Dead PC question...how to test?

[Coytee]

Went down to Atlanta on Friday/Saturday. Mom's PC died and she'd bought a new one on the advice of the 'tech' that looked at hers and said "your monitor is dead, you need a new monitor"

Her monitor is just fine

He then said "your motherboard is fried, you need a new PC"

She ended up getting one.

I've got her old PC in my car. I'm not finding ANY fuses anywhere in it. (I've taken them apart and not afraid to disassemble)

When plugged in, there is a little green diode on the BACK side of the unit, I presume this is to simply signal that it's plugged into the wall. There is a green 'flash' though brief, as you hit the power button. Otherwise, NOTHING happens.

This happened during a storm as I think she said.

I'm thinking she might indeed, have a dead motherboard or, she might have a fried power supply.

This finally leads me to my question... if indeed, she's got a fried power supply, how might I test that? I'd like to plug it in and remove the connection from the power supply to the motherboard and check the lead for power.

At the same time, I don't really want to fry my fingertips from putting a prong into the wrong slot (for example, 2 hots!)

Any advice on how to test the power supply? If I had an extra PC laying about, I'd just swap it out but I don't.

[Guest " "]

I see these types of questions often.....you left out the details like is the PC 4 years old, slower than crap, had issues anyway.

There are different types of power supplies both in power rating and connector type....older ones are Micro ATX ...even older are ATX..even older are AT.

Many of these cases are custom in terms of what physically fits one..will not fit another.

Then theres the issue of if the power supply surged out...what makes you think the mother board, hard drive, CPU, RAM, video card, etc, will be any good.

Bottom line...if the PC is 3+ years old or more....chuck it and move on.

If you want a hobby and start replacing parts get the part number of the power supply off the label and do a search on ebay (check the box for including listing contents) and see if anyone is selling that paricular power supply. But expect to do the same with the mother board, etc.

[Kriton]

Rich - you have PM.

[Marvel]

PC power supplies have a connection to the motherboard, that is a'power good' signal (part of the 20 pin connector). Voltage isn't supplied to the board until the PS is stabilized. They get hard to test outside of a case. What kind of PS is it? If it has a standard 20 pin connection, anything rated the same or higher should work. If it has a P4 processor in it, it will also have a square 4 pin molex power connector that also goes to the MB. Everything else should be the flat 4 pin molex connectors with perhaps the small flat one for floppy drives.

The supplies have fuses in them, but testing a PS is awful. You can get a new one for $30 that is pretty much the standard physical size. If you have one handy, you clan plug it in and try it without removing the old one. My son's pc died during a storm, and all it was for him was a PS.

If, as SF says, it is one of the smaller modular models, enjoy.

btw, I still use my 11 year old pc every day. It just keeps chugging along, although it IS a dual cpu. It all depends on what you use it for.

Bruce

[Mighty Favog]

Even if it is dead you can take out the HD and piggie-back it in a new PC to see if you can get the data off of it. Might need a SATA conversion plug.

[JJkizak]

You know I hate to say this but the repair guy is right. Why bust your butt with the old stuff with compatibility problems when you can get a new one for $500.00?

JJK

[Coytee]

Favog: I did remove the hard drive. She had two in her PC. (2 physical) Her C drive was a normal type and her D drive was a SATA. I plugged her C drive into her new PC (unplugged her current C) to make her new pc startup with her old C drive. It didn't work. I've brought her "C" drive to my office and plugged it into my pc as my D drive and it now works fine so I'm taking her files/emails off of it and will be sending her a cd/dvd with all that stuff on it.

I'll probably either pitch the drive, use it as a third drive or, take it apart and use the magnets glued to the bottom of a "big glug" cup so the cup will stay attached to the tractor while I'm out mowing!! [Y]

JJK, I don't totally disagree however her PC wasn't that old... and second... she tries to stay on a budget and doesn't think she can afford a new pc every 2 years when all she does is send emails and stores pictures of her grandkids on it. Aside from that, I like a challange! Tell me something can't be done and if I think it can, I'll get single focused on the task until I can overcome it. (sometimes being retentive is a pain in the hiney! [])

[Marvel]

Moving a WIndows C: drive to a different MB is a bit tricky. This is due to Windows creating a Hardware Abstraction Layer when it is installed. All kinds of things are set during an initial Windows install, so moving the drive to another motherboard causes all kinds of issues. As it boots up, Windows will find all the differences between the install and what it is discovering on boot up. About the only way around that, if you really want to move the drive and the boot partition is to connect the drive and boot to a Windows install CD. Do a repair on the drive... you will think you are starting from scratch, but you aren't really. It will go though and create a new HAL. Some drivers or motherboard specific files may need to be reinstalled.

Bruce