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#1
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power on /reset switch problems
Hi,
my wife recently aquired an oldish ex work PC which I would like to reuse for our kids as the spec is still resonable and it has a fiar amount of memory /disk - however the problem is the power on and reset switches on the main case. They only work perhaps once in 50 or so times so I wondered if there was a way of replacing these or just bypassing the switches and hardwiring and using the main PSU on/off switch to power the PC? I'm not sure what effect taking out these switches would have. Any ideas appreciated - TIA Chris |
#2
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chris wrote:
Hi, my wife recently aquired an oldish ex work PC which I would like to reuse for our kids as the spec is still resonable and it has a fiar amount of memory /disk - however the problem is the power on and reset switches on the main case. They only work perhaps once in 50 or so times What are the symptoms, other than it not powering on. I mean, do the switches 'stick' in one position or the other, or not move at all, or move but no 'click', or what? Look inside the case and see how they're mounted. Are they simply loose? Is the mounting bracket broken off the front bezel support? What I mean is, it may be possible to simply fix the ones that are there. so I wondered if there was a way of replacing these Yes, they can be replaced but it's not easy to describe in text because you're unlikely to find some place that sells a 'direct replacement' so it's a matter of looking at them and finding something close enough to fit, and that depends on being passingly familiar with typical switches and perhaps some ingenuity in mating them to the existing brackets inside. If it's a *simple* one it might simply be a round shaft, momentary, switch screwed into a flat bracket behind the plastic pushbutton and another 'standard' round shaft, momentary, switch could be put in the same hole, perhaps using the back nut to adjust how far/close to the plastic plunger it is so it depresses and releases properly. The generic solution is to buy a 'normal' pushbutton switch from some generic supplier, Like radio Shack, and simply drill a couple of new, correct size, holes in the front bezel, mount the new 'standard' switches and move the power and reset wires to them. That means snipping the wires off the old switches and soldering them to the new ones. or just bypassing the switches and hardwiring and using the main PSU on/off switch to power the PC? Well, there's not really anything to 'bypass'. Wiring the power switch permanently 'on' would cause the computer to turn itself right back off after the 6 seconds, or so, "hold me down to power off' timeout and 'bypassing' the reset switch is "disconnect it," but since it don't work anyway it's already 'disconnected'. If the BIOS power settings can be set to always power on after a power failure then you might be able to cycle the rear switch to turn it on but that's really a kludge. I'm not sure what effect taking out these switches would have. Any ideas appreciated - TIA Chris |
#3
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Thanks for the advice Dave -
I have since investigated further and after dismantling the case and got access to the switches found that by pressing the power on switch directly ( i.e. not via the external case buttons) the power on LED flickers briefly and then goes out - if I repeat the process the light doesn't even flicker with the power remaining connected - (and the Pc doesn't acutally power up) .. I have swapped the PSU and lead with a known working one and the same happens - thus ruling out any PSU issues. In summary the power on LED only lights after the power has been connected for the first time and the PC doesn't power up - subsequent power on attmepts don't even result in the LEd flicerking unless the power supply is disconnected and reconnected. At first I susepcted a blown fuse but the this appears not to be the case as the process is repeatable. Do you think this might be a switch problem or something more fundamental ? - unfortunately I don't know the background to this PC ( why it was being discarded) but it seems worth saving i.e. PII processor full set of memory and a reasonable hard drive) Thanks Chris "David Maynard" wrote in message ... chris wrote: Hi, my wife recently aquired an oldish ex work PC which I would like to reuse for our kids as the spec is still resonable and it has a fiar amount of memory /disk - however the problem is the power on and reset switches on the main case. They only work perhaps once in 50 or so times What are the symptoms, other than it not powering on. I mean, do the switches 'stick' in one position or the other, or not move at all, or move but no 'click', or what? Look inside the case and see how they're mounted. Are they simply loose? Is the mounting bracket broken off the front bezel support? What I mean is, it may be possible to simply fix the ones that are there. so I wondered if there was a way of replacing these Yes, they can be replaced but it's not easy to describe in text because you're