[Novalug] OT - Power Supply

Joel G unician@speakeasy.net
Tue Mar 10 13:23:27 EDT 2009


John Yodsnukis wrote:

   > Doing a little early spring cleaning.  I have a couple of tower PCs
   > that appear to have faulty power supplies.  How can I test this?
   > Can I just swap a power supply from a working machine?  The plugs
   > look like they will fit, but it can't be that easy, can it?


If any of your Spring Cleaning discoveries are older Dell machines,
the answer is "proceed with extreme caution".  :)  For a number of
years, Dell sold systems with special, non-standard wiring between
the power supply and the motherboard, but committed the sin of using
exactly the same connectors as the ATX industry standard; the result
was that an unsuspecting computer owner who tried to replace or upgrade
either the power supply or the motherboard might fry either, or both.
I don't believe that Dell does this anymore, but given that precedent,
it's still wise to check before you swap, regardless of brand or age.



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