Topic: Need advice on desktop power supply...

[NJAntman]

I was mixing and matching parts from my recently replaced desktop with parts from my nephews old desktop (recently suffered a MB or PS breakdown) to see what worked and what didn't. On my old system I had removed a DVD/RW, 3.5 FD, a TV capture card.

First I swapped HDs and found that my nephews HD still worked, it was detected by BIOS. Left it attached and connected the 3.5 FD, that worked. Next connected a CD-RW from his system, saw it power up but no detection in BIOS, also no video signal when I left BIOS. At this point I plugged in my old HD but got no detection on any drives in the BIOS. After much back-tracking and swapping, I finally had just the old HD without any other drives, but no BIOS detection and I'm certain it wasn't even spinning at this point. Tried all the possible power connectors, including the bundle that had the branch off for the cooling fan which was working.

My guess is that I over-loaded the power supply (300W) or burned it out enough so that only the fan and MB connections still work. Is that possible?

[Javora]

My concern is that you may have burned out part of your motherboard.  My guess is either the equipment that you plugged in (CD Rom) has some type of electrical problems or a case of static electricity got by you and into the system and shorted something out in the motherboard.  Before you go out and buy another power supply, take that power supply into a computer shop and have the power supply tested.  If the power supply comes back fine then you know that you have other issues.

If the power supply turns out to be bad then just replace it.  Otherwise I would take a IDE connectable device like a hard drive that you know works and test each of the IDE ports on the motherboard.  Regardless there is no sense in replacing a power supply that is still good.  Hope this helps.

[Dash Jones]

Hard to say from your description.  Could be that your hard drive just died?

Or, what Javora says sounds okay.

[Sirgod]

This might sound like alot of work, but what you might do, Is remove the PS from the PC your using to post, and hook up the Individual parts one at a time on your son's "Frankenstien" machine. First, just do MB, Video card, and of course have your memory in.

Turn it on , and see IF it posts. Then add the HD, see if it posts, etc. If you get everything running, It's the old PS. If it doesn't post on the first time, It's the MB.

Of course, put your PS back in your own box afterwords.

alot of work, but It's really the easiest way to check those things out.

Stephen

[NJAntman]

The new desktop has a 600W PS and room to connect plenty of drives but if one of those mix and match components I was playing with is glitchy enough to fry even that PS I'll freakin go bezerk. This sucks, I'm sitting here with fairly good left over components (2 HDS, 2 CDRWS, a SB card, an AGP card, and a floppy) that could form a decent replacement system, but I can't chance zapping my new system to figure it out.

I keep coming back to the power cord bundle that has the little two wire atachment on the end that runs the cooling fan. If power is still flowing all the way to the fan, shouldn't that whole bundle be powered?

Perhaps as Javora suggests the MB is fried somewhere. Could a fried MB or even static discharge harm a HD or optical drive in such a way that plugging it in again on another system would spike the next system as well? Anybody ever have somethng like that happen?

[Nemesis]

It is unclear from what you posted if you used a single cable for all of this.  If you did the cable itself may have failed.  If so then it is time to try another cable.

I have twice seen failed cables.  The first was a brand new SCSI cable that allowed a CD/RW to be read but not written.  The 2nd was an IDE cable that caused the BIOS to randomly misidentify the drive and be unable to read it.  The IDE cable failed after adding memory to the system, just repositioning the system while installing new memory was sufficient to push the cable that must have been marginal to failure.  Your switching drives around repeatedly might have done the same to a larger degree.

As an add on to this comment.  Last night I discovered that a peripheral that I thought had died some time back was actually a bad data cable.  There are 2 prongs that act as spring loading to keep the contacts in place and one was bent.  Now that cable is repaired and the peripheral is back in service as I hadn't yet thrown it away.

[Javora]

Nemesis is right about the data cords going bad I would give that a try as well.

As for the power supply the power could be fine going to the fan but one of the other rails could be bad which is why I suggested having the power supply tested.  The rail that powers the motherboard could have gone bad.  Which is why you are seeing power to the fan but the motherboard is not functioning.  What I would not do is plug that CD-RW into another system until you have figured out where the issue is.  From what you have stated that CD-RW was plugged in when the problems started.

In the mean time try plugging in only the systems video card and the hard drive that holds the operating system (for that computer) and see if it boots.  As Nemesis stated make sure you have a data cord that you can trust.  You stated the old hard drive but I'm not sure what computer that is from.  If the system boots then go into Device Manager and look to see if there is any red "!" on the list.  If the system doesn't boot try another IDE port (remember to change the boot order in Bios) and see if you can get the system to boot that way.  If the system refuses to boot at that point then you are looking at some type of hardware problem.

[NJAntman]

Alrighty then things have gotten stranger but some progress.

Checking the data cables (both work fine) and mixing and matching drives (HD, CD-RW) it seems that I can put any combo of drives on any one IDE channel (primary or secondary) but trying to use both channels at once (even if just one drive on each) leads to the BIOS not recognizing any of them. Had real fun trying to ID the master/slave jumper settings for the CD-RW made by LG, the markings were in some oriental language and the drive is discontinued.

The floppy cable seems to work but the green LED read light stays on constantly.

Best of all the residual copy of WinME kicks in and seems to be recognizing all the recent changes as a virus or bad hardware . I flashes the breifest (like 1/2 a second) message to that effect and then drops the video signal. I had to actually video tape the message on a camcorder to play it back and pause to read it.

