power supply fries mobo?

[Jon Morris]

Hi all
About 1 year ago I purchased Fortron Aurora 350W Power Supply to reduce the
noise made by the OEM fan supplied in my Gateway. Recently I began hearing
intermittent grinding noise from the power supply fan and contacted
QuietPCUSA. They shipped me a Q-Technology 350W Gold Series Power Supply
which I installed without difficulty.



On powering up the system I saw a message stating tghat the system
configuration had changed and that I would need to reactivate Windows. I
used the system throughout the day noting that the new power supply was
louder than the previous Fortron, and that the motherboard temp (monitored
by MotherBoard Monitor 5) was running around 122, as opposed to the 105 with
the Fortron system.



This system is a Gateway 700xl that is configured with 2 SATA drives and 2
optical drives, a CDRW & a DVDRW drive. On powering up with the new system I
noticed that the CDRW drive was being identified as a SCSI drive (it's IDE
of course) and didn't work. The DVD-RW drive works fine.



I have tried a variety of measures to make this work:

1.. Problem persistes after exchanging the cable
2.. Removed battery from the board and replaced it without effect
3.. Purchased a new CDRW drive which was not identified by the BIOS at
all.
4.. Switched out the CDRW with one from another computer in my home;
system won't boot without error message stating that there is no CD/DVD
drive detected in the system
5.. DVDRW drive works from either position on the IDE cable
6.. Have switched master/slave/cable select settings on the drive without
any benefit
7.. CDRW drive reported as not working on the Gateway works fine in my 2nd
computer


The system functions perfectly with the exception of its' only recognizing
the one DVDRW drive. Everything is otherwise functioning normally and I have
switched back to the old power supply.



I think that the new power supply may have done something to the motherboard
onboard IDE controller. Unless something else occurs to me will plan on
replacing the mobo next week.

 

[kony]

Hi all
About 1 year ago I purchased Fortron Aurora 350W Power Supply to reduce the
noise made by the OEM fan supplied in my Gateway. Recently I began hearing
intermittent grinding noise from the power supply fan and contacted
QuietPCUSA. They shipped me a Q-Technology 350W Gold Series Power Supply
which I installed without difficulty.

The only major gripe I've ever had with Sparkle/Fortron, is that *some* of
their units use (an only median quality) Yate Loon sleeve-bearing fan.

Even so, the best resolution would've been to lube the fan with a thick
oil to very light grease, synthetic based. Typically a fan lubed with
appropriate viscosity will run for many, many years, far longer than that
fan did until the point it was needing lubed, _IF_ that fan is lubed when
it first starts misbehaving, not ran dry until the bearing is all ground
up... at which point lubing it will often work, but the extra play, wobble
in the shaft will reduce lubricant retained in bearing.

Above is probably more detail than you wanted, but is an exampe that
specific remedies can be very good if/when applied in a timely manner. Do
not use lightweight oil though, nor any kind of oil for a ball-bearing
fan.

In other words, unless you were running the system with the Forton unit's
fan completely stopped, it's likely to still work fine, after you lube or
replace the fan. For power supply or other horizontally mounted fans it
is preferrible to choose one with dual ball-bearings, not sleeve. Note
spec'd RPM too, the original fan was a low-speed model, IIRC, and so
should it's replacement, for a similar noise level

On powering up the system I saw a message stating tghat the system
configuration had changed and that I would need to reactivate Windows.

That is interesting. It should not have been necessary. I will speculate
that your battery is dead and the CMOS lost the settings. Swapping a
power supply should never cause that unless there is some other problem
too.

I
used the system throughout the day noting that the new power supply was
louder than the previous Fortron, and that the motherboard temp (monitored
by MotherBoard Monitor 5) was running around 122, as opposed to the 105 with
the Fortron system.

Please use Celcuis temps, we're all more accustomed to them, even in the
US. It sounds like your system has poor ventilation, regardless of what
power supply is installed. That is likely to have accelerated the demise
of the fan in the Fortron, as it will with any sleeve bearing fan. Even
so, 15F is a very signficant temp change, it should not have risen that
much even if PSU fan quit entirely, unless you had quite poor chassis
ventilation. Fix the chassis airflow problem without consideration of
power supply, THEN focus on power supply issues.

This system is a Gateway 700xl that is configured with 2 SATA drives and 2
optical drives, a CDRW & a DVDRW drive. On powering up with the new system I
noticed that the CDRW drive was being identified as a SCSI drive (it's IDE
of course) and didn't work. The DVD-RW drive works fine.

So to clarify, you ONLY changed the power supply, correct?
There should be no reconfiguration of the optical drives necessary. Check
the drive cables and bios settings.

OTOH, an optical drive will be identified as SCSI without it being an
issue, is to be expected unless it's ID is now different than previously.

I have tried a variety of measures to make this work:

1.. Problem persistes after exchanging the cable
2.. Removed battery from the board and replaced it without effect
3.. Purchased a new CDRW drive which was not identified by the BIOS at
all.

Check the drive jumpers, rejumper if necessary. You might try clearing
the CMOS, and flashing same or newer bios version then clearing CMOS or
entering bios and loading setup defaults. Write down any significant bios
settings you've changed prior to doing so, and compare the difference,
reconfigure bios afterwards if necessary.

4.. Switched out the CDRW with one from another computer in my home;
system won't boot without error message stating that there is no CD/DVD
drive detected in the system
5.. DVDRW drive works from either position on the IDE cable
6.. Have switched master/slave/cable select settings on the drive without
any benefit
7.. CDRW drive reported as not working on the Gateway works fine in my 2nd
computer

Backing up a bit, when this Forton's fan was acting up, the system was
otherwise working properly?

Before any other suggestions I'd still try rechecking cables, jumpers, and
reflashing bios then resetting it with jumper or loading setup defaults,
then making bios setting changes if needed. If bios was set to manual
setting for the drives then try "auto" configuration instead. If this
system has unique issues you might also ask about those issues in a
Gateway oriented newsgroup.

The system functions perfectly with the exception of its' only recognizing
the one DVDRW drive. Everything is otherwise functioning normally and I have
switched back to the old power supply.

So is it making a difference which power supply you use?
If the new one has insufficient 12V capacitor for your system, you might
indeed have hardware problems, but usually hard drive problems, not
opticals, which only use the 12V significantly when trying to spin a disc
or operating the mechanical mechanisms... otherwise it's using mostly 5V
power. Take voltage readings of 5V, 12V, at least in bios or windows but
preferribly with a multimeter.

I think that the new power supply may have done something to the motherboard
onboard IDE controller. Unless something else occurs to me will plan on
replacing the mobo next week.

Possibly a static discharge while swapping power supplies? It's unusual
for an inadequate/failing/defective/etc power supply to only damage an IDE
controller. Try above suggestions first. It may be a lot cheaper to buy
a different motherboard rather than purchase one from Gateway, unless you
need the ability to restore a Gateway factory image/software.