Any of you computer builders know how to turn on a PC ATX power supply
without it being connected to the motherboard (where the soft power
switch is connected)? There's a purple wire identifed as 5V SB
(standby?) which I suspect may have something to do with it.

Yeah, this is the old 266 MHz Pentium II in the studio. It just woke up dead
today. I know , I know, I should just go out and get one ten times as fast,
but I'd like to know what's wrong with this one. I figure that if it starts up
with just the load of a disk drive, the power supply is probably OK and
there's a motherboard problem. If it won't start up at all, I'd probably just
spring for a replacement power supply and keep it going a while
longer.

Besides, computer replacement sould be something you plan to
do, not something you have to do and then try to make it work. But
it rarely works out that way, does it?




--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike Rivers wrote:
Besides, computer replacement sould be something you plan to
do, not something you have to do and then try to make it work. But
it rarely works out that way, does it?

Do what IT people do when you have a computer that's really
critical: buy a service contract from the manufacturer (who
guarantees, hopefully, exact replacement parts).

Or keep a stock of spare parts yourself. Then you don't have to
struggle to find things that are compatible and make something
work right when you really need to be worrying about something
else. Instead, you just grab the identical part to the failed
one out of your stock and replace it, then keep going right
where you left off.

If that's too expensive, you can always live with unpredictability...

- Logan

ok...look at your ATX connector so the clip is facing upwards. Make sure
rocker switch is off. Count from left ..connect 4 and 6. Power rocker
switch.
n'joy
"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1078177261k@trad...

Any of you computer builders know how to turn on a PC ATX power supply
without it being connected to the motherboard (where the soft power
switch is connected)? There's a purple wire identifed as 5V SB
(standby?) which I suspect may have something to do with it.

Yeah, this is the old 266 MHz Pentium II in the studio. It just woke up
dead
today. I know , I know, I should just go out and get one ten times as
fast,
but I'd like to know what's wrong with this one. I figure that if it
starts up
with just the load of a disk drive, the power supply is probably OK and
there's a motherboard problem. If it won't start up at all, I'd probably
just
spring for a replacement power supply and keep it going a while
longer.

Besides, computer replacement sould be something you plan to
do, not something you have to do and then try to make it work. But
it rarely works out that way, does it?




--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

Do what IT people do when you have a computer that's really
critical: buy a service contract from the manufacturer (who
guarantees, hopefully, exact replacement parts).

Or keep a stock of spare parts yourself.

Just answer the ****ing question and keep your condescending attitude
to yourself.

WOW!, I GOT TO SAY "CONDESCENDING"

If you read this newsgroup regularly you'd know how much I dislike using
computers in the studio. I'd love to get rid of it and go back to using gear
that I know how to repair and maintain, but it seems that there are things
that you just have to do these days that call for a computer. I just can't
accept "replace the whole darn thing every couple of years" as a
maintenance policy.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article m writes:

ok...look at your ATX connector so the clip is facing upwards. Make sure
rocker switch is off. Count from left ..connect 4 and 6. Power rocker
switch.

If I'm counting from the right place, that would be jumpering the unidentified
green wire (pin 14) to ground (nearest pins 15/16).

This power supply doesn't have a rocker switch, it's only switched
from the mother board.

There was no smoke, but no voltage out of the power supply either, so
I guess it's dead. Time to go to Micro Center in the morning. Thanks.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike,

That guy's response wasn't condescending. Lighten up. He sounded like you
answering a question about anything else.

On an unrelated note, go buy a new power supply. Hopefully it will solve your
problem, but regardless of whether or not it does that, you'll have the PSU
around for when you do put a new machine together. Which you should do. It's
fun.

ulysses

(Mike Rivers) wrote:

Any of you computer builders know how to turn on a PC ATX power supply
without it being connected to the motherboard (where the soft power
switch is connected)? There's a purple wire identifed as 5V SB
(standby?) which I suspect may have something to do with it.

Yeah, this is the old 266 MHz Pentium II in the studio. It just woke up dead
today. I know , I know, I should just go out and get one ten times as fast,
but I'd like to know what's wrong with this one. I figure that if it starts up
with just the load of a disk drive, the power supply is probably OK and
there's a motherboard problem. If it won't start up at all, I'd probably just
spring for a replacement power supply and keep it going a while
longer.

Besides, computer replacement sould be something you plan to
do, not something you have to do and then try to make it work. But
it rarely works out that way, does it?




--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike Rivers wrote:

In article writes:


Do what IT people do when you have a computer that's really
critical: buy a service contract from the manufacturer (who
guarantees, hopefully, exact replacement parts).

Or keep a stock of spare parts yourself.


Just answer the ****ing question and keep your condescending attitude
to yourself.

