Computer sparks, loud bang

It was the culmination of a long series of issues with that machine but was our first encounter with what has become known as the BAD CAPS plague. You can research BAD CAPS to find pictures of what to look for.

The story is just like ours with ours being a bit longer story about blowing out power supplies and after we increased the power supply from a paltry 350W unit to 750 Watts the power supply finally had enough power to blow the BAD CAPS right off the board.
Bob

Sounds as if you were hit by a spike, not unusual after power outage. It is a good idea, when possible, during a power outage to unplug devices such as computers, TV's etc. A surge protector is not necessarily the panacea in these types of incidents. It sounds as if there well may be some major damage, from your description of sound etc. and it might be a good idea to take the unit to a competent shop for advice as to determine damage/repair issues. As far as getting the surge protector manufacturer to cover any damages it might be worth looking into but there is a lot of fine print, ifs and maybes with those devices. In future you might want to look into getting a real APC unit instead of just a surge.

Open PC case and disconnect the HD drive. Replace the PSU. Once all that is done, then power-ON. If you decide to power-ON w/o replacing the PSU and retain the HD as is, you risk corrupting data or worse.

The whole point being you try to minimize any damage. take it one step at a time to see where it leads. However, in cases of lost power and return of it, surges, spikes, unstable grid and all, you risk during the initial time possible future damage besides what may have already happened. You can't place too much trust, as PCs are prone to such damage all to quickly.

tada -----Willy