"Paul" wrote in message
...
snipped for space
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.)
Well, this one is claimed to be new. Was nicely packaged in a colorfull box.


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,
That's the power supply and that's the image of the one I've got.
http://us-depot.com/frshag520wad1.html
Yes, I am assuming that's what the clicking was right before it shut off.
Sadly it didnt do so fast enought to save everything.

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 :-)
As in the CD-rom drive lights flashing right as it turned off. I've gone
thru Microscope and the board, CPU , memory all test fine. The Asus crash
free bios saved the day on the board as it wouldnt boot till I used the cd.
As it looks now the 40GB HDD & 6X DVD cd-rom (decoder card?) on the
secondary controller (there were also on the same power supply line also)
are bad and one hdd has some unrecoverable crc error's on it. Do you know
anything about Memtest86? Does it activate or use the ide controller? I dont
know if reformating will resolve the crc failures and I'm looking at trying
to backup my files before trying. I'm hoping this hasnt hurt the new 160GB
SATA drive.


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 ?
No, I have an older Inwin 500 with no dimples on the tray. I have one brass
stand off holding the board in place and plastic screw in locks everywhere
else. The brass stand off is in the hole up next to the memory/cmos battery.
I was considering installing brass standoff's in all as a better way to
secure the board due to the heavy CPU fan but that will wait for now.


The reason for me asking these stupid questions,
No, I dont consider them to be stupid questions. It's bad to give advise
without all the info.

is you really need
to know exactly what failed. If you attempt to buy new stuff,
I cant (economically) and wont buy new to replace these parts. The failure
of the power supply casued the damages and NWCA will have to address it.
Currently, the two hdd's, a dvd drive and possable a dxr3 card.

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.
This is my worry. As soon as I get a chance I'm writing NWCA a letter about
it. As they havent even advised me they shipped the replacment power supply
and it's been three day's I'm preparing for it.

Maybe the power supply wasn't the
part at fault, and it got hot because of an overload coming from
something plugged into it.
Well, I did have a lot connected but that's why I got a 520Watt. Before it
died it had 4 Hdd's/2 cd-roms/video It ran in that configuration almost 24/7
for over 38 day's before it quit. It quit while running Memtest86 so it
wasnt really doing all the stuff it does when running Windows. I just
started having problems with it the saterday it died. The night before I
watched Xmen 2 on it.


At least keep your eyes "peeled" for some unlikely possibilities.
This is why I keep doing all the "testing" instead of playing, hoping I can
catch it before hand. I'd hate to get this all said and done and then have
more trouble.

Does the original power supply still run, and have you been using
it for your testing ?
No, the power supply, no matter what it's connected to will start them in
1-2 seconds it shut's off. No, I got out my last system parts (CUSL2-C,PIII
1Ghz, 512 Ram) and used it to do most of the testing. Last night my Dad got
me an Allied 300 Watt for testing the board, video card and SATA drive.
What's the best program for testing a SATA controller and drive? That's what
I'm on now to write this. It's working but the CPU temp is 116F, volatges
are all within 10% and no alarms but if I connect the DVD player and turn it
on the machine reboot's right after the desktop comes up. On boot smart
drive say's the 40 gb is about to fail and the video has artifact's in it
and periodicaly it goes wiggly, kind of like trying to run a Super VGA video
card on a Non-Super VGA Monitor.

Or have you already tried replacing it ?
See above

It is times like this that a voltmeter, and a clamp-on DC ammeter
come in handy.
Yes, I have a nice Fluke, that's how I first found there was indead no -12V.
Just to back up the DMAN card's testing. Kenn at NWCA has admitted it
sound's like the power supply died and sais Monday they will send out a
replacement. He was to talk to someone and find out if they needed this one
returned and so far no answer on that.


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 ?
I live in a small town, one computer shop and he has no tester other than
the meter as I have done. I'm consideirng getting one of those plug in type
on ebay.

If the PSU smoked or flamed out, then
you don't need to waste your time on it.

I'm unable to smell due to my trach but my Mom smelled it and said it
smelled burned, that was two day's after it died.

Paul
ME