Well, the power supply in our kitchen PC croaked. It took me a while to figure it out. The screen got a little jumpy so I rebooted it. When it came time to load windows after passing the bios, it shut itself off instead. I tried to turn it on, but it would not respond. The activity light on the NIC was lit, so I figured it had good power.
I unplugged it and waited 10 seconds, then plugged it back in. It powered on, got through the bios and began loading windows. It then powered itself off. DANG!
I unplugged it and plugged it in again, and booted to the bios setup. It stayed on just fine while in the bios. I booted to a floppy, and it stayed on just fine. I tried to boot to the hard drive, and again it powered off as soon as windows began loading. UUUGGGHHHH.
I figured maybe it was the image on the hard drive corrupted, so I booted to the network, launched Ghost and brought down my backup image. It rebooted after completing the reimage, and once again powered itself off while trying to load the OS. GGGRRRR
I got to thinking about how the PS needed to be reset after each attempt by unplugging it and plugging it back in again. It became possible to me that the problem was the PS. I did some research on the net and confirmed. I decided to dissect the PS and see if I could ID a problem with it.
After removing the guts of the PS from its metal box, the answer was apparent. One of the capacitors was bulging and the plastic wrapper on it was melted off one side. I gave a gentle tug on it and the entire thing fell apart. The metal sheath easily came off exposing the cardboard like guts, and it was a mess, and obviously defective.
I went to CompUSA to look for a replacement. The only baby ATX PS they had was the wrong configuration and overpriced at $69.99. I ended up ordering one off Newegg.com for $19.99. Are those guys at CompUSA on crack?
So, when windows loads it must signal the PS to kick in some sort of current change which was causing the PS to fail on the bad capacitor. Go figure.
I think it failed due to overheating aggravating that bad capacitor. That PC was packed with cat hair due to its location. It sits on the floor in our pantry and all the cat hair from off the hard floor in the kitchen must waft that direction and get sucked up by the case fan. It was pretty gross. I’ll need to make myself a note to blow it out every once in a while with the air compressor.
Anyway… it was exciting. My stuff at home does not fail very often.
I unplugged it and waited 10 seconds, then plugged it back in. It powered on, got through the bios and began loading windows. It then powered itself off. DANG!
I unplugged it and plugged it in again, and booted to the bios setup. It stayed on just fine while in the bios. I booted to a floppy, and it stayed on just fine. I tried to boot to the hard drive, and again it powered off as soon as windows began loading. UUUGGGHHHH.
I figured maybe it was the image on the hard drive corrupted, so I booted to the network, launched Ghost and brought down my backup image. It rebooted after completing the reimage, and once again powered itself off while trying to load the OS. GGGRRRR
I got to thinking about how the PS needed to be reset after each attempt by unplugging it and plugging it back in again. It became possible to me that the problem was the PS. I did some research on the net and confirmed. I decided to dissect the PS and see if I could ID a problem with it.
After removing the guts of the PS from its metal box, the answer was apparent. One of the capacitors was bulging and the plastic wrapper on it was melted off one side. I gave a gentle tug on it and the entire thing fell apart. The metal sheath easily came off exposing the cardboard like guts, and it was a mess, and obviously defective.
I went to CompUSA to look for a replacement. The only baby ATX PS they had was the wrong configuration and overpriced at $69.99. I ended up ordering one off Newegg.com for $19.99. Are those guys at CompUSA on crack?
So, when windows loads it must signal the PS to kick in some sort of current change which was causing the PS to fail on the bad capacitor. Go figure.
I think it failed due to overheating aggravating that bad capacitor. That PC was packed with cat hair due to its location. It sits on the floor in our pantry and all the cat hair from off the hard floor in the kitchen must waft that direction and get sucked up by the case fan. It was pretty gross. I’ll need to make myself a note to blow it out every once in a while with the air compressor.
Anyway… it was exciting. My stuff at home does not fail very often.
Comment