I came home from work early so I could sit at my computer and just type without the distractions of the work place. I was sitting, typing when I heard a "pop". Sounded like a pop gun. Odd. I looked around. I looked outside the window. Nothing there. Well, back to work.

A few minutes later, the computer started going "found new hardware", "hardware disconnected", "found new hardware", "hardware disconnected" with beeps and bells and the little popup from the toolbar. I was scratching my head over this when I noticed smoke. Smoke!! White billowy smoke coming out of the back of the PC chassis!! ACK!!! I jump under the table and unplug the computer.

I'm not sure exactly what happened. The "pop" could have been one of the much discussed reports of bad capacitors on motherboards and some of the capacitor are bulging and leaking . But the smoke came from my ATI All-In-Wonder card melting itself into it's AGP socket . Serious short circuilt.

Well, off to get a new motherboard. Look out of you have a motherboard from 2002.