WOW!, I GOT TO SAY "CONDESCENDING"

Hmm, I wasn't trying to be condescending. Just trying to explain
something that people often aren't aware of. How many people do
you know that actually keep exact-replacement spare parts for
their computers? Most people don't and haven't even ever thought
of doing so.

It's tempting, especially because PC systems are so much _like_ a
commodity, to believe that you can just go out and buy what you
need. In practice there is always some problem, like a BIOS
compatibility problem, different cables (old system had Ultra
SCSI, new system has LVD, whatever), operating system that won't
run on the old hardware, software that won't run on the new
operating system, etc. So, in my mind at least, the idea that
PC parts are a commodity is an illusion.

Anyway, even though I prefer to keep spares around when possible,
note that I didn't actually say it was the only rational decision.
Keeping a stock of spare parts around is probably cost-prohibitive
if you only have one computer. You basically double the price.
It is one way to avoid the "oh crap it failed, and now I've got to
face something I don't have time to deal with" scenario, but maybe
it's not worth the cost to some people.

Neither is really a totally appealing scenario for the small-time
user. Your choices are to buy "insurance" at as much as a 100%
premium or to live with something you can't really count on.
Either choice leaves something to be desired. And that's what
my closing line ("you can always live with unpredictability")
was meant to convey. I can see how it could have been interpreted
totally differently, though.

- Logan

Mike Rivers wrote:

In article m writes:

ok...look at your ATX connector so the clip is facing upwards. Make sure
rocker switch is off. Count from left ..connect 4 and 6. Power rocker
switch.

If I'm counting from the right place, that would be jumpering the unidentified
green wire (pin 14) to ground (nearest pins 15/16).

Green to black ? I believe that's right.

No output = new PSU.

Graham

Mike Rivers wrote:

In article m writes:

ok...look at your ATX connector so the clip is facing upwards. Make sure
rocker switch is off. Count from left ..connect 4 and 6. Power rocker
switch.

If I'm counting from the right place, that would be jumpering the unidentified
green wire (pin 14) to ground (nearest pins 15/16).

Oh - often cheaper than a new psu is a new case ! Bizarre but true.

Use the PSU and / or use the case - no matter.

Graham

ulysses wrote:

Mike,

That guy's response wasn't condescending. Lighten up. He sounded like you
answering a question about anything else.

On an unrelated note, go buy a new power supply. Hopefully it will solve your
problem, but regardless of whether or not it does that, you'll have the PSU
around for when you do put a new machine together. Which you should do. It's
fun.

I agree.

I've built / modified / customised so many PCs / workstations / Avids ( Power PCs )
I lost count - lol.

Call me lucky but I've never had a critical failure ! touches wood

Getting in there at the hardware level can be fun. You can build a stunning piece
of kit for far less than the 'commercial ' price.

Currently - esp with HD prices as they are - I recommend a RAID configuration to
almost anyone. The RAID equipped motherboards are two a penny now. Choose data
integrity or access speed or both. Your choice.


Regds, Graham

(Mike Rivers) wrote in message news:znr1078177261k@trad...
Any of you computer builders know how to turn on a PC ATX power supply
without it being connected to the motherboard (where the soft power
switch is connected)? There's a purple wire identifed as 5V SB
(standby?) which I suspect may have something to do with it.

It seems to me that if all of your devices (IDE devices, video/audio
cards, etc) are disconnected from the motherboard and you are getting
no power, the power supply is shot. I mean, I assume that the fan
isn't turning inside the supply. The soft power might be broken, but
that's far, far more unlikely than a PS dying. But good news! They
aren't expensive or hard to find. Probably someone you know has an
unused one (maybe in an old system) lying around.

Hi Mike,

I happen to have a very nice PC Power And Cooling 275 ATX power supply
sitting here that I'll sell you for half of what they go for now. They are
$60 but I think I paid more for it a couple years ago when I got it. ( plus
I ordered it next day air shipping so I really bit the big one on it ) I
was trying to figure out a very odd problem that I thought might be power
related so I got it but it turned out not to be the supply ( it was some bad
RAM, long story ) so I put my original Antec power supply back in the case.
The supply maybe had an hour or two of use and has sat in it's original box
since. So, $30 plus shipping if you want it. I'll guarantee your money back
if it doesn't work.

Here are the specs on the supply :
http://www.pcpowercooling.com/produc...aquiet_atx.htm

I was keeping it for the 'next' upgrade of the computer I use for the
internet but at this point I think I'm just going to move the P4 board from
my DAW and put a newer faster model in that. ( I'm a computer geek, it's
something I must do. ) From what I've read a 275 watt power supply is
boarder line powerful enough for a P4 system so I'll need a bigger supply
for it ( I have a 550 watt supply in my DAW, more than is really needed but
overkill gives me confidence ;-)

They also sell an ATX power supply tester for $10.
http://www.pcpowercooling.com/produc...dex_tester.htm
I have one of those too. I want to hang onto it but I'll send it to you to
borrow if you send it back when done. I'll pay ground shipping for the
tester but if you want it faster I'll need you to pay the difference. Ground
shipping on return to me is fine. I guess after all the shipping it might
just be cheaper to buy one from PC Power Cooling. Your call if you want to
borrow mine.

