then the signs should be obvious. Start taking stuff out and looking at it, until you run up on a burned spot on a board, or a bad cap or a bad mosfet, bad chip? Probably gonna be your motherboard. But i wouldn't rule anything out at this point. And that new power supply is probably toast as well. Good Luck.

Try opening up your power supply and if you see white stuff all over the inside than it's gone. It happened to my power supply when I changed the voltage selctor to 110V while plugged into 240V, I blew up every capacitor in the darn thing. It also wrecked my Mobo, check the RAM slots as they are usually the first to recieve power. On mine there were little black spots over some of the connectors. All in all it was rather fun.

how do you know if the ram and also motherboard is fried??