[philj200]

In the middle of a session I had to reboot. The system never came back. Nada. Zilch. The only sign of life was a faint and momentary glimmer of light on the onbutton. I used a volt-meter to see if power was coming throug. Something was, but of what strenght, I have no idea.

The clunker that has no trapped all my files is a Dell E510, running XP sp2.

Do these computers have fuses that can blow?

Thanks for any advice.

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Hi philj200,

what you did was risky & you might have hurt yourself if your not familiar with electronics.
please check the link below for the guide,so to have an idea with PSU units.

CAUTION: This test involves using probes with the computer ON. Please only do this if you feel competent enough to be dealing with electricity. If you short rails, you could risk damaging the PSU and possibly your components. I cannot be held responsible if something goes wrong, this is merely a guide.

REMINDER:
If you are afraid of doing such a thing and you are not sure what any of this guide means, I encourage you to NOT do this. Electricity is dangerous and can kill you in a heartbeat. Remember this is only a thread, what informs you, on how to do this. If you aren't sure of what you doing, DON'T DO IT.let someone else do it for you who is qualified/familiar with this type of troubleshooting.

the GUIDE

krs1

[krs1]

Hi philj200,

what you did was risky & you might have hurt yourself if your not familiar with electronics.
please check the link below for the guide,so to have an idea with PSU units.

CAUTION: This test involves using probes with the computer ON. Please only do this if you feel competent enough to be dealing with electricity. If you short rails, you could risk damaging the PSU and possibly your components. I cannot be held responsible if something goes wrong, this is merely a guide.

REMINDER:
If you are afraid of doing such a thing and you are not sure what any of this guide means, I encourage you to NOT do this. Electricity is dangerous and can kill you in a heartbeat. Remember this is only a thread, what informs you, on how to do this. If you aren't sure of what you doing, DON'T DO IT.let someone else do it for you who is qualified/familiar with this type of troubleshooting.

the GUIDE

krs1

[philj200]

I was careful.

The power supply did produce some DC. But not enough. Not that I recall, there were signs of a failing unit. I would get messages when I added USB devices that required a reset. They became more frequent. I had probably more devices that the PC could handle wth a 300 W power supply. SO I replaced it with a 400 W unit.

Until a thin column of oily smoke comes out of the back of the computer, it seems to be working as poorly as ever.

[krs1]

the only electronic component that will produce a smoke that i know (when blown up)
inside a tower case of a computer is a capacitor that serves as electronic filter.

motherboards have capacitors,likewise in PSUs.
try if you can see a bulging capacitor within your
motherboard,if not,you can throw in another PSU.
you can borrow a PSU from a friend nearby perhaps,
but it should be a much better one in terms of specs.
say 500 watts with a good 25 amps on 12v+ rails.
(i just threw that in since you have'nt mentioned your
system specs yet).

BTW: have you checked your AVR/UPS if it throws a stable voltage?


krs1

[philj200]

the only electronic component that will produce a smoke that i know (when blown up)
inside a tower case of a computer is a capacitor that serves as electronic filter.
--Once put an AMD CPU ship in a quarter-turn off axis. Dam thing fit. I didn't notice the registry symbols. I fried the chip and it DID give off a wisp of smoke and oddly enough a high-pitched squeal (pain?). And that little (but costly) sucker got HOT!
Luckily the motherboard was fine.

motherboards have capacitors,likewise in PSUs.
try if you can see a bulging capacitor within your
motherboard,if not,you can throw in another PSU.
you can borrow a PSU from a friend nearby perhaps,
but it should be a much better one in terms of specs.
say 500 watts with a good 25 amps on 12v+ rails.
(i just threw that in since you have'nt mentioned your
system specs yet).
-- I see nothing overly odd the motherboard or the computer in general other than it seems to have forgotten about the two USB ports on the front panel. The unit that I replaced was 300 W. The current one (pun intended) is 400 W. It seems to have been the cure. But it makes more noise. I do a bit of audio engineering which means I have to reconfigure microphone placement. But that's okay.

BTW: have you checked your AVR/UPS if it throws a stable voltage?
--I haven't. But my blood presure is fine. How's yours?

Edited by philj200, 30 May 2008 - 07:43 PM.

[krs1]

referring to the subject which is about the PSU,i thought something in there burnt out
& emits smoke.but having said by you that it was your processor that was fried,then this
would be another issue.

apparently something went wrong with your processor & i cant tell if something shorted out
from your mainboard's CPU socket or it can be due to overheat.

they can leave char marks on the surface below the motherboard,that is if you let them sit there
because you didnt notice it was burning, as well as the motherboard melting a bit.

honestly & personally i won't trust that mainboard anymore.

BTW: have you checked your AVR/UPS if it throws a stable voltage?
--I haven't. But my blood presure is fine. How's yours?

i dont know what your trying to imply,but i was able to test the non-polarized 50 volt line
with a capacitance of 22,000 uF (microfarad) and it's fairly working well.

Edited by krs1, 01 June 2008 - 11:00 AM.

[philj200]

referring to the subject which is about the PSU,i thought something in there burnt out
& emits smoke.but having said by you that it was your processor that was fried,then this
would be another issue.
--That was an incident on another computer years ago. But there was both smoke and sound.

honestly & personally i won't trust that mainboard anymore.
--I already had it in place. The rather rare good-natured retailer I got it from in the first place replaced the CPU at no cost. So I used it for another two or three years until it was obsolete. But I didn't trust it. And backed up everything important daily. When I upgraded I as releved.

BTW: have you checked your AVR/UPS if it throws a stable voltage?
--I haven't. But my blood presure is fine. How's yours?

i dont know what your trying to imply
--That was a joke. As in checking things.

This matter is resolved. Thanks for your time.