[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
Julian Hall wrote: > Neil Williams wrote: >> All I need is a power supply to resurrect my Pentium 1 90MHz. > Ebay has a section specifically for AT PSUs. Some ATX have slipped in, > but £5 for a 200W AT PSU seems reasonable. +PnP of course ;) > > from www.ebay.co.uk : Categories > Computing > Desktop PC Components > > Power Supplies > AT Power Supplies I think the power supply thing is a general problem. They are sold as items of which no maintenance is recommended, and (usually) contain a fan. The fan stops or jams, or simply slows down, and then they overheat and die. At work it was very noticeable that power supplies were the first thing cannibalised from old machines. We'd usually strip disk, CPU, and memory, but I think I've only ever used power supplies (and the odd strip of memory if it happened to fit a machine that was being repaired for something else - usually power supply failures just occasionally disk drive failures). However it also points the problem with second-hand kit - if the power supply is old it will almost certainly die soon. You can get generic power supplies, with a wide selection of connectors, which will fit pretty much any old desktop PC. But the pricing is such that it is hard to justify a new power supply at retail price (and shipping), when new kit is so cheap. Depressingly I've had a couple of boxes with dying power supply fans, and on inspection the fans were all on fit and forget type plastic mounts, the fans all had different sizes and connectors. Perhaps the answer is fanless power supplies. Most boxes I've seen the power supply is rated for a much higher power than the PC requires. Most of the PCs were 1 or 2 disks, onboard graphics card, and regular motherboard and CPU. I dare say if we filled the drive bays, and expansion slots. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html