PCA Forums

Hi All! Been a while.
I posted this on facebook. I'll just copy it here instead of retyping.

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Here's one for ya. A mission critical computer at work would not start today. Did some reading up and these crappy bestec power supplies and why the green led is blinking and not steady. Some said apply heat to the supply with a hair dryer. LOL! I had to try this. Got out the heat gun and after about 2 minutes of this ridiculousness I put the gun down and wanted to grab a real one and shoot it. no. But I'll be darned.. It turned green and I powered up! I ordered a new one and told her to not to shut if off till I replace it. End of day still running fine. Anyone know why this works? I'm guessing an effect on the caps?
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Any one seen that before? When I put the new one in I will dissect the old one and study the capacitors values cold and hot.
Also there were suggestions of pulling the mobo connector reapplying power and shoving it in hot if the light is solid on. I'm not doing that although the light was steady with it disconnected. To Chancey. Still amazed the heat thing worked. This a fix for the bestec only as far as I read up. (2005 era?)
Just wanted to pass this on if you run into it and the computer MUST run until a proper fix.

Koo Koo Mouse wrote:Hi All! Been a while.
I posted this on facebook. I'll just copy it here instead of retyping.

Start___________________________________________

Here's one for ya. A mission critical computer at work would not start today. Did some reading up and these crappy bestec power supplies and why the green led is blinking and not steady. Some said apply heat to the supply with a hair dryer. LOL! I had to try this. Got out the heat gun and after about 2 minutes of this ridiculousness I put the gun down and wanted to grab a real one and shoot it. no. But I'll be darned.. It turned green and I powered up! I ordered a new one and told her to not to shut if off till I replace it. End of day still running fine. Anyone know why this works? I'm guessing an effect on the caps?
___________________________________________end

Any one seen that before? When I put the new one in I will dissect the old one and study the capacitors values cold and hot.
Also there were suggestions of pulling the mobo connector reapplying power and shoving it in hot if the light is solid on. I'm not doing that although the light was steady with it disconnected. To Chancey. Still amazed the heat thing worked. This a fix for the bestec only as far as I read up. (2005 era?)
Just wanted to pass this on if you run into it and the computer MUST run until a proper fix.

I've only seen this on a HD. I friend brought over a PC that had a dead HD. I tried the cold trick and it did not work. Spin Rite would not work etc. So I thought about applying some heat. So I grabbed my heat gun and got it very warm to where you could not hold it in your hand. PC booted right up and I was able to get the picture files off the drive. I had about an hour or so before the drive crapped out again.

Yup! You bought some time Executioner as I did.. Nice save!

My only theory is that some component is failing that stabilizes at a warmer temp (capacitor is a good bet although it could also be a resistor or transformer). Modern PSUs won't turn on if they detect any voltage out of spec, and I can see a situation where the voltages are in spec when the components are warm but not when they are cold due to a failing component.

This lends credence to my theory that you should never turn off a computer - they work better at a constant temperature as opposed to cycling the temperature up and down.

This is why I can walk into a client's office who's been running a file server for 8 years with the original hard drive and it's still running fine. It's never been turned off.

Yeah, the only thing I can think of other than just being a consistent operating temp is that there may have been a bad solder joint that was able to re-flow. But I doubt a hair dryer would do that.

I still have a first gen P4 computer (2001ish) that refuses to die despite being in a flood. Even runs kinda peppy.

That's a really odd one there... I agree, probably a capacitor or something that only works at the right temp.

I agree that never turning off a PC is better. We have some servers at work that have been running 24/7 for 10+ years and are still doing fantastic. Unfortunately, at home, I shut my computer down when not in use. I can't afford to pay the electric bill with my 250-watt-at-idle PC running all the time.

I gotta agree FP let them run!
I never thought of a cold joint closing the gap just enough to to touch. Hey that could be!