William R. Walsh wrote:


Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection
circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've
found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives.

Huh, they're still in business? That's a surprise...

The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP
circuit.

I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in
their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some
of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are
dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else,
but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP.

Good point, a lot of people don't know they need electrical work until
after a problem has already cost them money.

As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the
MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really
has been damaged and is not reliable.


Hmm, I hadn't thought to do a virus scan on it, if that's what it was
I hope it's gone.
Thanks,
Mike