- 2,809
- LoomRock, CA
- GTP_LeftyWright
I recently blew the dust out of my computer and killed it. It was one of the strangest outcomes to what is said to be an important maintenance step. Well it had been a rather long time between bj’s for my computer, when I opened it up and looked inside it was lights and sirens. The dust was everywhere and it was deep. I couldn’t imagine that those little compressed air cans would stand a chance so I took her out to my work shop for the big air experience. When I hit the trigger on the air nozzle all hell broke loose I had to dive for the particle mask and eye protection. After about 2 or 3 minutes I started making some headway and could see all those expensive gadgets that I so carefully installed 2 years ago. Dust was in every crack and crevice, it had super glued to every fan blade of every one of the five fans, so I letum have it and those things never spun so fast (probably not the smartest thing to do) I kind of got carried away and then I hit the power supply. It was like a dust bomb exploded, with out pulling it out and carefully revealing it’s tender innards and using some discretion I let her fly. I finally got all the evil out of my big box and back to the house to fire her up and once again experience the joys of modern technology.
When I fired it up I didn’t get any video feed to my monitor. I was blind and couldn’t see anything happening from my baby. I heard all kinds of fan activity but nothing on the screen, I knew I was in trouble. The obvious call would be that the video card was bad but that was a stretch. So I focused in on the power supply, I knew it was a cheep one that I paid only about 50 bucks for when the good ones were twice that much. So from my other post where I had been trying to brainstorm on how to crank this thing to the max, I figured that if it was the video card well no biggie it was going to get replaced anyway.
I needed to know for sure that the PS was the culprit. I got a suggestion from a forum member on how to interrogate the PS but mine was a 24 pin ATX and not a 20 pin. I needed the exact road map to the main power connection to the MOBO. I found the manual for the MOBO so I was at least confident that I had the correct power distribution for the PS. I read the link that “nick09” provided and the one thing that jumped out at me was that the fan on the PS had to be running when the connector was attached to the MOBO and the power was provided to it. This is where my inexperience shows its self. Nothing I read told me that the main power on the front on the box had to be turned on or not, so I tried it both ways. The fan wouldn’t turn on either way but when I would turn on the computer all the fans except the one on the PS would turn on.
Everything sounded good when the fans were on but that was just a placebo not knowing if there was any power going to the MOBO. I started probing the main connection and couldn’t find any power there, so I took my VOM out to the car and made sure that the thing was reading 12v DC correctly and it was. I returned to the problem child and probed her again and still nothing. I probed it w/ the computer off and the little switch in the back of the PS turned to the on position and got nothing. I probed it with the computer on and listening to my 5 fans and the CPU fan spinning and still nothing.
So to make a conclusion from a novice computer problem investigator my best guess is that the new ANTEC 650w PS is the correct call. If anyone wants to add their 2 cents before I open the box and commit to owning the thing it would be greatly appreciated……. Thanks
When I fired it up I didn’t get any video feed to my monitor. I was blind and couldn’t see anything happening from my baby. I heard all kinds of fan activity but nothing on the screen, I knew I was in trouble. The obvious call would be that the video card was bad but that was a stretch. So I focused in on the power supply, I knew it was a cheep one that I paid only about 50 bucks for when the good ones were twice that much. So from my other post where I had been trying to brainstorm on how to crank this thing to the max, I figured that if it was the video card well no biggie it was going to get replaced anyway.
I needed to know for sure that the PS was the culprit. I got a suggestion from a forum member on how to interrogate the PS but mine was a 24 pin ATX and not a 20 pin. I needed the exact road map to the main power connection to the MOBO. I found the manual for the MOBO so I was at least confident that I had the correct power distribution for the PS. I read the link that “nick09” provided and the one thing that jumped out at me was that the fan on the PS had to be running when the connector was attached to the MOBO and the power was provided to it. This is where my inexperience shows its self. Nothing I read told me that the main power on the front on the box had to be turned on or not, so I tried it both ways. The fan wouldn’t turn on either way but when I would turn on the computer all the fans except the one on the PS would turn on.
Everything sounded good when the fans were on but that was just a placebo not knowing if there was any power going to the MOBO. I started probing the main connection and couldn’t find any power there, so I took my VOM out to the car and made sure that the thing was reading 12v DC correctly and it was. I returned to the problem child and probed her again and still nothing. I probed it w/ the computer off and the little switch in the back of the PS turned to the on position and got nothing. I probed it with the computer on and listening to my 5 fans and the CPU fan spinning and still nothing.
So to make a conclusion from a novice computer problem investigator my best guess is that the new ANTEC 650w PS is the correct call. If anyone wants to add their 2 cents before I open the box and commit to owning the thing it would be greatly appreciated……. Thanks
