turned on my computer, a while later a really loud bang happened, and a small amount of smoke started coming out of the PSU.

Turned out that an electricity box (out on the street) was hit by lightening !

It affected everybody using that electricity supplier (ESB).
Most people I knew had things like TV’s that were completely broken, and I was near certain that my entire PC was dead.

I decided to try out a new PSU, and suprisingly it worked,no damage to the PC at all !

My old PSU was power surge safe, but I didn’t know that included a bolt of lightening striking an electricity supply box thingy (there green boxes that are outside)

The older your computer gets and the more you use it, the more likely it will be that you will have to replace it, especially if you add peripherals that increase power consumption.

I usually recommend that people replace the power supply in a brand new computer with the best that they can get, and hold on to the one it came with as an emergency replacement part.

I am not looking forward to attempting to replace the one in my 11 year old NEC computer that runs 24/7. Stupid computer has nothing but proprietary parts in it that can be quite difficult to find replacements for. (very compact, low wattage, proprietary connector to motherboard)

I think if it goes, I will probably just give up and put the poor thing out to pasture. Would be a shame though, since it has been quite stable, reliable and has served me (and others) quite well for a very long time. It has outlived all of my other computers. It would be a great loss, even if I had the latest & greatest hardware sitting right next to it, ready to take over. Not to mention the sentimental value of it being my first computer…I cut my teeth on it, wrote my first program on it, designed my first website, etc. It’s like a member of my family to me.

It was a good thing that you had mirrored your data so you were able to get most of it back.