And if you want to buy the power supply from me I'll throw the tester in the
box and you can send it back when you're done.

I've done a lot of PC repair and building and trying to figure out a dead
supply isn't worth the headache. Much quicker to swap in a known working
one. And you should be able to fine a cheap one locally for $20 to $40.
Sometimes it's cheaper to buy a cheap case w/power supply included but it
always seems like a waste to me.

I'll take it with me in the car tomorrow in case you want to try it and I'll
ship it from my place of work. You can email me there at
or call at 253-922-2400 x183.

Best of luck Mike!

John L Rice



"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1078177261k@trad...

Any of you computer builders know how to turn on a PC ATX power supply
without it being connected to the motherboard (where the soft power
switch is connected)? There's a purple wire identifed as 5V SB
(standby?) which I suspect may have something to do with it.

Yeah, this is the old 266 MHz Pentium II in the studio. It just woke up
dead
today. I know , I know, I should just go out and get one ten times as
fast,
but I'd like to know what's wrong with this one. I figure that if it
starts up
with just the load of a disk drive, the power supply is probably OK and
there's a motherboard problem. If it won't start up at all, I'd probably
just
spring for a replacement power supply and keep it going a while
longer.

Besides, computer replacement sould be something you plan to
do, not something you have to do and then try to make it work. But
it rarely works out that way, does it?




--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike,
Connect it back to the motherboard & use the switch to turn it on.
Look at the fan for the CPU - does it twitch for a moment, but not
turn when you power up? If so, pull all your power to devices
(drives, generally, usually OK to leave fans connected) and any IDE
data cables (strangely enough, they can hold the system down). See if
the PS winds up then. Additional test is of course to temporarily
pull out add-in cards from the slots. BTW, if you have a card with a
power LED on it (such as most Adaptec SCSI cards), see if there's a
flash on the LED. Sure, sometimes power supplies fail, but in 24
years at this, it's actually more rare than you might think. However,
you can often get quirky behavior from power supplies that turn on,
but are no longer adequate for running all the drives & add-in cards.

Kevin Krell
International Traditional Music Socety, Inc.

Mike Rivers wrote:

Any of you computer builders know how to turn on a PC ATX power supply
without it being connected to the motherboard (where the soft power
switch is connected)? There's a purple wire identifed as 5V SB
(standby?) which I suspect may have something to do with it.

Yeah, this is the old 266 MHz Pentium II in the studio. It just woke up dead
today. I know , I know, I should just go out and get one ten times as fast,
but I'd like to know what's wrong with this one. I figure that if it starts up
with just the load of a disk drive, the power supply is probably OK and
there's a motherboard problem. If it won't start up at all, I'd probably just
spring for a replacement power supply and keep it going a while
longer.

Besides, computer replacement sould be something you plan to
do, not something you have to do and then try to make it work. But
it rarely works out that way, does it?

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1078194122k@trad
In article m
writes:

ok...look at your ATX connector so the clip is facing upwards. Make
sure rocker switch is off. Count from left ..connect 4 and 6. Power
rocker switch.

If I'm counting from the right place, that would be jumpering the
unidentified green wire (pin 14) to ground (nearest pins 15/16).

Agrees with my experience, and this published spec for an ATX power supply
(please see p27)

http://www.enhanceusa.com/documents/ATX12V.pdf

This power supply doesn't have a rocker switch, it's only switched
from the mother board.

Right, but the motherboard implements a rocker switch-like control over this
logic line."PS_ON#"

There was no smoke, but no voltage out of the power supply either, so
I guess it's dead. Time to go to Micro Center in the morning. Thanks.

The easiest way to check ATX power supplies is to swap in a known good one.
Good ones are painfully cheap if you know where to buy.

http://www.microcenter.com/search_re...20&submit.y=10

shows over 30 alternatives ranging in price from $19.95 to $119.95 . The
$19.95 model will probably do the job.

It's not uncommon for an ATX PS to seem to work with no load, but collapse
with a real computer attached to it.

Mike Rivers wrote:

In article writes:

Do what IT people do when you have a computer that's really
critical: buy a service contract from the manufacturer (who
guarantees, hopefully, exact replacement parts).

See the different service offerings made by Dell as an example. They
have a lot of slightly different exact replacement parts that has to
have the correct label to work in the machine in question.

This here bargain Dell desktop (found in the local radio shack
look-alike) cost less second hand than the ram required to enjoy its low
noise level and low power use and delivery time on the ram was 2 full
weeks.

Or keep a stock of spare parts yourself.

