I don't know what's going on. I was using my eMac, nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, a very loud *POP* from the eMac sounded and the machine turned off. Soon after, a significant smell wafted from the machine, like that of a chip (IC) that had burned up. I'm sure of it, can't mistake that smell. I felt around the case, it's especially warm where the PSU is.

Sadly I had a disc in there still. For that reason and to see what could possibly be wrong all of a sudden with my eMac, I turned it on (after several minutes wait). The eMac still turns on, with monitor and mainboard still working. The Mac OS 9 desktop could still be reached. I got my disc out and turned it off. I was expect it to not turn on at all.

I don't really understand what blew up inside and how it still seemingly functions normally. Is anyone here familiar with iMac hardware failures? I have to fix my eMac of any issue it may have now, or at the very least figure out what blew up. If it's some part of the PSU, that shouldn't be hard to replace... But usually those don't work after they explode. I hope it's not something like the mainboard.

EDIT: Hey wait, there's one thing I didn't consider. Maybe it was a RAM stick. There are two in my eMac. It's one of the only things that could short out catastrophically and still result in the machine turning on and working normally, depending on how the RAM has failed of course.

EDIT 2: Just checked the RAMs, both seemingly look okay and the burnt chip smell doesn't linger on either. The smell emanates from the back, towards the fan and PSU area.