[Thinkpad] OT: Cooked Desktop

[Jonathan Berry]

>If there is any valuable data on the P3-900 computer's hard disk drive, I
>would suggest that you remove it, mount it in another computer as a slave
>to the primary hard disk drive and then back up the valuable data.

Thanks for the various helpful pieces of advice from Aryeh and 
also from Deanna, David, and STeve Andre'.

In the end, I:
-- removed the burned out power supply.  The most difficult
part of this process was removing the power cable to the 3.5"
diskette.  It is keyed and ornery.
-- removed the HD, connected it via USB2 to a Thinkpad X32 
using a bytecc adapter which was recommended on this list 
many moons ago.
-- connected a firewire LG DVD burner to the X32
-- transferred the data from the HD to DVD using Nero, without
incident.
-- purchased a 450 W generic power supply.  I don't know about 
brand-name incompatibilities, but in the generic world newer 
mainboards require 24 power pins.  Older ones require 20 pins.
Thus power supplies come in 20, 24, and 20/24 flavours.  Mine 
ended up being a 20/24.  20 would also have worked for me, but
24 would not: plug too big.  I also saw somewhere that newer
mainboards may not require one of the six voltages (-12V I 
think) which were required in olden days.  Of course then there 
are power supplies around which may look compatible, but don't 
supply the required minus 12 volts.  So you have to look at the 
specs.
-- vacuumed the CPU fan
-- fired up the computer without reconnecting the 3.5" diskette 
or hard drive.  Of course there was an error message, but no 
flames.
-- powered down, reconnected the 3.5" diskette and hard drive,
powered up.

Win2K did a chkdsk error correction on the system partition, 
but the computer has come back as good as before.  
I'll keep an eye on it, though.

Incidentally, I replace hard drives about every 2 years, so 
that cuts down on the number of horrible failures.  Maybe I 
should also replace power supplies on a regular basis ....

>
>When you are done doing that, you can then begin troubleshooting the
>computer to see if you can determine which components were affected by
>the power supply failure.
>
>You may also wish to take this opportunity to disassemble the computer,
>clean the chassis, reseat all the components, clean and or replace fans
>and so forth.
>
>Some desktop computers, notably Dell's, use power supplies that are
>physically but not electrically compatible with the ATX standard.  Other
>manufacturers (Hewlett Packard and eMachines come to mind), may use power
>supplies with regular ATX connectors and pin-outs, but come in non-standard
>sizes (usually micro-ATX).  It is important to replace the power supply
>with the correct replacement type.  Failure to do so may cause interesting
>things to occur.
>
>Many power supply manufacturers (Antec, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic,
>Sparkle, Thermaltake, Vantec, etc.) can tell you whether or not one of
>their models will work with a particular brand and model of computer or
>motherboard.
>
>Regards,
>
>Aryeh Goretsky
>
>
>
>At 10:00 AM 2/7/2007, you wrote:
>
>>Message: 5
>>Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 19:13:22 -0800
>>From: jberry at islandnet.com (Jonathan Berry)
>>Subject: Re: [Thinkpad] MS software killed my drive ??
>>To: Thinkpad at stderr.org
>>Message-ID: <SPUyF5mip54U092yn at islandnet.com>
>>
>>OT : desktop
>>
>>My wife's PIII 900, about 6 years old, shut down with the smell
>>of burning electrical stuff.
>>
>>Coming to the scene about 4 minutes later, I found that the
>>power supply was hot, the HD was quite warm, and most
>>everything else was warm.  Powering up does nothing.  Not a
>>sound.
>>
>>So, my next step will be to replace the power supply with
>>one the same rating as the old one, and hope for the best?
>>Or should I do something else?
>>

-- 
happy
Jonathan Berry and Erika http://members.shaw.ca/berry5868/fun.htm