So at this point I've got a Nero made boot-CD. I just need to refresh my memory on how to use DR-Dos to format the 80GB HD and then this Frankenstein contraption should be close to life with a clean install of WinXP.

Or so I hope.

[Sirgod]

Are you by any chance using an ATI card? I know there has been problems with the Radeon chipset, and as near as I can tell, VIA onboard drivers. I have a huge problem with Video signal loss when playing games. I think the last driver set that worked was 3.8 or so.

anyway, Just throwing that out there as a potential problem.

Stephen

[NJAntman]

Thankfully the vids an old NVidia AGP card, hopefully a little less to worry about.

The best part of all this is that with an 8 year old and a 10 month old boys running around, I don't get time to work on this until just before midnight. Not the best time to try troubleshooting computer parts.

[Javora]

Have you had the power supply tested yet? 

What you are describing could be a couple of different things.  This could be a power supply failing or it could be a sign of a damaged motherboard.  Then again one of the devices you connected like the CD-RW could be bad and pulling too much power.  If one of the devices are bad then it could cause damage to the motherboard.  The devices could be pulling more power then the power supply is able to provide even if the power supply is good, but if you only have a video card and the devices on the IDE chains then that shouldn't be an issue.  This could also be a sign of the Bios being corrupted but I think that is a long shot at this point. 

I don't really want to suggest anything more until that power supply is tested.

[E_Look]

Let me chime in here- I thought I had a bad PSU until I put in a very good one: bad mobo.

It's kind of hard to blow up a PSU; I mean, you see signs first that it can't handle the load you've put on it.

But motherboards are composed of a zillion little components, some soldered on, most photolithographied on (ICs).  Any one component can fail and you've got a malfunctioning comp.

You could put the PSU to a meter and see if it still puts out according to spec.

But most likely, I think something's funny with your motherboard, and who's got the time to test one of those?  I was strongly advised by Dracho to stop pussyfooting around and just chuck the mobo, but no, I tried PSUs, new RAM sticks, etc.  Bah.  I should have listened and saved myself time, angst, and money by biting the bullet first and shelling out for a new mobo.

[Javora]

I think Ed is dead on here, which is why I talked about the motherboard in my first reply to this thread.  I would like to see the power supply tested.  Not just because Antman was thinking about replacing the power supply and that I would hate to see him waste money on something he didn't need.  But it is the easiest to part to have tested, heck most places around where I live will do it for free.  If the power supply is tested then it can be removed from the list of suspects or replaced.

If the power supply turns out to be good then IMHO the prime suspect becomes the motherboard.  Before flat out replacing the motherboard I would flash the Bios first.  If that doesn't work then I would look into a motherboard replacement.  Just be careful when testing the hard drive and CD-RW, from what you stated Antman I'm still worried that those devices may have blown out the motherboard.

[NJAntman]

Well good news. Its alive. I've got it setup as one 80GB HD and one CD-RW on the primary IDE channel, the NVidia AGP card, and SB Live card. The power supply seems to be sufficient (it ran overnite without a probelm) and I got a copy of WinXP Pro loaded. As this is just a spare parts machine rescued from my nephews machine and the remainder of my just replaced desktop, I'm going to skip checking the PS, but thanks for the advice.

The case gets buttoned up tonight, I'll load up the SB software, and off it goes for the nephew to crap up with IMs and downloads. One less clump of computer parts taking up space in the garage.

Speaking of parts, did someone start a thread once concerning donating parts to others on the forum?

[Sirgod]

I think there was one at one time. I know Crim and I where trying to get some parts together for Pestelance, to get him back online.

Khalee's PC promptly died on him also, and I've been trying to piece mail a PC for him.

Stephen

[NJAntman]

Time to start another and maybe pin it to the board?

I can offer a late model (1999) Gateway CD-RW.

[Sirgod]

We can do that. Let me get in touch with Nemesis, as we have kinda let him run the roost here, but I'm sure he's good for it.

Stephen

[Nemesis]

Speaking of parts, did someone start a thread once concerning donating parts to others on the forum?

Not quite but close.

Postman suggested a subforum for it and I posted his suggestion for the Admins to consider. 

The Postman asked me about creating a subforum of Engineering for the purpose of trading/giving older unneeded computer hardware to those with the need.  Not an E-Bay type place but more of a place to give a helping hand to those who might have a need from those with unused older hardware.  I informed him that as a moderator of the lowest tier that was beyond my authority, though I can pass it on and offered to do so.

I then suggested a variation on the concept.  Instead of making it a subforum of Engineering make it a subforum of Ten Forward and broaden it out to include non computer related materials.  There are always those who have things that they would otherwise dispose of but which could be of use to other forum members.  I offered to forward it to the Admins but suggested posting it here instead for a more general feedback.  My proposed name for the forum is "Helping Hands".

So here is the Postmans suggestion with my modifications.  Does anyone (besides myself) else agree with The Postmans proposal?  Any suggestions for improvements should it be implemented?

It was approved ...

Actually I have decided it's a "YEA".

I'll get the forum created, but there will be some stipulations and it's going to be monitored.

Regards,

... but never reached the top of the "to do list".  So it hasn't happened, at least not yet. 

Despite the best of intentions things sometimes do get pushed back.  Lately I have missed logging into the forum for up to 3 days at a time due to outside things (not all bad actually).  I haven't been able to update the free software list lately, I have repeatedly made starts but outside reality has intruded each time and I haven't been able to catch up.  Soon I have some vacation time coming and will make a point of reserving time for it.  I imagine it is the same with the Postman subforum. 

If someone wants to start such a thread I would willingly sticky it.