Important!! Folding and power supplies!!

[The-Last-Kehoe]

I used to have, and still do have a huge problem with folding and power fluxuations. I have two systems set up at my fathers house folding 24/7. I would leave his house for five days and by the time i came back on friday one of them is always on, and the other has been shut down due to a power failure, i thought it might be the outlet or something so i switched them but the same thing happened to the same computer. then i thought it could be the power supply so i switched those and it seems to have followed the power supply. so naturally i took a look inside, both 300w and saw that the better one had much larger capacitors. i hear those things can cary a nasty charge and can really shock the hell out of you. my question is would it be safe to replace the capacitors on the weaker power supply and would it also not screw up my voltages and what not. I do not even pretent to know much of anything about basic electronics but if someone out there does i would greatly appreciate your hlep

[burn'em]

Maybe you should try using a ups it will give you a clean power source,

[Ploaf]

The UPS will improve your power source. It solved some problems I was having anyway.
I believe that you can discharge those capacitors but I couldn't tell you how. It may be similar to the way they discharge a monitor before working on it. Certainly dangerous anyway. What does a decent psu run anyway?

[Ebola]

yea i've been thinking of getting a ups too but everywhere i look there like $100 for anything decent.

[William]

even though you are trying another plug, are they still on the same circuit? Getting one on another circuit should do the trick.

[Ploaf]

Originally posted by William
even though you are trying another plug, are they still on the same circuit? Getting one on another circuit should do the trick.

This is a good point, especially if the wiring in your home/apt isn't exactly up to date. Sometimes just moving to a circuit that has less demand on it will help steady your power supply a bit.
The only reason I use the UPS is to keep the power running when the lights go out, but it also have the nice effect of cleaning the current of surges and voltage drops.