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power regulaters blowing out.

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chaim79

Registered
Joined
Dec 19, 2000
Location
S/W Wisconsin
I recently helped a friend out, he had just installed a cdrom and the power regulator on the mobo died, in a most spectacular fassion. I had heard about this before and was supprised to actually run into it, so I would like to ask others if they have run into this as well.

The mobo was a genaric P3 mobo, not overclocked

He had 3 ide devices (HD, ZIP, and a CDROM)

He also had 128mb ram

The CDROM died so he bought a replacement, after installing the replacement the power regulator on the motherboard went up in smoke. The CDROM was correctly installed and was the only change to the system. After replacing the mobo the CDROM worked fine.

I'm wondering just what caused the blowout, and I am wondering if it is repairable (I'll try and get the old one from him to play with... after I find a processor to use in it.)

Comments/questions welcome
Erik Ekedahl
 
I have repaired my ABIT BF6, i had 3 capasitors die (ok i fried them). yes they can be replaced. typing on my formaly fried board right now :)

just get ones with a higher voltage rating so that your problem will never come back....
ex, my caps were orginaly 6.3 volts... replaced with 25 volt caps
 
chaim79 said:
I recently helped a friend out, he had just installed a cdrom and the power regulator on the mobo died, in a most spectacular fassion. I had heard about this before and was supprised to actually run into it, so I would like to ask others if they have run into this as well.

The mobo was a genaric P3 mobo, not overclocked

He had 3 ide devices (HD, ZIP, and a CDROM)

He also had 128mb ram

The CDROM died so he bought a replacement, after installing the replacement the power regulator on the motherboard went up in smoke. The CDROM was correctly installed and was the only change to the system. After replacing the mobo the CDROM worked fine.

I'm wondering just what caused the blowout, and I am wondering if it is repairable (I'll try and get the old one from him to play with... after I find a processor to use in it.)

Comments/questions welcome
Erik Ekedahl

I supose its to late to Rma the motherboard?, or not under warrenty anymore?

Hmm.. sounds like somthing shorted.. perhaps you some how managed to get some wires mixed up when you replaced the old cd-rom, or perhaps the old one died because of a bad psu, and the new on made it finaly kick the bucket..

I'm sure someone else has some insight on this..

Exactly what type of mobo/psu/cd-rom is/was in that system?

That might help us find the problem.. personaly I'm curious how the relation of cd-roms have in this blow out.

-Trek
 
Crazy Jayhawk said:
If a capacitor blows, how do you find it? Is there a way to test whether a capacitor is working properly?

In my experience a blown cap is a leaking cap :)

-Trek
 
yeah, they leak, or look bigger than the rest. the top is rounded and not flat... they also smell nice :)
 
chaim79 said:
The mobo was a genaric P3 mobo

This was the first problem. These motherboard manufacturers that make cheap boards do it by using cheap and usually inferior components.

There is one thing that will always ring true in computers.

You get what you pay for...
 
Re: Re: power regulaters blowing out.

Kingslayer said:


There is one thing that will always ring true in computers.

You get what you pay for...

Thats mostly true, however I dont feel I'm getting what I'm paying for if I got a $600 p4 :)

I cant wait for them to get cut down, hopefully the transition to 0.13u will cut costs considerably enough to drop them down to semi-reasonable prices, cant belive they just demoed a 3.5ghz northwood today!

-Trek
 
Last edited:
Seriously?
Man I need to keep upto date on these things, wish the latest p4 would drop, I think its near 500-600 bucks a pop :/

Then again I might as well hang onto my cash untill the northwood comes out in 0.13u , with a ddr board :)

Wonder how long till a dual northwood system is out?

-Trek
 
YMAN said:
how can you tell when a regulator burned out?

It doesnt work :)

edit: (added)
If your computer turns on and works you dont have a problem. So you only have to worry about that if you computer dies.
 
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