dead

[XWrench3]

well, this is a fine kettle of fish. we had thunder storms move thru the area last night. so before the first lightning bolt flew, i unplugged my desktop ( something i always do ) and disconnected the ethernet cord. frying one computer was enough, so i am probably a bit paranoid. anyway, before unplugging it, i shut it down properly. but tonight, i tried to fire it up, and it is totally dead. i have other things on the same power cord ( printer, fan, light, etc. and all of them work, so i know there is power there. its 10:20pm, so i am not going to try to start diagnosing it tonight. i did wiggle the cord at the back of the p.s., and flipped the power switch to make sure it was not something simple. most of the computer is new (about 2 months old). but i did reuse the old power supply, because according to the calculators, it was enough to power the new build. the p.s. has roughly 4 years of service on it. so it is my prime suspect at this point. so my question is, how do i test a power supply, to see if it is bad? there are so many wires, and i would suspect that if even one of them was dead, it could stop the computer from starting. i also do not know if there are only two coils inside of the supply, or many. i do know there are two voltages, 5 &12vdc. but i dont know if each leg has its own coil to help control amps, or if all of the same voltage legs feed from the same coil. the strange thing, is we had our isp service tech out yesterday because our internet was horrifically slow ( 0.15mb/sec ). he found that the mail line from the power pole to our house was quick fried to a crackly crunch. which i am sure was from the original lightning strike 4 years ago. back then, our isp max speed was 30mb/sec, ( now its 60mb.sec ) and ours was usually between 10 and 20 mb/sec. we are quite a ways from the main road, so i figured that was normal, and just never thought any more about it. before he left, we tested our internet speed, and it was 62mb/sec, and 59mb.sec on the second test on this computer. so it worked the rest of the evening after he left. which was another 3-4 hours. so now that we truly have hi speed, my computer dies, and i can not enjoy it! just my luck.

 

[carnageX]

You can test a power supply fairly easily with just a paper clip.

1. Unplug all internal connections from the PSU to the computer. If you have something like a CD drive or a fan that's able to plug into the PSU directly...leave that. That'll serve as our "load" for the PSU.

2. Unwind the paperclip, and grab the 24pin connector.

3. Make sure the PSU is unplugged and flipped off. Find the Green wire, and any of the black wires. Jumper them together with the paperclip. Plug the PSU in and flip the power switch. It should turn on, and you should be able to open the CD drive (or the fan should spin up).

That's a pretty basic test to see if it's a bad PSU.

 

[Dauntae]

Just a quick try before you start pulling anything apart, try a different power cord, had a customer deliver a system to get fixed for the exact same symptom, Not powering on at all, I set it up on my setup I have for fixing systems and it powers ed right on, his power cord failed so he got it back with a new cord and got his system has been fine ever since.

 

[XWrench3]

thanx, i will try the power cord first, its easier. just out of curiosity, how does a power cord go bad if it looks fine externally?

 

[XWrench3]

its up and running again. but i am not sure its "fixed". it was not the power cord, or the power supply. it has to do with how and where it sits. i pulled the side panel off, but i could not really see anything that said "here i am". there were several open ended power wires, so i put a double wrap of electrical tape over each and every open power wire, and re-routed all of the wires in the front part of the case. its a spaghetti tangled mess in there, because i have so much stuff crammed into such a small case. and all of the extra power wires. hopefully i will not have to move it again. and it will stay running. if it dies again, i will have to just tear it completely down, and start over, making absolutely certain that there is no bare wires anyplace. when my daughter gets a new desktop, i am going to steal her old one, just for the case! this has to be one of the smallest micro atx cases out there, and hers is a large mid atx case.

 

[carnageX]

Could be a short somewhere; possibly even the board shorting against the motherboard tray. .

 

[XWrench3]

i dont think so. it only happens when i press in on the front cover (to start the computer). every time i have it on the work bench, it works PERFECTLY! down in the basement, and in its little cubby that is on the floor, i have to use a small piece of 2x4 to keep the front of the machine out of the carpet, so it can bring in cool air. so it puts kind of a strain on the front cover panel. i can shove the computer all the way in, but it puts a hard kink in many of the cables. so this seems like the best option. other than placing the computer on the top of the desk. when you have 2 teen age kids at home, that is just begging for trouble! i "think" that covering all of the open power cables , along with re-routing the cables should do the trick.