It ends up being like that. In which case being an "all dell, all
compaq, all ibm, all bamboo" operation can be all good choices. But it
does not end up like that for the "few computer" operations.

Just answer the ****ing question and keep your
condescending attitude to yourself.

Mike, the guy is plain wrong, and I will slam him shortly, but politely
in my advice to you.

WOW!, I GOT TO SAY "CONDESCENDING"

We'll subtract 2 cent from all the huge pile of 2 cent pieces you have
posted in the newsgroup, you should have paid 7 and 3 quarter cents more
in advance to be entitled to say something that is so difficult to spell
and say it capitalized. Please see section 5.9.3.2001.56.7 of the
newsgroup charter.

If you read this newsgroup regularly you'd know how much
I dislike using computers in the studio. I'd love to get
rid of it and go back to using gear that I know how to
repair and maintain, but it seems that there are things
that you just have to do these days that call for a computer.

Which is to say that the machine is mission critical. What IT
professionals do do then is to have a spare machine "just like it" with
all the software pre-installed and configured. You're probably up and
running by now Mike, but still: get a spare studioputer and clone or
copy the entire harddisk to it. Western Digitals disk install software
seems to offer drive copy .... windows installations are generally
movable, but if it isn't already win98se then you should consider
upgrading at least that far and perhaps to ME, but ME is sometimes a bit
strange and I don't think you'll like it. Ask again if you need specific
instructions on how to get a cloned or moved win98 up and running on new
iron.

I just can't accept "replace the whole darn thing
every couple of years" as a maintenance policy.

Nor should you. It is insane to have to do that.

Dell, HP, IBM are brands that traditionally have a good support at
whatever that costs for "legacy products" and good compatibility.

I'm really Mike Rivers )


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

And some of us have a supply cabinet that's stocked with parts, or at least
used to be. Mike's right, though. It shouldn't come down to having to
stock parts, but essentially there is no repairability, so it's a
replacement factor. The question is whether one can easily find a
reasonable replacement on some store's shelves because they are having to
contend with new computer owners and inventory isn't cheap to carry on hand
for possibilities. Personally, I go to computer shows. There's always at
least one or two small time guys that have a ton of older parts available
for PIIs and such. I just saw a guy stocking 5 gig SCSI hard drives along
with PII Slot 1 motherboards and chips, for instance.

But Mike had it right in the problem determination procedure, too. If the
board will power up a hard drive, then the problem isn't going to be
pleasant to fix because it probably means either new memory (cheap) or a new
PII processor, which is harder to find. I started laughing when I saw a
sign at a memory dealer that had 16 MB SDRAM for $3.99. I laughed through
the pain because the first 16 MB stick I bought cost $600.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

"Logan Shaw" wrote in message
...
Mike Rivers wrote:

In article
writes:


Do what IT people do when you have a computer that's really
critical: buy a service contract from the manufacturer (who
guarantees, hopefully, exact replacement parts).

Or keep a stock of spare parts yourself.


Just answer the ****ing question and keep your condescending attitude
to yourself.

WOW!, I GOT TO SAY "CONDESCENDING"

Hmm, I wasn't trying to be condescending. Just trying to explain
something that people often aren't aware of. How many people do
you know that actually keep exact-replacement spare parts for
their computers? Most people don't and haven't even ever thought
of doing so.

It's tempting, especially because PC systems are so much _like_ a
commodity, to believe that you can just go out and buy what you
need. In practice there is always some problem, like a BIOS
compatibility problem, different cables (old system had Ultra
SCSI, new system has LVD, whatever), operating system that won't
run on the old hardware, software that won't run on the new
operating system, etc. So, in my mind at least, the idea that
PC parts are a commodity is an illusion.

Anyway, even though I prefer to keep spares around when possible,
note that I didn't actually say it was the only rational decision.
Keeping a stock of spare parts around is probably cost-prohibitive
if you only have one computer. You basically double the price.
It is one way to avoid the "oh crap it failed, and now I've got to
face something I don't have time to deal with" scenario, but maybe
it's not worth the cost to some people.

Neither is really a totally appealing scenario for the small-time
user. Your choices are to buy "insurance" at as much as a 100%
premium or to live with something you can't really count on.
Either choice leaves something to be desired. And that's what
my closing line ("you can always live with unpredictability")
was meant to convey. I can see how it could have been interpreted
totally differently, though.

- Logan

Logan Shaw wrote:

Hmm, I wasn't trying to be condescending. Just trying to
explain something that people often aren't aware of. How
many people do you know that actually keep exact-replacement
spare parts for their computers? Most people don't and haven't
even ever thought of doing so.

I have for some years now had a policy of always buying harddisks in at
least pairs, which means that I will have to get another 160 gb disk to
supplement the one that only one computer in this household wants to
fully work with.

