Dead computer?

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 12:24:25 -0800, JAD wrote:

as long as you know the dangers.........

ok so then you must realize that the power must be on....only, if you
pull the connector off the mainboard the PSU will not function..... if
you are just testing the 12 v supply to the hard drives...which is
only a small part of what the PSU supplies, then that doesn't apply.
so black is ground and yellow and red are hot, each supplying a
different voltage. black to black red to yellow or red on the
molex connector to the HD's. But once again another 'oddity' both
blacks are not 'common'. Confused yet?


Well, I understand all about hots and grounds. However, with the Antec
Power Supply Tester, it should make life much simpler. From what I
understand from reading about it at Tom's Hardware site, you plug it into
the power supply (main power plug that goes to the motherboard), it puts a
load on the power supply, and then has places that allow you to check the
various voltages. Sounds simple enough, hopefully I can get to Circuit
City tonite to pick it up and give it a try. Then I don't have to worry
about the hots, grounds and whether they are common or not. Thanks.

Patty

Patty wrote:
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 10:51:58 -0800, Sam wrote:

Sometime on, or about Fri, 28 Jan 2005 23:45:51 -0800, johns wrote:

I learned the hard way to stop taking these old flakers
to raise. If you build her up a junker, it will fail too,
and no doubt take down her tax records and retirement
account, and she will blame you and haul the thing to
the XBOX PRO-TEENS who will charge her $300
just to recover her data onto a floppy. You will be in
to this for the rest of your life, plus lose a friend while
trying to do her a favor. Tell her to buy a DELL, and
get it going for her. If she says she is starving to death,
and will have to go raise camels in the desert, just
smile and say, "That sounds like fun, and you can
send me an email about it on your new DELL." If
she needs someone to complain too, she can call DELL
tech-support. They specialize in little-old-lady ( LOL)
Psycho-lology, and you can get your life back.

johns

Any computer can die, whether old or new. That's what backups are
for.

Sam

Yeah, and has anyone called Dell Tech Support in recent years? You
get someone who barely speaks English and the first thing they tell
you for any problem is your Windows is corrupted and you need to
reformat and reinstall Windows. Not something I'd want to leave up to
a computer illiterate old lady.

Patty

That usually applies to the home systems. Business system support is kept
in the USA due to the fall out from the non english speaking or EASL
(English As Second Language) support people. But it doesn't matter, most of
Dell's support people are totally useless, clueless, and just plain
ignorant. If it's not on the script, they can't fix it! And it really
shames me that this is a Texas company.

I know from experience, they just replaced almost every part on a dead
Deall, some even twice before they finally relented and replaced the whole
box. (Thank God for the extended service contract. 67 days left!) This is
not the first time this has happened and we are in a small office with only
16 machines. Kinda funny though the Dell's have a poor track record and the
machines that I have built keep on running without incident.
Hmmmmm............

Dude! You're getting a Dud, I mean Dell!

S

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 23:39:26 GMT, sbb78247 wrote:
That usually applies to the home systems. Business system support is kept
in the USA due to the fall out from the non english speaking or EASL
(English As Second Language) support people. But it doesn't matter, most of
Dell's support people are totally useless, clueless, and just plain
ignorant. If it's not on the script, they can't fix it! And it really
shames me that this is a Texas company.

I know from experience, they just replaced almost every part on a dead
Deall, some even twice before they finally relented and replaced the whole
box. (Thank God for the extended service contract. 67 days left!) This is
not the first time this has happened and we are in a small office with only
16 machines. Kinda funny though the Dell's have a poor track record and the
machines that I have built keep on running without incident.
Hmmmmm............

Dude! You're getting a Dud, I mean Dell!

S

Yes, I am aware of that... but we were discussing an elderly lady getting a
Dell for a home use system, not a business computer. Most tech support has
gone downhill in recent years, and not just with Dell.

Patty

Patty wrote:
On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 23:39:26 GMT, sbb78247 wrote:
That usually applies to the home systems. Business system support
is kept in the USA due to the fall out from the non english speaking
or EASL (English As Second Language) support people. But it doesn't
matter, most of Dell's support people are totally useless, clueless,
and just plain ignorant. If it's not on the script, they can't fix
it! And it really shames me that this is a Texas company.