unlikely to find some place that sells a 'direct replacement' so it's a matter of looking at them and finding something close enough to fit, and that depends on being passingly familiar with typical switches and perhaps some ingenuity in mating them to the existing brackets inside. If it's a *simple* one it might simply be a round shaft, momentary, switch screwed into a flat bracket behind the plastic pushbutton and another 'standard' round shaft, momentary, switch could be put in the same hole, perhaps using the back nut to adjust how far/close to the plastic plunger it is so it depresses and releases properly. The generic solution is to buy a 'normal' pushbutton switch from some generic supplier, Like radio Shack, and simply drill a couple of new, correct size, holes in the front bezel, mount the new 'standard' switches and move the power and reset wires to them. That means snipping the wires off the old switches and soldering them to the new ones. or just bypassing the switches and hardwiring and using the main PSU on/off switch to power the PC? Well, there's not really anything to 'bypass'. Wiring the power switch permanently 'on' would cause the computer to turn itself right back off after the 6 seconds, or so, "hold me down to power off' timeout and 'bypassing' the reset switch is "disconnect it," but since it don't work anyway it's already 'disconnected'. If the BIOS power settings can be set to always power on after a power failure then you might be able to cycle the rear switch to turn it on but that's really a kludge. I'm not sure what effect taking out these switches would have. Any ideas appreciated - TIA Chris |
#4
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"chris" wrote in message ... Hi, my wife recently aquired an oldish ex work PC which I would like to reuse for our kids as the spec is still resonable and it has a fiar amount of memory /disk - however the problem is the power on and reset switches on the main case. They only work perhaps once in 50 or so times so I wondered if there was a way of replacing these or just bypassing the switches and hardwiring and using the main PSU on/off switch to power the PC? I'm not sure what effect taking out these switches would have. Any ideas appreciated - TIA Chris Start from the beginning. Use a screw driver touching the two posts to see if it will start and reset from there. This will tell if it is in the switch or the Mainboard. I have also seen this behavior with a bad BIOS flash. ie using a BIOS from Asus instead of Hewlett Packard. But first find out if the switch itself is broken. |
#5
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chris wrote:
Thanks for the advice Dave - I have since investigated further and after dismantling the case and got access to the switches found that by pressing the power on switch directly ( i.e. not via the external case buttons) the power on LED flickers briefly and then goes out - if I repeat the process the light doesn't even flicker with the power remaining connected - (and the Pc doesn't acutally power up) . I have swapped the PSU and lead with a known working one and the same happens - thus ruling out any PSU issues. In summary the power on LED only lights after the power has been connected for the first time and the PC doesn't power up - subsequent power on attmepts don't even result in the LEd flicerking unless the power supply is disconnected and reconnected. Has it EVER powered up? Because that sounds like a classic over-current shutdown, meaning a defective component somewhere. If something pulls too much current (like a defective CPU, defective motherboard, defective hard drive, etc.) the PSU will go into an over-current shutdown and it takes cycling the mains power off to reset the over current protection circuitry. At first I susepcted a blown fuse but the this appears not to be the case as the process is repeatable. Do you think this might be a switch problem or something more fundamental ? - unfortunately I don't know the background to this PC ( why it was being discarded) but it seems worth saving i.e. PII processor full set of memory and a reasonable hard drive) Well, it may have been discarded because it wasn't working. The thing that confuses me is you originally said 'once in 50 tries'. What's the maker, model, motherboard, processor (as in WHICH P-II)? And what was the 'known working' PSU? Just because it works in another system doesn't mean it has enough power to run that one, whatever it is. I mean, I can't say with no information on what they are. If it's an over-current shutdown the question is what's causing it. I'd strip it to bare bones and try to find what's causing the short. Unplug all the IDE devices, hard drive, CD ROMs, etc. Unplug the floppy. Remove all but one stick of RAM. Remove all PCI cards, leaving only the video adapter and see if it'll power up. If not, pull the remaining memory and video card. See if power will stay on. If not, remove the CPU and see if power will stay on. It obviously won't *boot* without memory, video, and CPU but we're just trying to see if the PSU will stay on, looking for the short. If you get to where it'll stay on then put components back in, one by