What Mike should do after having repaired the old computer is to get a
new one, or a new old one, and clone the disk to it. Service contracts
are generally ores of gold to the vendors, but they must be seen in the
context of the cost of downtime. Dell's various offerings are probably a
good example of the options "out there".

operating system, etc. So, in my mind at least, the idea that
PC parts are a commodity is an illusion.

I don't quite agree, but one has to aim for in house standards to avoid
it getting too diverse. It is - as you say - a somewhat different issue
for a one computer household. But what one can do is too keep the old
'puter when upgrading and keep it runnable. It is also about the
potential cost of not being able to do business if something is broken
.....

- Logan


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

In article writes:

over 30 alternatives ranging in price from $19.95 to $119.95 . The
$19.95 model will probably do the job.

I'll be getting a $19.95 one today. It's not about the money, it's
about having some confidence that I actually need to replace the power
supply and not something else (like the motherboard). If it had worked
without the motherboard connected, I would have started pulling other
things to see what was bogging it down.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

Which is to say that the machine is mission critical.

Well, not really, since I don't have any critical missions. It could
stay dead for a couple of weeks (in fact maybe it did - I can't
remember the last time I turned it on) but it's annoying to hit the
power button and find nothing happening.

professionals do do then is to have a spare machine "just like it" with
all the software pre-installed and configured.

When you add software higgilty-piggilty over five or more years of
using the same computer, that's pretty hard to do. Not difficult for
an office where IT supports only the software they provide, and
everyone gets updated thorough the network automatically, but the only
way I could build a "clone" of this computer is to run one in parallel
and every time I do something to one, do the same to the other.
Configuration management is a wonderful thing, but it's hard to sell
it even to myself when I have only one unit to manage. The computer in
the studio is completely different from the one in the office, which
is completely different from the laptop.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

Personally, I go to computer shows. There's always at
least one or two small time guys that have a ton of older parts available
for PIIs and such.

I was just at a hamfest on Sunday. If I had turned on the computer on
Friday (assuming it would have been dead then) rather than Monday, I
would have had a spare power supply.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

That guy's response wasn't condescending. Lighten up. He sounded like you
answering a question about anything else.

People say I'm condescending all the time, I just thought I'd play the
game too. He didn't answer my question, he gave me advice that I
didn't need, and he should have known that. I thought I gave enough
information that indicated that I just wanted to find out if the power
supply was alive or dead and all I needed was to know which pins on
the connector needed to be connected. I suppose as I read through this
string of messages, I'll find some pointers to web pages (I guess I
should have looked myself first and saved all of you the trouble of
responding - I did find a diagram later on) but someone did give me a
straightforward answer. I tried it, the power supply is dead. End of
story.

On an unrelated note, go buy a new power supply. Hopefully it will solve your
problem, but regardless of whether or not it does that, you'll have the PSU
around for when you do put a new machine together. Which you should do.

That's what I'm going to do. But the power supply that I buy for the
new machine that I'll eventually put together will be bought with some
more thought than the one I'll buy as soon as Micro Center opens this
morning. For now I just want to get that computer working so I can re-run
a couple of tests at 96 kHz on the Digilizer that I'm reviewing. Then
either I'll have a dead power supply or a spare power supply for
troubleshooting. I expect that for under $20 it'll be too noisy to
live with, but I could be surprised.

It's fun.

I'd rather take a bath in hot oil. It involves spending several
hundred dollars with merchants I don't know, buying products that I
can't see until they arrive on my doorstep (no local parts sources
here that I care about), then venturing into unknown territory since
every six months these things change and I haven't "built" a computer
for more than five years, then finally after it works, getting all the
software on the old computer moved to the new computer. Not fun at
all.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

Hmm, I wasn't trying to be condescending.

I was just having a little fun. Often when I respond to someone in a
similar manner that you did to me, explaining why what they're trying
to do is incorrect, I'm accused of being condescending.

Just trying to explain
something that people often aren't aware of. How many people do
you know that actually keep exact-replacement spare parts for
their computers? Most people don't and haven't even ever thought
of doing so.

This is because computers are so reliable. In over 15 years, I've had
only one other power supply go bad, and that was in a Compaq luggable
(which doesn't have a standard form factor power supply). Now, my only
other computers are a Dell laptop (power supply line lump) and a Dell
desktop, which also doesn't have a standard power supply, though I
believe adapters are available for it. So if I put an ATX power supply
on the shelf as a part-on-hand, chances are pretty good that I'd never
get to use it. When I was using an Ampex MM1100 as my primary
multitrack recorder, I had a set of spare cards for it, and spare ICs
for the one card for which I didn't have a spare.

It's tempting, especially because PC systems are so much _like_ a
commodity, to believe that you can just go out and buy what you
need. In practice there is always some problem, like a BIOS
compatibility problem, different cables (old system had Ultra
SCSI, new system has LVD, whatever), operating system that won't
run on the old hardware, software that won't run on the new
operating system, etc. So, in my mind at least, the idea that
PC parts are a commodity is an illusion.

