Thanks for your reply Iggy. I admire you because you want to learn,
unlike some on this NG. I'm hoping to learn something too.
I could buy another power supply (and may do that) but first I'm
wondering what the actual problem is. Is the fan bad and the PS just
doing it's thing or does the varying voltage indicate a PS problem?
Since the voltage seems to be stable from all other outlets I'm
considering connecting my fan to an unused cable for some other piece
of hardware.

Engineman


2. Ignoramus16420
Dec 22, 1:15 pm show options

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On 22 Dec 2005 13:03:07 -0800,
wrote:



I have a Compaq Presario 6010 us about 2-1/2 yrs old. It has XP home
-sp2, 736 mb ram, 40 GB hd, 1.4 ghz cpu.
Several days ago It suddenly went dead, no blue screen- power was off .
It rebooted right away but crashed again in a few minutes. I smelled
something like hot phenolic material. After a little checking I found
that the power supply fan was not working.


The same exact thing happened to me a week ago. The fan died so the
power supply would shut down on overheat. I had a spare power supply
around, so I swapped the bad one for the newer one.

These power supplies are cheaply made and do not last very well beyond
5 years.



I gave it a little nudge and it spun up. Now it quits occasionally,
even if it's on in sleep mode overnight and I have to
reboot. Ordinarily I'd just get a new fan and install it but years
ago I had the same problem with a different computer. After I'd put
in 3 new fans I found that the problem was low voltage from the
power supply. Before I go and buy a Compaq power supply


I hope that your power supply can be replaced with generic power
supplies. You can take your power supply out (it is junk anyway) and
go to a computer store, and ask if they have a replacement for you.


or fan I'd like to determine exactly what the problem is. When I'm
using the computer I"ve noticed that the fan sometimes turns of then
on later. I moderated the fan voltage with my multimeter and found
that the voltage would drop to about 4.5v and the fan would
stop. Later the voltage would rise at about 1 v per minute until it
got to 10.5 v and the fan would restart.The fan seemed to bind a
little so I squirted in a little penetrating oil. It freed up but it
still sometimes crashes overnight. Does the power supply have some
sort of heat sensor that regulates the fan speed according to temp
or is the PS going bad? The voltage it feeds to the other hardware
is satisfactory. I've never paid any attention to this until I
started having troubles. Any ideas? Engineman


I think that the proper solution is to replace the POS power supply
with a new power supply. They are not expensive. I never owned compaqs
(always generic computers), so I would not know exactly, but I hope
that you can easily swap the power supply. It is a 5 minute job.

i