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[Mephisto]

Well, there's a way to know for sure if it's PSU. Take the PSU out of this old computer you're using and put it in your new one. I don't think PSUs have changed much since the 90's, but check their stats just to be on the safe side.

That's not exactly accurate. The P4 I bought not too long ago had a wimpy 100w PSU. I needed a new one to be able to use my new video card, so I decided to use one out of an older desktop. It turns out that a P4 has a dedicated power connection that older CPUs didn't need, meaning older PSUs can't power new PCs. Unless you did what I did and rig them up to run in parallel.

[Reasonableman]

Power requirements on newer processors are pretty high, too, not to mention all the other stuff you might have hooked up like hard drives and graphics cards. Most PSU's don't even have the 8 pin CPU power connector you need for some of today's quad cores.

[DJ]

Meh, as long as voltages are correct, you can rig it. And I've never seen a PSU under 300W, which should be plenty for most PCs.

[Reasonableman]

Sometimes, though, it's not. Whatcha really gotta watch out for is the amperage on them thar twelve volt rails.

[KaelGotDwarves]

A serious fail like that is indicative of two things: It's your PSU or mobo.

Power supply units are really dependent on brand and type, NOT wattage. If you're shopping for a new one, don't go nuts on watts. 500 watts is MORE than enough for most people, unless you're ricing up all your shit, crossfire/SLI graphics cards, or wasting tons of energy. MAKE SURE you get a decent/good brand, as fires inside the case are bad.
http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.aspx?i=3413&p=5
or tom's hardware are god places for comparisons.

If it's the motherboard, well, go with an ASUS or GIGABYTE that works with your processor and RAM. This stuff is dirt cheap nowadays (I don't recommend skimping on a motherboard) but you can easily replace those both for less than $100 on newegg.com if you're in the US.

If you need more help, I suppose we can whip up a new build on there and post it. I work at Frys Electronics so I'm always doing these things... Decent systems can be had for cheap nowadays.

[Torak]

A serious fail like that is indicative of two things: It's your PSU or mobo.

My old computer is a factory Compaq SR1820nx with 1 GB of ram and a relatively good Geforce 6600 installed into it, when checking inside the case there was nothing wrong with the motherboard externally such as melting, broken connections, etc, so I highly doubt anything is wrong with it. I haven't taken out the PSU in order to check inside of it for damage, I guess the best thing for me to do would be to go inside of it and check for melted components(?), since the stuff I installed may or may not have, over the years, been slowly overworking it to death.

[Torak]

Update: I've just opened up the PSU, it looks normal, except for this yellow stuff melted onto a bunch of areas, there's enough of it to make me think that it's there because they made it that way, I'm not sure.

[DJ]

How does it smell? You can usually smell it if it's burned out.

[Torak]

It smells like a computer's inner areas, irony, no burnt plastic smell, but that'd probably have gone away after a couple weeks since it originally burned out.

In order to verify, here's some pictures of said 'yellow stuff':

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Fist_Of_Armok]

...Yeah, I got nothin'.

I'll ask a compnut at my school what he has to say.

[Vucar Fikodastesh]

Opening up the PSU and looking inside isn't going to tell you much. It could have any number of problems that would leave no visual indicator. Also opening up a PSU is extremely dangerous, there could be residual charge built up in some of the capacitors. That could like kill you. Dead.

If it is the PSU your best bet at finding out is putting a known good unit in the case and turning it on. If you have another computer you could try that, if they are the same type, AT versus ATX. There is a pretty good chance that your dinosaur uses an AT while your new rig uses ATX.