First post, by bestemor
- Rank
- Oldbie
My PC would not start properly, no picture but fans blowing...
So, after some closer look, the 2 orange 3,3volt cables/lines at the 24pin ATX connector head(pin 1 & 2*) has been visibly burnt (!), for some time now apparantly.... 😲
Plastic coating is now dark brown(not orange anymore) and cable is VERY stiff/hard, for a cm or so out from the very end...
The 'clear' plastic connector is also burnt brown around those 2 cable ends.
Now, I've switched the PSU for a different one, but not sure what caused this?
The same setup now boots just fine with the new PSU(500w).
(and it even booted several times with those burns in place befor I noticed the damage! Having been occationally turning the PC on over a couple of weeks while experiencing trouble getting it to start...)
I suspect me having too powerful(?) things connected for too long a period, but still... and what does use that 3,3volt ?
Specs:
- Mobo = Asus P875 s478
- CPU = 1,83Ghz Pentum-M Dothan (mobile 479pin), low power I presume
- Some memory sticks
- Video = AGP nvidia 7900GT (which I guess needs some juice)
- 1 single 40GB hdd
- 1 DVD burner
- floppy disk
and PSU beeing a Fortron/Source 350W from 2005(bought new)...
Maybe it was the age/wear of the PSU ? Having been used for 7 years etc...?
But after opening it, all caps look just fine, hmm..
Should I worry about the mobo now beeing damaged ?
Cannot see any visible burns on the ATXconnector there, just on the 24pin PSU cable/head itself.
*: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atx#Power_connec … the_motherboard
PS:
I must admit there have been strange things happening this last year - with me just moving some of the 4-pin(5v/12v) cables around a tiny bit while it was running (having one open side of the case) made the PC do an instant shut-down! (like a power outage)
Not sure if related to what caused the current events.
And when turning it on again, every time it then operated like nothing had happened... weird...