I understand completely. I tried to find memory that would work in
this (dead power supply) computer two years ago and went through three
different similar-appearing sticks before I found one that worked.
And I had to flash the BIOS when I added a network card, and
discovered that the same BIOS update would have let me use the 20 GB
drive that I used to replace the original 4 GB one without using the
boot sector trick. This computer is not much longer for the world, but
I don't want to leave it dead and build a new one, I want to have an
orderly transition if possible, which means getting this one working
again.

With someone's description of the pins that needed to be jumpered,
plus confirmation from a couple of web page documents describing the
connector, I plugged it in, it didn't start, and I'll get a
replacement later this morning. I actually can troubleshoot things
(though I doubt that I'll try to repair the dead power supply) and I
like to know what's wrong before I go out to buy parts. If the power
supply worked when disconnected from the mother board (I know there
needs to be some load on it in order for the switcher to start) then I
would have bought a new mother board instead of a new power supply.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

It seems to me that if all of your devices (IDE devices, video/audio
cards, etc) are disconnected from the motherboard and you are getting
no power, the power supply is shot.

What occurred to me was that there could be something shorted on the
mother board that would casue the power supply from starting. That's
why I wanted to remove all of the load from it that I could (they'll
start with just a disk drive attached) to be sure that it was really
the power supply that was dead or if it was likely the motherboard.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1078233250k@trad
In article
writes:

Personally, I go to computer shows. There's always at
least one or two small time guys that have a ton of older parts
available for PIIs and such.

I was just at a hamfest on Sunday. If I had turned on the computer on
Friday (assuming it would have been dead then) rather than Monday, I
would have had a spare power supply.

In fact, you can spend too little on power supplies or spend it with the
wrong people. I've found that shows are not the best places to buy
commodities like power supplies, unless you know your supplier.

Connect pins 13&14 on the motherboard connector cable. I think it's those 2
pins anyway, check first, but it can be done.

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1078177261k@trad...

Any of you computer builders know how to turn on a PC ATX power supply
without it being connected to the motherboard (where the soft power
switch is connected)? There's a purple wire identifed as 5V SB
(standby?) which I suspect may have something to do with it.

Yeah, this is the old 266 MHz Pentium II in the studio. It just woke up
dead
today. I know , I know, I should just go out and get one ten times as
fast,
but I'd like to know what's wrong with this one. I figure that if it
starts up
with just the load of a disk drive, the power supply is probably OK and
there's a motherboard problem. If it won't start up at all, I'd probably
just
spring for a replacement power supply and keep it going a while
longer.

Besides, computer replacement sould be something you plan to
do, not something you have to do and then try to make it work. But
it rarely works out that way, does it?




--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1078232816k@trad
In article
writes:

over 30 alternatives ranging in price from $19.95 to $119.95 . The
$19.95 model will probably do the job.

I'll be getting a $19.95 one today.

It will probably do the job. Power supplies don't fail as often as hard
drives or CD drives, but they do fail quite a bit.

It's not about the money, it's
about having some confidence that I actually need to replace the power
supply and not something else (like the motherboard).

'tis one nice thing about being in the biz and having a few of everything in
the stock room.

If it had worked
without the motherboard connected, I would have started pulling other
things to see what was bogging it down.

However, you'd probably be in the same conundrum - is the power supply too
weak or is the load drawing an inordinate amount of power.

"Peter Hewitt-Dutton" wrote in
message
Connect pins 13&14 on the motherboard connector cable. I think it's
those 2 pins anyway, check first, but it can be done.

I've been known to do it with a unbent paper clip.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
In fact, you can spend too little on power supplies or spend it with the
wrong people. I've found that shows are not the best places to buy
commodities like power supplies, unless you know your supplier.

I've gotten to know the vendors pretty well over the past 8 years or so.
Pretty much they had to learn in the beginning that I was going to be a pain
in the ass if I didn't get exactly what I wanted, so now they are attentive
and forthcoming. I've had far more problems with off-the-shelf purchases at
CompUSA and so forth. It's one of the reasons I continue to build my own
computers. It's also one of the reasons I had a supply cabinet full of
parts, and I only just recently have changed it over to audio, like my mic
closet, cables and accessories, stomp boxes, etc. After about 15 years, a
computer parts cabinet becomes full of **** you just never got rid of and
I'd rather have my audio stuff in a convenient location that's lockable
anyway.

But it never hurts to have a spare PSU or couple of sticks of memory!

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

In article znr1078232816k@trad (that's me!) writes:

I'll be getting a $19.95 one today.

Well, actually it was on sale for $15.99. Geez, how can they make
anything that cheap? Computer is now working fine. Guess I'll have to
keep it around for a few more years until I get my $15.99 worth out of
this power supply. (I can hear Roger groaning all the way across
town!)



