Computer Woes... Check your Power Supply before it happens to you!!!
 

Damn, it has been a bad month or so with PCs and related parts for me. But I think I have found the major culprit and wanted to warn the rest of you.

I finally spent some time to try and figure out what happened to my office workstation. (I have many others, so it was a pain, but not a big enough one.)

It was an eMachines T2040 2Ghz Celeron machine.

Well, after some testing and research I found that eMachines and some other PC manufacturers have had problems with underpowered power supplies taking themselves, motherboards and then KVMs/keyboards out in the process.

Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, my exact problem.

Piece of crap had only a 250 Watt Bestec Power supply!!!!

And I had 2 HD, 2 optical drives, 2Ghz CPU and 1Gb of Ram in it!!! (Yes, my fault for not checking it when I put in upgrades)

So, why should you care?

Well apparently eMachines is not the only ones who have done this. So, before you lose a bunch of hardware, time and possibly data, I suggest you or somebody you know who isn't afraid of the inside of a PC open up your case and pull the PS enough to check brand and wattage.

350 Watts is the bare minimum IMHO for a 2Ghz or less machine with one HD and 1 optical drive.

More CPU, HDs or good graphics card, etc. don't even think about less than 500 Watts.

It is my own damn fault, and there were symptoms before it blew I should have caught, but didn't. Just don't want it to happen to you...

Anybody need a micro PC case, or have a spare Socket 478 MB lying around?

I just don't buy emachines. . . :P

I remember cracking some cases open when I worked at best buy in 2001, and being pretty turned off by what I saw. They've always gone with bare minimums, even when it comes to PSUs.

But yeah, an adequate PSU is really one of the more important necessities when building a PC, and they're often underestimated.

I wonder why emachines are the cheapest computers you can buy in the stores. :rolleyes:

It's not just them though from what I've read!!! Compaq, Gateway and others have had the issue. And it was almost free during one of the black Friday sales. :)

I just don't want other's who might not know any better (Like I should have) get caught by this and lose their primary PC and maybe data.

Almost free!?!!! Boy that really worked out for you didn't it. :P

It ran for 3-4 years or so, so yes... :P

That's true, but emachines always seemed more severe than the others.

Realistically there's not much reason to expect the average user to need a PSU more powerful than the bare minimum, though. Most will never upgrade.

EVERYBODY that builds computers uses cheap PSU's. Even with higher wattage ratings they usually have substandard amperage ratings on individual rails. I use only Enermax or PC Power & Cooling PSU's, totally worth it.

When I built my latest workstation at UNR, I went with an Enermax Galaxy 1000w just to be safe......:D

Yeah, Enermax FTW. I have a 430w in my current rig that's been running strong for about four or five years now. Works great for my relatively old setup: Athlon XP 2400+, 1024MB, GeForce FX 5700u, SB Audigy, 40GB C: HDD, 120GB D: HDD, DVD-R, CD-RW, FDD, NIC, and case with 2 cold cathodes and the following chassis fans: 80mm x3, 92mm x2, 120mm x1.

I put one of these guys in my latest build (actually the 520W, not the 620W):

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=5138

Seems pretty beefy, does SLI (not that I'm running SLI, but I've got the motherboard that does it, so I figured the PSU should too), and has those sweet modular cables so routing is a snap in the case.