I know from experience, they just replaced almost every part on a
dead Deall, some even twice before they finally relented and
replaced the whole box. (Thank God for the extended service
contract. 67 days left!) This is not the first time this has
happened and we are in a small office with only 16 machines. Kinda
funny though the Dell's have a poor track record and the machines
that I have built keep on running without incident.
Hmmmmm............

Dude! You're getting a Dud, I mean Dell!

S

Yes, I am aware of that... but we were discussing an elderly lady
getting a Dell for a home use system, not a business computer. Most
tech support has gone downhill in recent years, and not just with
Dell.

Patty

Yes Patty, I know that, I was commenting on the fact that Dell just sucks in
general. Regardless if it is for a 5-year old kid, or a grandmother, Dell
sucks out loud. I guess you missed the point about home built machines
being better?

Kinda
funny though the Dell's have a poor track record and the machines
that I have built keep on running without incident.
Hmmmmm............

Couldn't be more obvious! (almost agreeing with you if it were)

You know DISCUSSION includes personal experiences so others can draw on it
and make their own conclusions, or does your brain not work that way?

Now off you go to sift through yours and everyone you know's junk pile to
hopefully come up with something that works.

Good Luck, HTH, GFIA

S

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 03:40:49 GMT, sbb78247 wrote:

Kinda
funny though the Dell's have a poor track record and the machines
that I have built keep on running without incident.
Hmmmmm............

While for the most part, this is true, most computers (even homebuilt) are
only as good as the parts that comprise them. I once built the computer
from hell. Yes, that thing gave me nothing but problems. After much
fooling around with it, upgrading BIOS, tweaking, I finally got it mostly
stable. The mainboard was an ABIT KT7 w/RAID (now known as the bad
capacitor boards) and I finally removed it when the capacitors began to
look iffy and another system with the same board that I had built had
already died, and I now run a much more dependable system. Sometimes you
never know, you try to buy what you think is good and it doesn't always
turn out that way. However, when you've built it yourself you only have
yourself and maybe these knowledgeable folks in these newsgroups as your
tech support (which can be MUCH better than Dell or other tech support).

You know DISCUSSION includes personal experiences so others can draw on it
and make their own conclusions, or does your brain not work that way?

I was just pointing out that we were considering a different situation. I
do remember when Dell out of the country tech support did handle business
computers. Where I work, one of the ladies called Dell support and that's
exactly what she was told, so she did reinstall Windows. What a mess.
Everything on that system needed to be reconfigured (network logins, etc.)
and she lost all her programs as well which needed to be reinstalled. She
did not know this would happen. Since it's a small company, we do not have
an IT department (only 4 employees total, real small). I told her next
time she had a problem to call me and I'd help her work on it.

Now off you go to sift through yours and everyone you know's junk pile to
hopefully come up with something that works.

Yeah, I'm sure we'll come up with something. This lady doesn't need much.
Since she was running a 266Mhz system with only 32MB RAM (and it was
sufficient for her needs) almost any old computer (better than a 486) will
more than likely do well for her. Besides, I have lots of old junk I'd
like to get rid of... don't you? vbg Btw, I have an old modem in this
system now, that I got from who knows where, (56K modem) and after
searching around, found drivers for it that work and it's used for faxing.
So, old "junk" can be useful at times too. ;o)

Good Luck, HTH, GFIA

Thanks. Much appreciated.

Patty

Patty wrote:
On 29 Jan 2005 09:33:11 -0800, w_tom wrote:


Power on digital multimeter. Turn selector switch to DC volts -
preferably the 20 volt range. Touch leads to points. Read voltage
number from display. When done, turn meter power off.



Do you have the computer and power supply turned on when you do this?

w_tom's directions are a little too simple for you. You could
accidently produce some smoke if you use the probes wrong. I think you
need a little work on the basics first ... try to master the definitions
of voltage, current, resistance, and power.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/ would not be a bad place to start. Type
"electricity" into the friendly box so as to reach
http://science.howstuffworks.com/electricity.htm

Thanks so much. I'm learning something new here.

