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What things to check 1st after power surge?

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  • What things to check 1st after power surge?

    A buddy of mine called me today and asked me if I could look at his system for him because after trying to rewire his house and connecting the wrong wire to 220 he fried every electrical thing in his house. Needless to say his older packard bell was not on a surge protector(best 15 dollars you could spend)he said a burning smell was coming from under his desk. It will not boot. What might the first things to check be? I was thinking power supply, motherboard(I think those had on board video and sound) Is there a way to test the power supply?Anyone with any advice would be appreciated. Would the monitor be affected do you think? He lives in another state and is not sending the monitor. Thx
    Asus P2b(1011),P3 500,256 mb pc133,Matrox G400 DH,Asus 50x,Iomega zip,Mitsumi CDR,Ibm 20 gb hd,Promise ultra 66 controller,Sb Live,Win 2000 pro

  • #2
    I suspect burning smells are a bad sign. I'd check the power supply, certainly, but from what I understand, the damage could be much more extensive. If you replace the power supply and it still doesn't boot, he's in trouble. Could be the motherboard or the CPU or everything. If it does boot, you should test everything. It shouldn't be too hard. If you get beep code errors, you should note them. They can tell you a lot.

    When he switches on the monitor, does the little amber light go on? If it doesn't, he's probably in trouble.

    I live in a state with unreliable power and a good chance of power surges after a "rolling blackout." I think $15.00 is a little low for a surge protector.

    Paul
    paulcs@speakeasy.net

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    • #3
      Acording to my experience it's only 1 of 10 times when more than the PSU has blown sky high!
      If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

      Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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      • #4
        Thanks guys!
        Asus P2b(1011),P3 500,256 mb pc133,Matrox G400 DH,Asus 50x,Iomega zip,Mitsumi CDR,Ibm 20 gb hd,Promise ultra 66 controller,Sb Live,Win 2000 pro

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        • #5
          Any capacitors on the motherboard swollen or bursted open?

          I got a relatively new Supermicro dual proc board for free that had some blown capacitors. Don't know how it happened, but after cleaning the goo off the board, I replaced a few capacitors and gave it a go (using donor parts from a PC at work just in case). Total cost was $6 in parts to repair. Darn thing worked fine.

          Too bad I owed my brother a favor, cause the board ended up with him and still serves him well.
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          • #6
            I suspect also the PSU to be blown away ...

            I'd suggest the following procedure:

            open the case and rip off all things that strick in your Mobo (CPU, RAM, AGP & PCI cards, HDs, CD drives etc)

            then power up and notice the beeping error codes that the mainboard supplies.

            power down, insert CPU, power up, note down beep codes

            repeat above procedure with each single component and you should be able to pretty safely determine what exactly is broken.



            The other day a lightning strike came down really close to my home and busted my PC (amongst other electronics), restarting just gave me spinning up drives and blwoing fans, but no beep, no picture, no nothing.

            I used the above procedure and it turned out pretty quickly that one of my RAM sticks wasn't working right.

            So make sure you're insterting one component at time, followed by the power up, beep code, power down routine.

            Good luck !
            Maggi
            Despite my nickname causing confusion, I am not female ...

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            • #7
              I would suggest that folks who live in lightning prone areas should use high quality surge protectors that also protect their phone lines. Network users might also consider surge protectors for their LAN. Now hooking up 220 to a 110 circuit ... that's more than just a surge, that's a Tsunami.

              I've never had equipment go out on me (knock on wood), much less fail due to power surges. I remember working on an early IBM PC back in '83 and a Utility company transformer blew in the area. I was writing to the disk at the time we lost power. I was absolutely amazed that not only did the PC not experience any electrical problems but the disk was uncorrupted as well. This, all without any surge protection.
              <TABLE BGCOLOR=Red><TR><TD><Font-weight="+1"><font COLOR=Black>The world just changed, Sep. 11, 2001</font></Font-weight></TR></TD></TABLE>

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              • #8
                As long as I live at My parents home My electronic equipments will never suffer from lightning

                The nearest we can come to being struck by lightning is when it slams down in the sawmill about 3/4 of a mile from where i live.

                Before the big *metal* tower at the abowe mentioned site was built the lghtnings always struk the mountins that surounds us.

                This is only confirmed for about 50 years.

                I do have a surge supressor but that's because i dont want "SEVAB" to fry my computer.

                If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

                Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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                • #9
                  Part of my job where I work is bringing up sites that have experienced power failures of some kind.

                  Seeing how we had quite a few storms march across the South East (USA) these past couple of days, the subject is fresh in my mind.

                  It's amazing that most Lightning damage to PCs is pretty much restricted to the Power Supply, Modem and sometimes the Videocard (If the monitor is not plugged into a surge protector.). Of course, this is not always the case, but I'd say Technoid's comment is correct.

                  Hey, Donny! We got us a German who wants to die for his country... Oblige him. - Lt. Aldo Raine

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                  • #10
                    I have a question for Maggi, First off I haven't received it UPS yet so i'm not sure what to expect but I will do what you said, it sounds logical. My question is where is the best place to get the beep codes from? I think i've seen it on windrivers.com, is there a better place?. I assume that I need to find out the bios manufacturer then look it up right? Thanks again
                    Asus P2b(1011),P3 500,256 mb pc133,Matrox G400 DH,Asus 50x,Iomega zip,Mitsumi CDR,Ibm 20 gb hd,Promise ultra 66 controller,Sb Live,Win 2000 pro

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                    • #11
                      <font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Kookstick:
                      ...
                      I assume that I need to find out the bios manufacturer then look it up right? Thanks again
                      </font>
                      yup, every MoBo manufacturer should have it online and some even include it in their manual ...
                      Despite my nickname causing confusion, I am not female ...

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