one, till it again fails to power up and that one is likely to be the culprit. Hopefully at least the motherboard alone will power up (if it's the processor, P-II processors are very cheap these days. 11 bucks for a 450 at www.starmicro.net) Thanks Chris "David Maynard" wrote in message ... chris wrote: Hi, my wife recently aquired an oldish ex work PC which I would like to reuse for our kids as the spec is still resonable and it has a fiar amount of memory /disk - however the problem is the power on and reset switches on the main case. They only work perhaps once in 50 or so times What are the symptoms, other than it not powering on. I mean, do the switches 'stick' in one position or the other, or not move at all, or move but no 'click', or what? Look inside the case and see how they're mounted. Are they simply loose? Is the mounting bracket broken off the front bezel support? What I mean is, it may be possible to simply fix the ones that are there. so I wondered if there was a way of replacing these Yes, they can be replaced but it's not easy to describe in text because you're unlikely to find some place that sells a 'direct replacement' so it's a matter of looking at them and finding something close enough to fit, and that depends on being passingly familiar with typical switches and perhaps some ingenuity in mating them to the existing brackets inside. If it's a *simple* one it might simply be a round shaft, momentary, switch screwed into a flat bracket behind the plastic pushbutton and another 'standard' round shaft, momentary, switch could be put in the same hole, perhaps using the back nut to adjust how far/close to the plastic plunger it is so it depresses and releases properly. The generic solution is to buy a 'normal' pushbutton switch from some generic supplier, Like radio Shack, and simply drill a couple of new, correct size, holes in the front bezel, mount the new 'standard' switches and move the power and reset wires to them. That means snipping the wires off the old switches and soldering them to the new ones. or just bypassing the switches and hardwiring and using the main PSU on/off switch to power the PC? Well, there's not really anything to 'bypass'. Wiring the power switch permanently 'on' would cause the computer to turn itself right back off after the 6 seconds, or so, "hold me down to power off' timeout and 'bypassing' the reset switch is "disconnect it," but since it don't work anyway it's already 'disconnected'. If the BIOS power settings can be set to always power on after a power failure then you might be able to cycle the rear switch to turn it on but that's really a kludge. I'm not sure what effect taking out these switches would have. Any ideas appreciated - TIA Chris |
#6
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The power supply system is three components - PSU,
motherboard controller, and power switch. One gets the essential (and so inexpensive) 3.5 digit multimeter to learn from these procedures. Even if procedures don't tell you what is wrong, the facts provided now means others can provide assistance. Even swapping the power supply did not tell us much useful information: "Computer doesnt start at all" in alt.comp.hardware on 10 Jan 2004 at http://tinyurl.com/2t69q and "I think my power supply is dead" in alt.comp.hardware on 5 Feb 2004 at http://www.tinyurl.com/2musa Was the power supply dead? Without removing anything, that meter could have reported same in seconds. Important voltages for you will include Power OK and Power On. What do these do as you try to power on system. Also if the essential 3.3, 5, and 12 do not even attempt to power, then other voltages will be shutdown. Again, how the voltages behave is important. Lets not forget the lockout circuit found in that power supply controller. Completely remove power cord from wall to reset that lockout circuit. Again, you will be wasting time and effort without the meter. So ubiquitous as to be even sold in Home Depot, Sears, Lowes, and Radio Shack. chris wrote: Thanks for the advice Dave - I have since investigated further and after dismantling the case and got access to the switches found that by pressing the power on switch directly ( i.e. not via the external case buttons) the power on LED flickers briefly and then goes out - if I repeat the process the light doesn't even flicker with the power remaining connected - (and the Pc doesn't acutally power up) . I have swapped the PSU and lead with a known working one and the same happens - thus ruling out any PSU issues. In summary the power on LED only lights after the power has been connected for the first time and the PC doesn't power up - subsequent power on attmepts don't even result in the LEd flicerking unless the power supply is disconnected and reconnected. At first I susepcted a blown fuse but the this appears not to be the case as the process is repeatable. Do you think this might be a switch problem or something more fundamental ? - unfortunately I don't know the background to this PC ( why it was being discarded) but it seems worth saving i.e. PII processor full set of memory and a reasonable hard drive) Thanks Chris |
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