BleepingComputer.com: power supply dead?

I'm trying to get my wife's PC to work. We had a brown out last night and now the computer won't do anything, I suspect it's the power supply, but I haven't done this in a while so I'm not 100% certain. There's no lights coming on, no monitor signal, no fan, no activity at all.

It's an eMachine T3418, and I'm wondering how would I figure out which power supply to buy?

It's not completely stock, we upgraded the RAM to 1 GB and put a GeForce 6500 PCI-E in it. I'm also curious how likely is it other components are fried? We had it plugged into a surge protector, so I'm kind of surprised it's fried.

Any help would be appreciated. I can provide more details if needed.

Thanks.

This post has been edited by dirbmoz: 27 March 2009 - 07:07 AM

Have you tried manually resetting the power supply On/Off switch on the outside of the case?

If connected to a surge protector/power strip with a reset button...have you tried that?

Louis

This post has been edited by hamluis: 27 March 2009 - 08:47 AM

A little more info: Most surge protectors are only good for one or maybe three good surges before they are useless. The better surge protectors have indicator lights to tell you if they are still active. Also, most surge protectors don't do squat for brown outs, unless they specify that they have some sort of line conditioning. Most good power supplies also have some sort sag protection built in. I'm also not sure how long you've had this machine, but apparently, a couple of years ago Emachines had some faulty motherboards, I'd check to see if yours wasn't on that list from Emachines.

Emachines usually have Bestec power supplies
Bestec PSU's are best known for frying the motherboard when they go out.
[Which is usually a little over a year].

The computer should have a standard ATX power supply.
Pop it open & see what kind of connections it has for the drives , SATA or IDE, & get a replacement power supply with the same connectors.
I suggest at least a 450 Watt [or higher] power supply.

hamluis, on Mar 27 2009, 08:45 AM, said:

There isn't an On/off switch on the power supply, just to change the voltage.

I've tried different surge protectors, and have since got a UPS backup for when I get it working again.

Thanks Louis

ktseymour, on Mar 27 2009, 09:18 AM, said:

Thanks for the info, I just got a UPS backup, so hopefully this won't happen again.

I've had the machine for a couple of years, where do I find this list?

fairjoeblue, on Mar 27 2009, 09:58 AM, said:

What is a good brand of PSU for a replacement?

Also how do I tell the difference between SATA or IDE? It's been a while since I've done anything with hardware outside of a RAM upgrade or card installation.

Thanks

"What is a good brand of PSU for a replacement"

Opinions vary but I'm partial to Antec, 450Watt or better.

IDE are white 4 pin connectors .

Sata are black,flat & wider.

Make sure the PSU you get has a 24 pin main [motherboard] connector !

BTW, If you replace the pwer supply & the unit won't start more then likely the motherboard was fried when the old psu died.
Only fix is to replace the motherboard.

This post has been edited by fairjoeblue: 27 March 2009 - 08:27 PM

Thanks again. I will check into Antec, I just didn't want to get another crappy brand.

I found out it's IDE, so I'm going out today to try and find a PSU locally. Hoping it's not the motherboard, I don't imagine it'd be easy to find another one.


Edit: Edited to remove unnecessary quote. ~tg

will this power supply work?

I have used OKIA power supplies in several computers over the last several years.
To my knowledge none have failed, [except the one I killed modifying the connections on ]

They aren't the best but they are acceptable for general use.