My 8yr old pc isn't getting any power

[KNETTER2000]

Unfortunately the switch is on 115

The options on the red switch are 115 (which it's currently on) and 230.

Wich burns out the PSU/SMPS/bowl of milk if you turn it on..
You're effectively putting 240V on a circuit that is expecting approx. 115V.. not very good..

[Zu Ra]

Originally Posted by KNETTER2000

Unfortunately the switch is on 115

Wich burns out the PSU/SMPS/bowl of milk if you turn it on..
You're effectively putting 240V on a circuit that is expecting approx. 115V.. not very good..

Hopefully motherboard is not fried .. if Charcoal is lucky the proccesor will be running probably a AMD k6 or P2 . BUT getting a motherboard for those processors will be hard really hard ..

Charcoal take your Pc to a Hardware Dealer .... and dont sell it for an upgrade for such a make you will get next to peanuts .... I had to sell my Athlon processor for next to nothing

[IRJustman]

Originally Posted by Geta Boshi

Are you implying a SMPS/PSU is nothing but a full wave rectifier minus the ripple effect

I'm not implying anything, I'm actually saying it. The method it uses to step down to a specific voltage and regulate it is different than from a so-called "linear" power supply. You COULD drive a PC with a linear power supply, but the power supply would probably be bigger and a lot heavier than the PC being powered and waste a lot more electricity in the form of heat. And it's straight DC, as in it doesn't pulsate at all. I don't think the Vcc on any device likes being driven with a square wave at any frequency.

As for ripple, as is the case with any AC-to-DC conversion, there's going to be SOME ripple. Only in this case, it's measured on the order of tens of kilocycles instead of tens of cycles and if your filter caps are good enough, they'll keep ripple from being a problem.

If you measured the output of a computer power supply versus, say, the output of a car battery with an oscilloscope, for all intents and purposes, other than for voltage, you'd get the exact same thing in both cases. A straight line above (or below, depending on how you connected your scope's leads) where you have zero volts set on the scope's graticule.

--Ian.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by Geta Boshi

Hopefully motherboard is not fried .. if Charcoal is lucky the proccesor will be running probably a AMD k6 or P2 . BUT getting a motherboard for those processors will be hard really hard ..

Charcoal take your Pc to a Hardware Dealer .... and dont sell it for an upgrade for such a make you will get next to peanuts .... I had to sell my Athlon processor for next to nothing

I assume there is just an PSU internal fuse that takes care of such things (at least in europe it would not get a certificate to be allowed to be selled if it had not such safety meassures included). So maybe that needs replacement (if it is replacable).

[Charcol]

Originally Posted by Geta Boshi

Hopefully motherboard is not fried .. if Charcoal is lucky the proccesor will be running probably a AMD k6 or P2 . BUT getting a motherboard for those processors will be hard really hard ..

Charcoal take your Pc to a Hardware Dealer .... and dont sell it for an upgrade for such a make you will get next to peanuts .... I had to sell my Athlon processor for next to nothing

Alright, so what do I do once I take it to the hardware dealer?
The processor is Intel Celeron 366MHz, is it worth replacing the bowl of milk?

I'm not entirely sure about the Australian standards for hardware.
Thank you everyone for trying to help me, I appreciate it.

Note: Charcol, spelt minus the second 'a.' It's a contraction of my name.

[Zu Ra]

Sorry about the extra a in Charcol My Bad

Well when you take it to a hardawre Dealer ...

* Get the SMPS/PSU checked Repair or Replace

* They can check if the power unit is the only problem at hand by using spare units

( Think SMPS/PSU is damaged in my books )

If motherboard / processor is damaged

* Ask for a second hand motherboard dont get tempted to buy a new motherboard or chipset ...

* If they dont have upgrade the system with a secondhand p3 or celeron of that make

( Why opt for second hand p2/p3 celeron ? They are pretty cheap and this is the secondary pc )

Originally Posted by Jinto Lin

I assume there is just an PSU internal fuse that takes care of such things (at least in europe it would not get a certificate to be allowed to be selled if it had not such safety meassures included). So maybe that needs replacement (if it is replacable).

I too used to belive that if there is a power surge the smps/psu fuse will melt away protecting the mthbrd and chipset from damage . Well recently there was one off storm and well a power surge followed ...

My motherboard got fried ( the cpu fan was running but there was no boot ) and my SMPS too was damaged ... . My spike buster is old so I dont know what was the reason .. But i too was under the beleif the fuse would come into play luckily my hard disks around 560 gb unformatted and my ram chips didnt suffer damage

[Charcol]

Thank you so very much KNETTER2000, Geta Boshi and everyone else who tried to help me. You're every kind to take the time to reply and teach me something. Shall do what I can with this PC.
Thanks again

[IRJustman]

Originally Posted by Geta Boshi

* Get the SMPS/PSU checked Repair or Replace

It's generally a lot less expensive (and a lot SAFER) to replace the power supply. Switching power supplies can be very dangerous if not treated properly because of the presence of high voltages inside. And because of that, it attracts dust like you wouldn't believe, just like the interior of a TV set, though those voltages are MUCH higher (on the order of kilovolts as opposed to hundreds of volts). You might want to blow dust out from time to time because dust is a great heat insulator, which is not what you want inside of a power supply.

--Ian.