Just wondering... my nephew for some dumb reason flipped the switch on the back of the PSU from 115v to 230v and tried to turn on the computer. not sure if it even came on but after i told him to switch it back his computer locks up occasionally. he said that it mostly does it when he plays a certain 3d game. Has anyone ever had this problem happen and what is the worst case scenerio? thanks

As long as he didn't do it while the PC was on there shouldn't be any damage. Flipping the switch from 115 to 230 is telling the PSU it's getting 230 when it's actually getting 115. So it's outputting lower power to the motherboard which shouldn't hurt anything. If he did it while the PC was running I think any likely damage would first be to the PSU. Beyond that it's hard to speculate. The occasional locking up may be coincidental. But if possible you may want to swap out the PSU if you happen to have a spare.

Thanks for the comment. No it wasnt on. He was moving it from room to room. I still dont have any idea why he flipped that switch though. but anyway, i plan to try the PSU first and then maybe the video card. I just didnt know how PSU's work as far as voltage between the two settings. Thanks for clearing that up, it makes perfect since.

If however you lived in a country such as Australia or UK where the mains voltage is 230-240V and accidentally switched a powersupply to the 115V setting you would very quickly fry something. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

Yup! Even with the system ON, the risk of damaging a component in such a low-to-high voltage switch is negligible but not the same as accidentally doing a reverse (high-to-low) voltage switch.

"after i told him to switch it back his computer locks up occasionally. he said that it mostly does it when he plays a certain 3d game" I doubt the "voltage mishap" has anything to do with the problem. It would help if you listed the system specs & the "certain 3d game" that he's having problems with.

I'm with Jam on this, PS problems don't single out particular games and in any event what you described wouldn't have hurt a thing. I'd concentrate on other possibilities. DerekW