Tom Hornberger on 22 Oct 2004 01:19:02 -0000


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Re: [PLUG] ATX Power Connector Charring and Random Rebooting


On Thursday 21 October 2004 21:08, Paul wrote:
> Michael D. Barlow wrote:
> >         could be an undervoltage at 5v.  Voltage goes down, current
> > draw goes  up  (voltage regulator in power supply is bad)
>
> I checked the voltage at a drive connector and it read +4.9V while the
> system was running.
>
> > Hopefully, the power supply going bad did not damage the Mboard,
> > however,  if the machine is mission critical then it is time to buy a
> > new main  board.  I would not trust it at this stage.
>
> Well, I swapped the power supplies between my Linux router and the PC
> I'm on now.  Everything is now working without any problems.
>
> Here are some interesting pictures.  (I cleaned the connector on the
> mobo with a small screw driver.)  http://www.dpagin.net/paul/atx-charred/
>
> One thing bugs me.  The original PSU is 350W.  My test PSU is only 250W
> and it's working without even getting hot.  So, I could have gotten the
> Antec TruePower 330W instead of the 380W and saved $18.  That makes me
> wonder how much power is actually needed.

The 5 volt regulator usually controls the other voltages.  The charring of the 
contacts shows that too much current was pulled through them.  I would 
suspect the voltage req on the mobo for the CPU or the caps.  How old is the 
mobo?  There was a rash of bad caps about 2(?) years ago.  

Tom
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