O/T: Computer Power Supply?

Hi guys & gals,

Just a feeler here to see if anyone has an old power supply lying around gathering dust...

I need a replacement P/S for an appx. 6 yr old Emachine I have at the house. I already checked all my spare parts piles, and nothing has the same specs. Ebay can get me one for ~$40, but from what I've read, it likely blew the motherboard when the P/S went, so I don't really want to invest a lot in this box.

If anyone has one I might use for diagnostic purposes, I'd be grateful. The model no. I need is Bestec ATX-250-12E or ATX-300-12E.

Thanks!

 

Just a FYI, it's highly unlikely that the mobo was damaged in a power supply failure. Power supplies generally fail 2 ways - overheating when the fan stops turning, and a power surge. In the first case your mobo will be fine, in the 2nd case it usually is also. Sounds like you have a Pentium III machine, any PS/2 power supply of sufficient wattage should work, you can usually find them even cheaper than $40.

 

I had a p/s go a few months back, and found everything in working order but my optical drives. I suspect it was not assembled properly at the factory, and it was an Antec, which surprised the hell out of me.

Heres a decent one from new egg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817182006

 

I use OCZ (Overclockerz) power supplies. If you haven't already you can open your supply and check the internal fuse.

If a mobo fries due to a power surge the majority of the time the damage is visible at the port or on the circuit board.

 

Just make sure that if you have a P4 you get a P4 compatible PS (or a non-P4 with a separate ATX12V connector) of at least 300W. Since yours was only 250W I doubt it was a P4, but with emachines you never know.

 

Thanks for the advice.

Alexa, good link. I had been to newegg, but didn't see that model. It looks like it would work fine.

Frank - I *think* it's a P4, but not positive. Google turns up stories of these emachines being sucestible to P/S failures, and lots of folks seem to lose other components when they go.

My other option is to just replace the machine, in which case I'll need to pull the data from the C-drive. Can I just plug the old drive into the controller in a new Vista case, or does one still have to set jumpers for master/slave?

Seems like I read about a USB adapter for bare hard drives which lets you read the old drive w/out even opening tha case. Anyone had experience with these units?

In any event, I guess I should just spend the $30 to see if this thing can be salvaged...

Thanks again.

 

So, I should look for black marks around the mobo connections to the P/S, or just anywhere in general on the motherboard?

Thanks for this info.

 

Yes, around the power IN connection and around the bios ROM chip. As for transferring data off your old drive it depends on whether you want to pull files off it or copy a mirror image to a new Hard Drive or boot your new computer from the existing drive. First thing would be plug it up and see if the mobo recognizes it. Yes, it would have to be jumpered as SLAVE if adding it to a system and placed on anything but the primary channel (1) of the new mobo.

 

Post up the model of the emachines and somebody will look it up to see if it's a PIII or a P4. You can put the drive in another system, just change it to a slave if connected to the primary IDE channel, can leave it as a master if it's on the 2ndary IDE channel without any other devices. If you try to use it as the boot drive in another system XP will blow chunks, it ain't gonna boot with different hardware.

I'd try a new PS if you're not itching to buy a new PC.

 

Definitely cannot think of a reason to image the entire drive. It would be kinda silly to try to reinstall all that old OS and associated 5 yrs worth of crap on a new machine.

We mostly just need to rescue the photos, some email, and a few documents.

I found this on amazon, but it's more $$$ than I'd pay just to keep form opening the case on a new machine... http://www.amazon.com/ADS-Basic-Drive-Conversion-USBX-833-EF/dp/B000A2AMVU

 

Thanks, Frank. Don't have the machine here, just the power supply. I think the one Alexa linked would work fine. It has all the right plugs and slightly higher amperages on all.

 

My PS caught fire a week ago, motherboard was fine.

 

If you are in the market for a new box, try any of the ABS systems listed. I purchased 2 of the AMD3200 boxes over a year ago, one for my Father in law and one for home. I wound up using the home box at the shop when I had the P/S problem with home built power box. Nice stable system with name brand parts inside, enough room for expansion as well. ABS is neweggs house brand.

 

For the record, it's a T-1840:

I didn't see any indications of damage to the motherboard, so I'll go ahead and order the newegg P/S and give it a shot.

Thanks for the help.

 

I've got a regular 300W ATX power supply sitting around from a vista upgrade. Pay for shipping (I'm sure less than $10) and you can have it. Just drop a PM.

 

Dang - I just gave NewEgg the order, and it's already past the cancellation stage. Big thanks, anyway. :up:

 

NP. lmk if something else goes awry.

 

UPDATE:
Plugged in the new power supply, and hoped, but apparently not with enough good joo-joo.

Fans whirred, lights blinked, beepers beeped, but sadly the hard drive just clicked painfully. No POST info or anything at all on the monitor.

I tried the off / on process a few times with the same results, then decided I was probably doing more harm by the repeated attempts.

Sooooo...

Anyone had experience with a Drive Recovery Service?

Google turns up a few ~ $200 flat rate recovery companies - is this a decent price?

The drive has several years of irreplaceable photos, soi I'm grudgingly willing to pay a few dollars to attempt recovery.

 

Trent, I'd unplug the hard drive power cable and signal cable and see if you can get the system to get to POST. You should see the POST on the monitor without the hard drive, so try to get one thing working at a time. Once you're confident you have the power supply problem licked you can move on to the hard drive. It would be unusual for the hard drive to be damaged from a power supply failure.

To answer your question, $200 isn't bad.

 

Well, I thought the same thing, that it should show some kind of POST-like display, but even with the HD completely removed, I get no response at all on the monitor. Like I said, the fan on the cpu spins, the lights on the case light, and the speaker beeps, but apparently no communications pass through to the display.

And, before you ask, yeah, I did reconnect the monitor