Power supply trouble

[Divide]

Hello everyone,

My friend stopped by my house today and asked if I could help out with his PC, and I'm a little confused. We had some really bad storms in south Texas last week, and well with storms theres lightning. His PC was turned off, but still plugged into a power strip. He told me he heard some lightning and a loud zap noise from the area where his PC was located. A few minutes later he tried turning on his PC to no avail. He went out yesterday and picked up a new power supply thinking the lightning had damaged it somehow. He plugged in the new power supply, but his PC remains lifeless. He dropped by my house with his PC and both new and old power supplies.

The motherboard in his Compaq SR2013WM has a 24 pin connector, his old power supply had the 20pin with the separate 4pin *250W* if I'm not mistaken. The new power supply is exactly the same thing *250W* 20pin and 4pin. I plugged everything in and I get nothing, I did notice a small green light at the front of the PC case under the power button that turns on whenever I switch on the power supply.`

One thing I noticed was that his 20pin cable from his old stock power supply was missing one white cable which the new power supply does have. I did a little research and it seems to be the -5v cable, I'm not sure if this cable has anything to do with the new power supply not working. No burn marks or anything visible, I really hope its not his motherboard that crapped out.

Any Ideas would be great, thank you for reading.

 

[ex_reven]

It seems you have all the right plugs in the mobo. Technically it should turn on with the 20 pin and the 4 pin ATX power cables plugged into the mobo.

I have no experience with how lightning damages computers, but Ive heard people here reccommending a close up inspection of the capacitors on the board to see if they are bulging, swelling, leaking etc as well as inspection for any burn/scorching around them.

If you cant get the mobo up and running, id suggest your next best bet is to take out the hardware (ram, hdd's etc) and plug them into your computer to see if they work. If the ram/hdd's dont work on your computer, chances are all of the hardware might have been fried.

Goodluck and im sure you will be rendered every assistance possible by the members here at TPU.

 

[Namslas90]

How to resolve PSU issues with your computer;

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...c=en&product=3300335&lang=en&docname=bph07173

 

[ex_reven]

How to resolve PSU issues with your computer;

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...c=en&product=3300335&lang=en&docname=bph07173

His computer wont even turn on. Are you sure thats the right link lol.

 

[Namslas90]

His computer wont even turn on. Are you sure thats the right link lol.

Has to be, its a link to the compaq site for his system > Troubleshooting proceedures, Computer lights(the ones he mentioned) come on but computer does not.

 

[Divide]

Thanks for the advice guys.

The link actually gave me some good info, this is what I found out.

It seems like the original power supplys LED only flashes when connected to a bad device. I plugged in the original power supply to my wall outlet without being hooked up to the motherboard or any other devices and its LED was a solid green, meaning its working right. I plugged it in to the CD/HDD and both had the solid green light, but when i plugged it in the the motherboard the flashing started.

Found this in bright blue highlight.
"If an electrical storm or power surge has recently occurred, then it is more likely that the power supply, the modem, or motherboard is damaged and requires replacement. If the power supply was damaged due to power outage or storm."

I guess thats that.. well that sucks for him.

 

[Verikon]

He doesn't have a dial up modem installed which was plugged into the wall during the storm, does he? I've seen quite a few fried modems cause a system to not start up.

 

[Divide]

He doesn't have a dial up modem installed which was plugged into the wall during the storm, does he? I've seen quite a few fried modems cause a system to not start up.

Not sure about that, but I still tried removing the modem and still nothing. Thanks for the info!

 

[ex_reven]

He doesn't have a dial up modem installed which was plugged into the wall during the storm, does he? I've seen quite a few fried modems cause a system to not start up.

Same here, happened to my grandmothers. They fry pretty well

 

[keakar]

i can make a pretty good guess what happened. you got a power surge from lightning that fried the computer. i have seen it fry a fan upstairs and the dishwasher downstairs at the same time and nothing else in the house got touched. its like a gremlin with mind of its own.

if the computer was plugged into wall then being shut down means nothing, it is still live as far as electricity is concerned. voltage is always running into your power supply and to the motherboard. remember always being warned that you have to unplug computer anytime you work on it, this is because it still has live power supplied to the board.

the low voltage running the motherboard is always hot and this power comes through the power supply even though it is not running so it is hot as well but not the 12v rails. long story short unless your computer is unplugged or disconnected by a switch that kills the power to the power supply then you are not safe from lightning.

if you are very lucky you only just blew some capacitors on the motherboard and maybe the power supply too. pull the motherboard and do a good exam of all capacitors, look for swelling or odd sized ones, and look close at the back side of the board. there is a good chance you fried the motherboard, this may be visable as a burnt spot or solder connnections that have turned white from overheating.