8:36 PM February 7, 2007
I recently decided to fix up my old COMPAQ Deskpro 2000 computer. Its only a Pentium 200 MHZ with 48 MB RAM, and a 850 MB Hard Drive with Win98SE.
Unfortunately, its the only backup computer I've got if anything happens to my other. All my computers, that I have had over the years have always been second hand.
I have a small collection of spare computer parts. I'm somewhat of a pack rat in saving any parts that come my way. I recently decided to clean house and throw out any junk that was to old or didn't work.
I had already stripped out most of the parts to the Compaq to install in my current system. Originally, it had a 2 GB hard drive which I removed and put it in my current system, a P2-266 MHZ, 64 MB IBM 300PL. It already had a 4 GB drive along with the 2 from the Compaq for a grand total of 6 GB. The 850 MB drive came from my 486Dx2-66 MHZ computer which I eventually decided to scrap.
Anyway, I came across an unusual OPTi sound card, which seemed to be actually a modem/sound card combo. I had one before, but it was 2 different cards joined by a couple of wires, this one was one big long card.
It ran from the back of the computer right up to the front. It also had only one phone line jack (plug in), most modems have 2, one for the line in and one for the phone out.
Anyway I decided to set it up to see what it was like. I can't remember why but I never got around to booting up the computer at the time. A couple of days ago I finally got around to giving it a try, only to discover that my computer motor seemed to be completely dead.
I had a second old power supply and decided to attempt a transplant, that is, to remove the non-working one for one that I assumed was working. I know you are saying, why not just plug them in and see if they work but some power supplies will not operate if the are not set up properly within a computer.
Unfortunately, after removing the old and replacing it, still no luck. I then assumed that the motherboard was gone, so I didn't think I could do anything more but scrap the system. I don't have the money for anything new, or anything else for that matter, and the two computer shops that use to exist in this town, both closed up shop to move to prosperous new grounds.
I admit I jumped the gun here, just a little, I scrapped the computer and threw away the mother board and the motor, i wasn't sure which one was working or not and I was a bit pissed off and didn't care.
Anyway, I guess out of curiosity, I decided to open up the motor and see what it was liked inside. I was amazed at the amount of dust, hairs, and soot. Second hand computer remember, lord knows what it has been through in the past.
In the garbage it went. But I had this nagging feeling that i could do something more and went online to inquire about faulty power supplies. I came across some info about how a motherboard if not properly resting inside the case could shorten out a power supply. The board should not be touching the case, although I never touched the motherboard I still wondered if i somehow knocked it out of joint when I put in the sound card.
So I dug the motherboard out of the garbage and put it back in the computer, put the screws in and just plugged in the power supply into the board, (just a note: my power plugs into the board with two plugs and they should be placed in such that the black wires are on the inside facing each other). Still didn't work.
It was suggested on the internet to loosen the screws one at a time to see if it made any difference. I decided to go one step further and removed all of the screws and lifted up the motherboard completely, then i placed a big piece of cardboard under the motherboard so that it completely isolated the board from the case, put in the power plugs and then plugged in the computer, I know it would not boot up without anything else attached but i just wanted to see if the power would work.
Amazingly, it did. I was truly surprised. So I trimmed the cardboard and left it under the motherboard, it was a little bit difficult getting the screws in, but I got it done. I again tried the power supply just to be sure, still working.
Then it occurred to me that the old motor I took out may still be working, so I fished that out of the garbage to, but I decided to clean it out first. I had a bottle of a spray cleaner something like Windex and gave the motor a good cleaning out until all the gunk inside was gone.
I then drained it out completely by letting it set awhile on paper towels and changing the side it was resting on occasionally until I was sure it was all drained out. Then I decided to let it dry overnight before trying it out. I also waited to put the cover back on.
The power supply I had just put in was working but the power button gizmo was different from what the Compaq had so I couldn't hook up the on/off button. My only solution was to place the lose cable through the opening above where the CDROM was and use it that way, a bit ackward, but then the switch itself got stuck in the on position and the only way to turn off the computer was to pull out the power cord from the back.
So it looked like I was going to be able to test if the old power supply was still working. As soon as i was sure it had completely dried out.
At this point I hadn't assembled the entire computer. The next morning i removed the second power supply and replaced the first, sure enough, it started working so I turned it off and decided to finish putting everything back, floppy, hard drive, memory, cdrom, hooked up all the data cables, replace the video and sound card after getting it all assembled,..... it stopped working again.??
The only thing really that was new (somewhat), was the sound card. I took it out and restarted the computer. And yes it worked. I took an entire computer apart and put in together again apparently because of a faulty sound card. But I had another, a SoundBlaster16, I decided to try that but the same result my computers power would not even start up.
So I took out the card and put it in a different slot. Now its working. It seems that the ISA slot in the computer that I was trying to use is the problem. But strangely still I tried the OPTi sound card in the working slot and it still stopped the computer from powering up. So apparently one faulty ISA computer slot and one faulty sound card.
After going through all of this for a sound card, I still felt like chucking the whole thing out in the trash. If a card was bad I expected it either to give some warning during the boot-up, or Windows would give some error, but I never expected it to interfer with the power supply. You learn something new everyday.