First post, by kikendo
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I recently acquired a really cheap Gateway 386SX/25 but it's not booting and I am a bit confused as to how to proceed next.
On first try, the power supply wouldn't even power up, so I suspected it, and I am now 100% sure it's dead, since it doesn't even turn on its fan,. and I get no readings on the multimeter on any pin.
Now I got an ATX PSU to AT converter, and I tested it yesterday, but the PSU won't power up when I connect it to the Gateway. I hear a faint "click" in the PSU but there fan doesn't turn on and clearly there's no power to the machine, it's acting as if there's a problem with the computer.
Disconnecting the motherboard from the PSU, I can get all the other peripherals in the machine (hard drive, floppy drives)and the PSU to power up just fine.
Where should I be looking here? I see no fuse on the motherboard. But is the PSU acting as if the motherboard was shorted? No real idea what to do, visual inspection is inconclusive.
Any help appreciated, I would really love to restore this beast.
PS: my computer looks like this, but it's not a 486. I actually cannot find any info or pictures online whatsoever for my model.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ3x9NaKjCs
Edit 2: actually that video shows an advert for the whole line and it mentions my model as the base one.