I’ve done something incredibly stupid – I switched the red switch on the back of my PC power pack from 230V to 115V and it blew.
I took it to PC world who have have replaced the power pack and it still doesn’t work – have I fried the whole of the insides? If I have, does that mean that the data on the hard drive is lost? Still can’t believe I did it……

I managed to do that with one of my PCs. Fortunately a new power supply was all I needed.

It’s hard to know quite what has happened, but it might be worth checking that the new power supply in turned on (some have on/off switches) and that the supply is properly connected to the motherboard (when you press the power button on the PC case it’s picked up by the motherboard which then signals the power supply to power up). There should be a small bank of pins on the motherboard which various bits of kit (such as the power supply, harddrive light and power button) connect to.

It the motherboard is dead you’ll need to fit the harddrive into another machine to see what’s one it, it may well be ok.

Well, it’s in the hands of the people at PC world now.
If it’s totally knackered, then a new PC would probably be cheaper than fixing it.

Well, it’s in the hands of the people at PC world now.

Oh dear god.

if it’s not powering up even after a new power supply chances are the motherboard has been fried. Your hard drive should be ok though.

but you should be taking regular backups of your computer anyway.

try http://www.backblaze.com or some such service…but everyone must learn the hard way…i did.

If the hard drive isn’t knackered you should be able to get the data off it…

Have you reset the CMOS jumper on the motherboard?

Have you tried something simple like the cable plug fuse on your kettle plug?

The voltage is converted and gives pc 12 volts and whatever amps.

Tripping the switch alters the converter.

The supply might blow but your board should be ok.

Check you have the correct cables plugged into your mobo too.

Err. Why?

So feeding a power supply’s 115v windings with 230v won’t cause the DC output to go “doolally” and fry the motherboard then?

I’d say it’s quite possible something got cooked. It depends on the overvoltage protection in the PS. Can believe they don’t all come with autoswitch PS’s these days anyway.

Good luck with PC World. The last place I would take my PC for repair.

(I fix most things myself seeing as I spent 20 plus years fixing IBM Mainframes and Midrange systems for a living)