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1078256222k@trad
In article znr1078232816k@trad (that's me!)
writes:

I'll be getting a $19.95 one today.

Well, actually it was on sale for $15.99.

I just got the flyer that says that.

Geez, how can they make anything that cheap?

(1) Old technology
(2) Lots of competition
(3) Immense volumes
(4) Made in China

Computer is now working fine.

Good.

Guess I'll have to
keep it around for a few more years until I get my $15.99 worth out of
this power supply. (I can hear Roger groaning all the way across
town!)

The good news is that the same case and power supply will work with an
Athlon-64 3200, like mine.

In article writes:

In fact, you can spend too little on power supplies or spend it with the
wrong people. I've found that shows are not the best places to buy
commodities like power supplies, unless you know your supplier.

That's true, particularly with new parts. The $19.95 power supply was
on sale for $15.99 at Micro Center. I doubt that I could have
purchased a new one at a hamfest for that. On the other hand, I could
have bought a used one for probalby $5 or less, and unless it, too,
was dead, it would have served the purpose of checking out the rest of
the computer. I always find new, boxed standard brand hard drives
cheaper at places like Best Buy, Staples, or Office Depot than at
hamfests once you factor in the almost-always-except-when-you-
desperately-need-one rebates.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

The good news is that the same case and power supply will work with an
Athlon-64 3200, like mine.

I hate this case. I have to fight with it every time I need to open
it. (which isn't very often, which might explain why I have to fight
with it). I saw a gorgeous case at Micro Center today. It was really
solid aluminum with some extruded pieces, not just stamped out sheet
metal. It was $168. I'll bet lining that case with some of that auto
body damping material would make for a nice quiet machine. It would
look right at home in a living room.





--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Sounds like a LIAN and at that price it would be sans power supply,
very handsome case. Almost bought one recently but settled on an Antec
Sonata for a hundred bucks less mostly because I wanted something a
bit smaller. The Sonata is pretty quiet but even with foam I was
disappointed to find that I can still hear the P4 CPU fan.

The power supply is quiet, has serial ata power connectors and a
thermal controlled voltage for the 120mm case fan (I'm running it on
5v and it still moves plenty of air with no noise. The drives have
rubber mounts and the the front vents are 'obscured' for decreased air
noise. One lever opens the side.

All in all, an excellent case/powersupply for $100.

Frank /~ http://newmex.com/f10
@/


On 2 Mar 2004 20:42:31 -0500, (Mike Rivers) wrote:



I hate this case. I have to fight with it every time I need to open
it. (which isn't very often, which might explain why I have to fight
with it). I saw a gorgeous case at Micro Center today. It was really
solid aluminum with some extruded pieces, not just stamped out sheet
metal. It was $168. I'll bet lining that case with some of that auto
body damping material would make for a nice quiet machine. It would
look right at home in a living room.

Mike Rivers wrote:

professionals do do then is to have a spare machine "just
like it" with all the software pre-installed and configured.

When you add software higgilty-piggilty over five or more
years of using the same computer, that's pretty hard to do.

Powerquest Drive Image or Norton Ghost(x) ... Symantec bought Powerquest
recently, it must be good. It is not difficult, it-staff can do it,
remember?

The computer in the studio is completely different
from the one in the office, which
is completely different from the laptop.

What is your disaster recovery plan when the officeputer goes haywire?

fine print
(x) yes, windows installations will move neatly, organisation wide
distribution of OS images wouldn't work if they didn't. Later than or
equal to win98se and no newer than w2k moves easiest if not in a
corporate version. Moving OS images is easiest done when the
installation in question is prepared for movability. Some experience
with moving recommended.
/fine print

I'm really Mike Rivers - )


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

(Mike Rivers) wrote in message news:znr1078177261k@trad...
Any of you computer builders know how to turn on a PC ATX power supply
without it being connected to the motherboard (where the soft power
switch is connected)? There's a purple wire identifed as 5V SB
(standby?) which I suspect may have something to do with it.
---snip---

Glad to see from later posts that you solved your problem but for
anybody else that might see this thread BEWARE OF DELL!
There are some Dell computers that use the same connector as the ATX
standard but the pinout is different so that the original Dell power
supply can damage other motherboards and ATX standard compliant power
supplies can damage a Dell motherboard.

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1078269556k@trad
In article
writes:

The good news is that the same case and power supply will work with
an Athlon-64 3200, like mine.

I hate this case.

Know the feeling.

I have to fight with it every time I need to open
it. (which isn't very often, which might explain why I have to fight
with it).

No need to put up with that.

I saw a gorgeous case at Micro Center today. It was really
solid aluminum with some extruded pieces, not just stamped out sheet
metal. It was $168. I'll bet lining that case with some of that auto
body damping material would make for a nice quiet machine. It would
look right at home in a living room.

