The Death of a Power Supply

A few months ago, I started noticing some weird behavior on my desktop Linux computer at home. I have been able to work around it until I got home from the airport this past Friday night. I went to turn on the computer, but it wouldn't boot. There were not lights nor fans that came on. It was like I was pressing a random part of the computer as the "On" button seemed to have no effect. When this has happened in the past, it was just a matter of disconnecting all of the cables from the back, re-inserting them, and turning it on. Friday night, that didn't work.

It is a good thing I have several other computers in my office at home as I was able to search the Internet for help. My Linux desktop is a Dell. In fact, it is one of the first Dell computers to have the new Intel i7 processor and it seems the engineers never got full credit on their homework assignments in college. Searching on my model number and a few other key words like "won't turn on" brought up numerous accounts of other Dell customers experiencing the same problem. When Dell built my computer, they put in a 300 watt power supply, which turns out to be way too small. Judging from the number of posts, I was lucky my power supply managed to last as long as it did.

Computer power supplies are relatively cheap. I probably could have ordered one online and gotten a better price, but I needed to get my computer running immediately. As it was 1 am by the time I felt I knew how to solve my problem, I went to bed. The next day I added a stop at Best Buy to my list of chores. I read about a 600 watt power supply that solved the problem nicely, but the largest my local store had was 450. I asked to make sure it would fit in my Dell case and was told all power supplies were interchangeable. In truth, they are not, but I decided to give it a shot.

I got home and opened the case only to be amazed at how many wires come out of a power supply. I had removed the case of my computer before but never really noticed all of those wires. There were really only 4 bundles that mattered: 2 for the motherboard, 1 for my graphics card, and 1 for my disk drive and DVD drive. I unplugged them all and pulled out the defective power supply. Getting the old one out took a bit of skill. Putting the new one in was almost impossible. When you build a computer, the first thing you put in the case is the power supply. I didn't want to pull everything out of my case and so it was rather difficult to work the new supply around heat sinks and cooling fans. Bending a bit of the sheet metal in the case helped but it was a non-trivial process. Besides, with the cover back on, nobody can tell I had to bend anything.

I connected everything back up only to discover that the power cable running from the supply to the hard drive and then to the DVD drive wasn't long enough. A quick internet search showed me I could get an 8-inch extension cord for around $5 and so I ordered one. After all the case bending, I didn't want to take out the new power supply and return it for one with more of the newer SATA power interface pig-tails. Right now I don't have a DVD drive as I had to choose between it or the hard drive, but that will be fixed on Wednesday when the part arrives.

I left a panel of the case off and made sure the computer would turn on. It did and so I turned the computer off and put the case back together. That was a huge relief as I really need my Linux desktop. It is nice to have it back from the dead.