Patty

You measured the battery at 1.28 volts. You have
demonstrated how that multimeter works. As long as selector
switch stays in DC volts, then nothing exposed inside the
computer touched by those meter probes will be damaged and
nothing exposed inside that computer will damage the meter.

Notice colored wires from power supply to motherboard.
Measure from each color wire (using red meter lead) to black
wire (using black meter lead). Best place to measure is to
stick meter lead into that white nylon connector where each
wire terminates at motherboard.

Now when computer power is off but connected to wall
receptacle, still, +5 volts appears on purple wire. No other
voltages appear. When power switch is pressed, all those
other voltages should measure in spec.

The Antec power supply tester does not provide useful
information. It can report a power supply as defective BUT
will not report the power supply good. Your power supply
could output voltages, but not enough to meet specs. Then
that Antec tester would report a defective supply as good.
Those who never learned basic electricity will often recommend
that overpriced power supply tester rather than learn how a
meter works. As you have demonstrated with the battery, it is
not difficult.

There is no faster solution to testing power supplies than
using a meter. Never disconnect any wires inside that
computer to test the supply. Just touch leads to ends of
colored wires and read voltages. Best test of a power supply
is under load - connected to a computer. Power supply tester
does not provide that load.

Again, a chart with numbers and wire colors is listed in "I
think my power supply is dead" in alt.comp.hardware on 5 Feb
2004 at
http://www.tinyurl.com/2musa
Your voltages must measure in the upper 3/4 of those limits.
Any confusion: then post those numbers here.

Patty wrote:
Well, I did a rechargeable AA battery. It tested 1.28v on the
multimeter and the battery should be 1.2v so I guess that's pretty
good. And, I don't drink tea, I'd much rather have an Absolute
and Diet Coke. ;o) Besides, I've already helped my husband
re-wire our house so I do understand something about electricity,
I just don't understand how these multimeters work.

Patty

sbb78247 wrote:

Good Luck, HTH, GFIA

Go find it anywhere?
Georgia Food Industry Association?
Gerald R. Ford International Airport?
Go forth in arrogance?

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 08:28:02 -0500, w_tom wrote:

The Antec power supply tester does not provide useful
information. It can report a power supply as defective BUT
will not report the power supply good. Your power supply
could output voltages, but not enough to meet specs. Then
that Antec tester would report a defective supply as good.
Those who never learned basic electricity will often recommend
that overpriced power supply tester rather than learn how a
meter works. As you have demonstrated with the battery, it is
not difficult.


As far as I understand from reading the info at Tom's Hardware, the Antec
ATX Power Supply Tester allows you to check the various voltages using a
meter. This is quoted from:

http://www4.tomshardware.com/column/2001101

"The Antec ATX Power Suppy Tester is a helpful gadget, as it allows testing
of the power supply with a built-in 25W 5.4 ohm load to generate steady
output. The ATX Power Supply Tester also has the ability to put a meter on
the connector to check the +5V, +3.3V and the 12V voltage output. This,
along with my volt meter, have become two of the most important items in my
tool case."

Since it only cost $10, I still plan to try it.

Patty

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 08:28:02 -0500, w_tom wrote:

Notice colored wires from power supply to motherboard.
Measure from each color wire (using red meter lead) to black
wire (using black meter lead). Best place to measure is to
stick meter lead into that white nylon connector where each
wire terminates at motherboard.

Now when computer power is off but connected to wall
receptacle, still, +5 volts appears on purple wire. No other
voltages appear. When power switch is pressed, all those
other voltages should measure in spec.



I got +4.99 on the purple. But I can't seem to get the others to work. I
can't get any reading with the power supply connected to the motherboard, I
think my probes are too big to fit in the backside of the connector. I got
the +4.99 with the motherboard disconnected from the power supply and by
putting the red probe in the purple and the black probe in the closest
black wire in the end of the connector where it would attach to the
motherboard. Power supply plugged in and turned on, computer switched
off, of course.

Please forgive my questions as I am a novice at checking power on a
computer. Give me a wall socket and I'm ok. ;o)

Patty