I buy cases all the time, mostly fairly commodized cases but from known good
sources. Someone mentioned the Antec Sonata on RAP, and I was building a new
high end machine, so I ran right out and found one on the web and ordered
it. Learning experience, right?

As it is now, the Sonata houses a fairly quiet computer. I can't hear it
run at all unless I'm sitting right next to it, and then if the fridge down
the hall and the furnace in the basement are running I still can't really
hear it at all.

How does the Antec Sonata get so quiet? The case itself is no great shakes.
It's pretty. It opens and closes easily enough but there is no sonic gook on
the panels or anything like that. It's got a nice black paint job, and a
drive bay door that had to go.

IMO most of the Antec Sonata's low noise characteristics come from a really
big (140 mm?), really slow (1400 rpm) fan on the back panel, and a power
supply with a thermally-controlled fan that mostly runs very slowly. I've
had cases with 140 mm fans before, and when they run slow they still move
serious amounts of air but they are very quiet.

The fly in the ointment was the AMD-provided fan that came with the
Athlon-64. According to its tach it was running at like 6900 rpm, and it
wasn't at all that small.

Some probing of chip temperatures with the motherboard power monitor and a
little touchie-feelie with the heatsink convinced me that this speed-demon
monster air-mover had reduced CPU chip temperature to just about the
temperature of air inside the case, under 30 degrees C. This is ludicrously
low. I plugged in a Zalman Fan Mate (under $5 all over the web) and cranked
the CPU fan down to about 3600 rpm. Quiet! The chip temperature rose a few
degrees C, and that was pretty much that.

My general take is that most PC cooling schemes aren't well-engineered. It
seems like the vacuum cleaner syndrome (It must be powerful, because it is
noisy!) is often in force.

You can only efficiently move so much air through a heat sink, and if you
try to push more you get really turbulent flow, lots of losses, and precious
little additional cooling. IME just about every heat sink I've ever worked
with would dissipate 90|+% as much heat with only about 50% as many rpms.

"Frank Vuotto" wrote in message

Sounds like a LIAN and at that price it would be sans power supply,
very handsome case. Almost bought one recently but settled on an Antec
Sonata for a hundred bucks less mostly because I wanted something a
bit smaller. The Sonata is pretty quiet but even with foam I was
disappointed to find that I can still hear the P4 CPU fan.

So put a Zalman Fan Mate on the P4 unless its chip temperature is already
quite high.

;-)

What are P4 chip temperatures like, anyway?

In article writes:

solid aluminum with some extruded pieces, not just stamped out sheet
metal. It was $168.

Sounds like a LIAN and at that price it would be sans power supply,

No, it was something else, started with "A" I think, but not Antec.
The sheet metal was about twice as thick as a Lian Li aluminum case I
saw. They also had an Antec Sonata on display but it didn't look
nearly as solid as this one, but was considerably cheaper.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

What is your disaster recovery plan when the officeputer goes haywire?

That one is actually more expendable since I don't have a lot of stuff
on there that I don't use regularly and other than working documents,
it wouldn't be too difficult to build again from scratch. I keep
reasonably current versions of things I'm working on and continuously
updated spreadsheets such as my time logs and general ledger both on
the desktop and the laptop. (they're in the same room and networked)

The laptop is a little more disorganized, but since I seem to change
those every two years or so, I'm kind of getting used to starting one
from scratch.

I've never tried one of those drive image things. The closest I've
come to that was when I replaced the drive in the studio computer. At
the time, it was running Win95, and I used the drive copy utility that
came with the new (Western Digital, I think) disk drive. As far as I
was able to tell, it worked perfectly. After removing the old drive,
it booted on the new drive and everything appeared to work.

The desktop is running Win2000 (which is probably what I'll use on the
next generation studio computer) and the laptop is running WinXP.
Win2000 can probably be moved to other hardware without too many
problems, but XP seems to think you're installing your registered copy
on a second computer, a no-no.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

Glad to see from later posts that you solved your problem but for
anybody else that might see this thread BEWARE OF DELL!

I have a Dell, and I'm aware of their non-standard connector. If the
power supply failed in that one, I'd probably just order a genuine
replacement from Dell since (unless I planned ahead and bought an
adapter) a local off-the-shelf replacement wouldn't be possible. That
one is so quiet I'd hate to replace it with a generic model that was
noisier.

Incidentally, the new $16 power supply is actually a little quieter
than the one it replaced. I wonder how much quieter the $50 one that
claimed to be quiet would have been. This is a problem I've been
wrestling with for several years (well, mentally wrestling). I've
always wanted to write an article about quieting down a computer, but
to do that I'd need some real, not easily returnable hardware, and I
have been unsucceessful at convincing manufacturers of quiet power
supplies and internal CPU fans and heat sinks to give me their stuff
for evaluation. I guess I have a better reputation with audio
equipment manufactuers, and zero reputation around computer
manufacturers.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo