Text 54287, 41 rader
Skriven 2009-03-26 10:27:20 av Jeff Guerdat (1:124/311)
     Kommentar till en text av August Abolins
Ärende: Re: pc shuts down, early
================================
August Abolins wrote:

> The modest experience I have with PC power-supplies failing is that they
> generally just fail, and turn off.  I have not heard of power supplies
> continuing to run but straining power to the mobo.
> 
> Anyone here with the same experience?  Would it worth trying to replace the
> power-supply?  ..or does this symptom point to a mobo failure?

Yes to all.

The power supplies I've had fail seem to have failed catastrophically 
but that's not an absolute.  Low/high voltage, severe AC ripple on 
especially the 5V lines, etc. could be a non-catastrophic way to at 
least start the failure.  Most chips are spec'ed to operate at +/-5% 
voltages so it doesn't take much to be out of spec.

And then there's the possibility for a cold solder joint, component 
failure, etc. to make the motherboard useless.  I replaced the "space 
shuttle" motherboard in my desktop a year or so ago due to flaky 
operation (random BSODs, reboots, etc.).  It wasn't easy finding the 
same ~4 year old motherboard so I could use the same CPUs and memory but 
I found one on Amazon.  When I installed the new board, I just happened 
to notice that one of the wire hold-downs for a heatsink on part of the 
chipset was unsoldered so the heatsink was not sitting flush to the 
chip.  I resoldered that and sold the motherboard with the proviso that 
the person test it out for a week before giving me money to prove that 
was the culprit.  He was happy so I ended up being happy, too.

If possible, I'd try the power supply first.  Just having it sit loose 
(proprietary form factor?) would be fine as long as you ground the case 
to the computer well.  Only if it still fails would I dig deeper (other 
than the obvious reseating of cables and chips as well as a look-see for 
obviously damaged components)...

-- 
Jeff Guerdat

If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5a
 * Origin: FidoTel & QWK on the Web! www.fidotel.com (1:124/311)