mike wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Jeffrey D Angus wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on.
Well, HP bought Compaq, so I suppose it shouldn't
surprise me then that the PSU in that box went tits
up after about 2 years.
I bought a new Compaq computer in 1999. It didn't make it through the
warranty because of fake low ESR electrolytics on the motherboard. I
called for a warranty repair and told them it was rebooting constantly.
They told me to make sure the video cable was connected, and if that
didn't fix it, to take it to the nearest Radio Shack store. They told me
to copy my data from the computer, but if I opened the case the warranty
was void. I told them to stuff their company up their ass and bought a
new eMachines with Windows ME. That motherboard died after five years.
The power supply was still good and went into another model emachines
that needed the same odd shaped supply. I had installed a larger hard
drive before it died. That drive, with the original install of ME is now
in the fifth motherboard and works great for scanning photos and old
manuals.
I bought a used Compaq Evo once, I'd seen 'em in use at all kinds of
different businesses so figured they must be
'pretty good'. I had it a couple months and one day i left it powered
up while I went to do some errands. Came back after a couple hours
and immediately smelt that burned electronics smell as I walked in the
door; there was also an odd sound recurring in a steady rhythm coming
from the 'computer room'. I found that the power supply had smoked,
but didn't shut down completely, so it would bog down the UPS, then
the UPS would start to come back up and the smoked PSU would try to
start again which would again bog down the UPS - no telling how long
it did this before I got back. I immediately scrapped that effing
EVO.
One of the computers I refurbished for my 'Computers for Veterans'
project was a small HP. I had everything ready, and turned it on one
last time to run Belarc Advisor to print out the system information. As
soon as I turned it on, flames shot out through the fan. I scrapped
it. In fact, I scrap more HP computers than any other brand.
The next morning when I turned on the main computer the UPS went out.
It was a shame, as it's an industrial quality NCR 1 kw unit from the
80's. Reading up on those EVO's after the fact, I came to agree with
one denizen of the web who proposed that EVO's are evil... 
I get free, used UPS fairly often, all with bad or missing
batteries. One early unit had eight missing gel cells. they guy who
gave it to me took them out and didn't make a note of what was there, or
how they were wired. His excuse? "I thought all UPS used the same
batteries." The guy is a broadcast engineer. He should klnow better.
The OEM was out of business, so I have a large, heavy rack mount UPS on
the shelf waiting to be scrapped. I am thinking about turning it into a
rack mount server case.
I got another rack mount UPS the other day. It is an Alpha Ali Plus
700xl The batteries are missing. The OEM doesn't support it. They may
be 12V 7.2AH but I'm not sure. That's too bad, because I picked up a
free Dell 4350 server that I would like to put into a rack with the
UPS. I want a shop server to hold all the drivers and other programs I
use to repair computers, and to learn to administer Apache Server.
--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.