On 02/24/2011 08:48 AM, Will Honea wrote:
> Spoiled his love life for a while, it did.
which, considering where he lived probably was mostly in his head
anyway…unless he didn’t tell…and had friends who also didn’t…
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP posted w/openSUSE 11.3, KDE4.5.5, Thunderbird3.0.11, nVidia
173.14.28 3D, Athlon 64 3000+]
“It is far easier to read, understand and follow the instructions than
to undo the problems caused by not.” DD 23 Jan 11
Linux users may well be the last stand of a niche crowd that. The kind that actually try to take on challenges and learn rather than to expect only handouts.
One could make a breakout rig if they are into doing many repairs but it does take room that most apartments lack. Mine has 3 x 600 Watt PSU’s (3 different connection types for MBO’s and Drives power), 4 racks for connecting drives with the various pwr and data cables, MBO stand (fully insulated to avoid damage), PCI - Frontpanel card with step/run/address/power/reset switches, monitor, keyboard, and touchpad-mouse.
These days it seldom gets used except when I need to check internal hdd’s or check external hdd’s during recovery on dead externals. Oh and also when I wipe laptop hdd’s on dead laptops.
techwiz03 wrote:
>
> Linux users may well be the last stand of a niche crowd that. The kind
> that actually try to take on challenges and learn rather than to expect
> only handouts.
>
> One could make a breakout rig if they are into doing many repairs but
> it does take room that most apartments lack. Mine has 3 x 600 Watt PSU’s
> (3 different connection types for MBO’s and Drives power), 4 racks for
> connecting drives with the various pwr and data cables, MBO stand (fully
> insulated to avoid damage), PCI - Frontpanel card with
> step/run/address/power/reset switches, monitor, keyboard, and
> touchpad-mouse.
>
> These days it seldom gets used except when I need to check internal
> hdd’s or check external hdd’s during recovery on dead externals. Oh and
> also when I wipe laptop hdd’s on dead laptops.
Now you bring up a useful topic - shame. I’ll open a new thread, since I do
a lot of this.
–
Will Honea
Ok, thanks for all the excellent suggestions.
My wife and I performed a couple of tests on this old PC and it has me thinking: failed motherboard.
The tests:
Test Power On switch. We removed the switch connection from the motherboard. We measured the resistance of the wires leading to the case power ON switch. It is nominally an open circuit when we measure it. When we pressed the power on switch on the case, we could see the resistance briefly drop, and then go back to an open circuit. I think < not sure > that transient is nominal.
.
Then we shorted (very carefully) with a screw driver the adjacent connector pins on the motherboard where the power On switch wire/connector would attach (I was wearing rubber gloves AND had a good screw driver for this). This are two very specific unmarked pins in the pin out area marked “CTRL_PANEL 1” in the bottom right corner of this sketch:
http://thumbnails3.imagebam.com/12020/71c336120194925.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/71c336120194925)
Its the pins that the case power cable goes to, and its clearly marked ‘PWR’ on the mother board (note it is NOT the green arrow … I’m just reusing an old sketch).
.
Shorting those pins with the screw driver did nothing. So it suggests to me the problem is NOT with the switch but with the motherboard or power supply.
Test power supply.
We removed all drives (except the CD drive and motherboard) from the power supply. ie Next to no load. Same symptom when we switch the PC ON. Nothing. No indication of a power switch ON (other than green light on motherboard, and brief fan movement when master power switch on power supply switched OFF).
.
We then removed all the power supply’s connections from the motherboard and from all other hardware devices. ie power supply was connected to nothing. Now see sketch below (click on sketch for larger view).
http://thumbnails28.imagebam.com/12114/d4e0fe121133912.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/d4e0fe121133912)
On the 20-connector cable coming from the power supply (which is the cable that nominally connects we shorted the connection #14 (green) to one of the black ground cables. We switched on the power supply. The power supply’s fan came on. We then measured the power from ground (black) to each of the colour connector pins on that ATX Main power connector, and obtained expected voltages readings, (orange = ~ +3.3 volts, red = ~ +5 volts, purple = ~ +5 volts, yellow = ~ +12 volts, blue = ~ -12 volts, white = ~ -5 volts). All that reads what it is supposed to read according to what our research suggests it should read.
I think that means the rather old power supply is good.
Any contrary views as to this assessment given the tests?
If I am correct that the power supply is good, then I think the Asus A7N8X Deluxe (~7 to 8 year old) motherboard is dead.
And ergo that’s the end of this PC.
Replacing the motherboard is not on the menu for me. The old 2GB of DDR 400 memory won’t work in a new motherboard (its too old). So I would need a new motherboard and new memory. Plus it means too much effort to take the motherboard out of the case, and put a new motherboard in the case (as noted, I would pay someone 50 euros to do all this without hesitation). Ergo, by the time I add up the cose of new motherboard, new memory, and installation fee, and its simply not worth it given this PC uses a low performance nVidia 8400 GS PCI (not PCI-e) graphic card, and it has relatively small sized hard drives, old DVD writer/readers … AND ~ 7 to 8 year old power supply.
Don’t forget we have 5 other functional PCs in our place.
I guess I will just take out the working parts, and put them aside.
Try one more test. Connect the PSU to say a disk drive or two and then power it on. See if the disk spins up. If that works, that you’re probably right, the mobo is dead.
I concur. MBO has died and the specs you list do not warrant trying to revive. scavenge what you think will be of use and move on.
take care and be good
Your cabinet power switch appears to be working, the PSU’s controller IC normally has a 4.7k to 10k “pull up resistor” tied to a 5 volt “pilot source”
this is how the fancy keyboards can initiate a power up, once the controller IC sees a transition it puts the main switching element on line, if the current demand is prohibitively hi (like a failed MoBo) the controller shuts down immediately, and you see the fans “bump” for the few power on self test cycles the PSU controller performs. Those little supplies are pretty busy, sophisticated little boxes. Afraid it’s time for the salvage team and burial detail. Keep the processor and memory, if you don’t have any vellostat foam aluminum foil will protect it from ESD, Don’t put it in a plastic bag unless it’s conductive, keep the cards! Twenty One Gun Salute! Ker f****** Pow, he died with his boot sector! Sorry for your loss…
Thanks for the suggestion. After reading your suggestion, my wife I did just that as a final test, shorting pin-14 to ground (in the power supply main cable that would normally connect to the motherboard) and we plugged in one of the hard drives. Then we switched on the power supply master switch. The hard drive could be heard spinning up.
I’m fairly confident the power supply is good and the problem is the motherboard. My wife reminded me that we did pay a bit more money for this power supply, as the local PC shop representative expressed the view (around 8 years ago) that it was a good quality power supply.
My wife is already on the verge of giving away some of this old PC’s components. She had almost given away the 2 GB of DDR 400 memory, when I stopped her and told her that memory was earmarked for my Sandbox PC (which has 1 GB of DDR-300). If the 2 GB of DDR 400 memory works in my sandbox PC, then I told my wife she could give away the 1 GB of DDR-300.
… Fortunately I stopped her ‘just in time’ and now have an understanding she will check with me 1st, before she gives away parts of this dead PC …
… < gulp > … the vultures are already hovering ! 
