This is not exactly digital imaging, but do any of you PC gurus know why a system might go completely dead after I replaced the case fan?
Unplugging that fan does change it back, by the way.
Pete D. didn't mean to kill the computer
Posted by David Bostedo on March 18, 2009 at 1:41 PM
Are you perhaps at the limits of your power supply, or maybe it's gone bad and is shutting off when the fan is plugged in? A completely dead computer that doesn't even try to boot is usually power supply related...
Posted by Jim Bullard on March 18, 2009 at 2:23 PM
"Unplugging that fan does change it back, by the way." As in change it back to working? If yes, the fan is the problem. It may have a short, be the wrong voltage/wattage or whatever. I assume the computer worked before the change of fan but the fan didn't work. If it also works without any fan connected the problem is definitely in the fan.
At a guess, the fan fried the power supply. They're inexpensive. Buy one with more watts and swap it out. Use a VOM on the fan to make certain it doesn't have a short to avoid having two fried power supplies.
Some computer manufacturers are notorious for under powering the power supply. If you add a new component and it exceeds the available power you may fry the power supply. My experience is that you will need 850-1000 Watts to run today's modern machines and all the ports , graphics cards and peripherals drawing power from the tower.
It is not the power supply. The guy who built the computer for me several years ago spent some time troubleshooting. The last idea his has is to swap out the video card (there is no built in card). If that doesn't work, he can transfer all my data to a USB hard drive. Then I will have the pleasure of reinstalling software, etc. on a new computer.
I'm not really looking foward to starting over, but so it goes.
Be scientific about it. Pull and replace one component at a time. Check all your connections and jumpers. Did something come loose? Inspect everything for small burn marks or damage.
Have two stick of ram? Pull one, try. Pull the other, try. Pull one drive, try. Throw an old video card in, try.
Start with the bare minimum. Power, one stick of ram, video card, try.
It's never the whole thing, it all didn't "go bad." It's just one component. Don't go spending money on a new computer, it's most likely something very simple.
Discussion
8 repliesUnplugging that fan does change it back, by the way.
Pete D. didn't mean to kill the computer
Pete D.
I'm not really looking foward to starting over, but so it goes.
Pete D.
Have two stick of ram? Pull one, try. Pull the other, try. Pull one drive, try. Throw an old video card in, try.
Start with the bare minimum. Power, one stick of ram, video card, try.
It's never the whole thing, it all didn't "go bad." It's just one component. Don't go spending money on a new computer, it's most likely something very simple.