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Places to get a power supply checked locally?

Places to get a power supply checked locally?

Postby mnemonicj » Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:00 pm

I started having problems with my computer not turning on from a cold start. I would shut it down at night and when I pressed the power button, the fans would start up for anywhere from less than a second to a full 5 seconds and then the whole computer would power off. Sometimes the computer would do this a few times before it would finally power up. Later, it would take 10-20 tries to get it powered up. Today, I pressed the power button over 100 times, with no power up.

The reason I pressed it so many times was because I was trying to test each component (fan, hard drive, disc drive, etc.) to make sure they weren't shorting out the power supply. After disconnecting and reconnecting everything I finally took 20 minutes and replaced the power supply with a spare that I have never used. The spare power supply powered up my computer instantly on the first try.

Where can I test if a power supply is bad? Do you think a local shop will have a power supply tester that they might let me use for free?

The power supply worked for 2.5 years in my computer and it is an Antec TruePower2.0 480W so there is enough power (my spare is a 380W and it seems to be running fine).
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Postby yeshuas » Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:30 pm

You can get a Thermaltake power supply tester from Radio Shack for less than $20
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Postby mnemonicj » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:05 pm

yeshuas wrote:You can get a Thermaltake power supply tester from Radio Shack for less than $20


Online Only. Luckily, I have a Fry's Electronics less than 2 miles from my house and they had one.

Sadly, the tester says the power supply is working correctly. DOH!
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Postby yeshuas » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:54 pm

I guess I was lucky and the Radio Shack by me had one, because Fry's is like 20 miles of bad road away LOL
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Postby NT50 » Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:52 pm

I test my own.
I jump the only green wire to a black and turn it on.
I then check all the voltages for each colored wire with a Fluke multimeter.

So far so good. If the power supply does not come on when you jump the green to black it is bad.
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