In article , "ME"
wrote:

"Paul" wrote in message
...
In article , "ME"
wrote:
snip
If I can interpret the symptoms of the parts you've tested, as
being failures, then perhaps the dying PSU delivered some out of
spec voltages that have cooked some stuff. Of the things in
your list, I would say the 1GB of RAM and the P4 3.2 CPU are most
likely to still be good. This is because regulating circuitry on
the motherboard tends to feed them. The motherboard itself and
the disk drive connect straight to the PSU, so they could
potentially be damaged as well.

I've been testing parts all afternoon. So far the DVD, two of the HDD's, and
the Video card look like they were damaged. I'm on the motherboard now and
it's passing the test's -w- Microscope. I'm getting "unrecoverable crc"
error's on one of the hard drives. I need to do more checking on that.


What is the brand and model number of the PSU ?

The box say's "AG" and I just looked all over it and cant find any model or
part number.
The company was NWCA in Or. The website's NWCA.com.

We'd like to know, so nobody else buys one.

What are the ratings printed on the side of the PSU.
which ratings are you wanting? input/output/amps per line?

There is usually a label with 12V@ xx amps etc printed on
it, and perhaps the PSU had too low a rating, or the PSU
had a poor balance between all of its output capabilities.
the amps per line are
26A +3.3v
52A +5v
28A +12v
1.0A -12v
0.8A -5v
2.5A +5vsb
It claims 520 Watt total on the box and label.

There are some 500W class PSU's for example, really cheap,
that have less than adequate +12V output. A high end P4
system can cook one of those PSUs quite easily.

Sorry for your loss,
Paul

Thanks,
ME

Those ratings are pretty impressive. That is an "arc welder"
class power supply, and a possible reason it got hot, is
because something else in the computer was drawing a lot of
current from it. (Some of the older stuff Powmax made,
wasn't so special.)

To find the unit, what I did was type "520W" into the pricewatch.com
search engine. The first entry returned, made reference to
"AG/Echo Star(Powmax)", so this is a Powmax power supply. I checked
the Powmax site, and the nearest thing I could find, claimed to have
overvoltage and overcurrent protection. If your unit had OV protection,
then something else must have happened to the thing. (Over voltage
protection is supposed to be a separate circuit in the PSU, that
shuts the PSU off in the event that any voltage rises higher than a
certain percentage above the nominal value. Overcurrent protection,
on the other hand, is pretty useless, as the current that would trip
at would be so high, that whatever was connected at the other
end would already be on fire :-)

It is possible there was a rail to rail short somewhere, and when
I read about the Inwin 500a case in Google, it makes reference to
the use of "dimples" for mounting the motherboard. Does your
motherboard use the standard brass standoffs, or does the motherboard
get screwed directly to the tray somehow ? Maybe the tray was touching
something on the bottom of the motherboard that it shouldn't be
touching ?

The reason for me asking these stupid questions, is you really need
to know exactly what failed. If you attempt to buy new stuff, to
rebuild the machine, it could be that one of the original items you
own, is a "time bomb", waiting to kill the next piece of good
hardware it is connected to. Maybe the power supply wasn't the
part at fault, and it got hot because of an overload coming from
something plugged into it.

At least keep your eyes "peeled" for some unlikely possibilities.
Does the original power supply still run, and have you been using
it for your testing ? Or have you already tried replacing it ?
It is times like this that a voltmeter, and a clamp-on DC ammeter
come in handy.

Maybe you could take that Powmax to a local computer shop, one
that has some kind of power supply tester, and see whether it
is still working or not ? If the PSU smoked or flamed out, then
you don't need to waste your time on it.

Paul