PSU question

[glowinggreenlemming]

Four days ago I changed from a generic 300 watt power supply due to the sudden demise of a couple of components to a 350 watt antec true power 2. The computer has run fine for three days until late last night when i was awoken by a popping sound. When I press the power button on the pc case nothing happens at all. The hard drive on the computer was in the process of dying but I am unsure as to whether a dead hard drive would prevent a computer from attempting to power up. Is there anyway to figure out if the power supply is bad (I have a multimeter) ?

thanks for your time

 

[Mr_Breeze]

Why leave your computer on at night anyway? From what I can tell most of the time when something goes wrong with a computer people are either pushing it real hard or sleeping. You can totally eliminate one of those problems by shutting down while your not using your PC. Not only that but you will save on your power bill, and you components will last longer.

 

[glowinggreenlemming]

Okay I will admit I have been turning my computer off recently and i forgot to do so last night it was 1:00 am in the morning and i was tired, however I am sure this would have happened regardless of whether i was a sleep or not

 

[Pain]

Smell the fan on the PS. Does is smell like burned electronics?

Take the PS out, short the green wire (pin 14 I think) to a black wire beside it, and then read the voltages. Google "ATX power connector pinout" for a list of wires and voltages, I'm not going to look it up but it's easy to find.

Get another PS and test your computer.

BTW. When something blows up, unplug it immediately. Don't try to power the machine back on.

 

[shamoo]

its a very simple way to test the psu
you have a multimeter thats good i wish i had one
psu start by bridging the green wire to the black wire
you can get this done by making a horseshoe shaped thing mabob with a paper clip and sticking it in now start testing all the wires grounding to a yellow and you should get 1.5 3.3 12 and 5 or arround that.

 

[sailer]

The psu problem and testing has been well covered so far.

As to the dying hard drive, it wouldn't stop the computer from powering up, but if dead, it would stop any programing from loading. Take the opportunity now to buy a new hard drive. Even if the present one is still working, transfer all your files, etc to the new one and then use it as your C drive. You might use the old one as a D drive until it completely dies, but I wouldn't bother.

 

[Crashman]

Popping sounds? Like exploding capacitors? You should watch a capacitor explode some time, the aluminum foil inside shorts out and the thing explodes in a blue flash! Great fun!

 

[glowinggreenlemming]

I checked it with the old psu that I removed last week and the computer runs fine with that one in so I guess I will take the new one back and get a replacement and see if it will run for more than 3 days.


thanks for your helpful suggestions

 

[pengwin]

there is a 350w truepower?

 

[glowinggreenlemming]

Sorry my fault it is a smartpower not a true power