First post, by lowlytech
Had a P4 I rescued. Didn't know anything about it's status. Before powering on I opened it up and there were 3 caps (1500uf 16V) that were bulging (marked in Green). The one cap on the far right was actually popped off it's base and hanging on by a couple of threads, almost like it attempted to blast off. Well got the caps in the right way (triple checked) and I connected up a good power supply and plugged it in and about a second later a huge pop and flash occurred in the yellow square area. After this, when plugging in you get a small CPU fan jerk and nothing. The CPU 12V seems shorted to ground. Didn't notice the 12V on the main ATX harness being shorted to ground, so just something on the CPU side. I looked at this thing for 10 minutes in that area where the spark happened and I don't see any burns or any signs that anything even occurred.
Where is the best place to start to hunt for a short to ground on the 12V cpu line?