[clug] Any ideas on what to look for to get an old PC running?

[David Schoen]

The other thing I thought I'd mention is that I've seen PSUs go in to
a fail safe mode sometimes. E.g. you might get down to MB, PSU and CPU
and it doesn't turn on but then you swap in a new PSU and all seems
ok, so you go "ok dead PSU", but then you rebuild the whole thing and
the PSU is dead again.

I've only had this a couple of times, once the 12V pin on a HDD had
shorted straight to ground, another time a positive wire had rubbed
off it's shielding and shorted on the case and the other one I can
remember was when a warranty acer service tech replaced a PSU in a
machine for me and he still had it set to 110V. I'm happy to report
that the PSUs all "came back to life" after about 30 minutes of
sitting around unplugged. It's actually truly amazing what they design
these things to deal with these days :)

Just thought I would add this so that you don't just throw them out
and give up if this happens.

- Dave.

2008/12/22 Mike Carden <mike.carden at gmail.com>:
>> You should now just have a MB, PSU and CPU. If you press the on switch
>> and the fans still don't go you've usually got a dead PSU
>
> As an aside, I'll note that I very much prefer trying to fix a
> 'completely dead' machine to attempting to fix an intermittent fault.
> So much easier to know when you've nailed it. Your problem should be
> easy to fix.
>
> And I'll side with those for whom the dangers of electrickery hold no
> mystery. Opening up a PSU is no big deal for a sensible person. Sure,
> you may kill yourself if you try hard, but you can do that crossing
> the street. What I will suggest is that it is very rarely worth your
> while to go that far. On a desert island with just one CPU? Sure, get
> inside and fix it. Here and now? Grab an available spare and try it.
>
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