Pop! goes the PC.

One of your end-users called with a problem; when working on their PC, they heard a small “pop” and the screen went dark and all of the lights on the front panel of the computer went dark. There was no visible smoke, but there was a subtle burning smell. What are the next steps for troubleshooting this problem?

A) The most common failure of a moving part inside of a computer is the hard drive. Replace the hard drive and try powering on the system.

B) Restore the operating system from the original installation media.

C) Use a multimeter to test the power connections from the wall outlet, into the power supply, and onto the motherboard.

D) The cost involved in troubleshooting the problem would be too expensive to justify. Replace the entire system with a new computer.