Caution, this may be a stupid question... PC Power pack

session savage · 26-12-2014 08:55PM #1

Hi all,
I have an old PC I used in college back in 2000.
I had it in storage for the last good few years and went to turn it on the other day to see what was on it. Its a custom built machine and was pretty high end at the time.
Anyway its dead and I took the fuse out of the power supply and its dead. So I got a replacement and when I put it back together and plugged it back in the power supply farted a spark and its all still dead so I presume it blew the replacement fuse.
I know nothing about building computers so heres a couple of possibly very stupid questions.
1. Have i killed it?
2. If not, theres obviously something causing the fuse to blow, can I just whip out the power pack from another old PC and stick in the plugy things and away I go or will that kill me and the PC.
3. Should I stop fiddling with things I know nothing about before Im burnt and crispy?

Thanks

mordeith · 26-12-2014 10:41PM

session savage wrote: »

Hi all,
I have an old PC I used in college back in 2000.
I had it in storage for the last good few years and went to turn it on the other day to see what was on it. Its a custom built machine and was pretty high end at the time.
Anyway its dead and I took the fuse out of the power supply and its dead. So I got a replacement and when I put it back together and plugged it back in the power supply farted a spark and its all still dead so I presume it blew the replacement fuse.
I know nothing about building computers so heres a couple of possibly very stupid questions.
1. Have i killed it?
2. If not, theres obviously something causing the fuse to blow, can I just whip out the power pack from another old PC and stick in the plugy things and away I go or will that kill me and the PC.
3. Should I stop fiddling with things I know nothing about before Im burnt and crispy?

Thanks

On a custom the power supply is almost certainly replaceable. You just need to get a compatabile unit (most likely atx)

moc moc a moc · 27-12-2014 03:51AM

You can buy a Raspberry Pi that's probably about as powerful as your nearly 15-year-old PC for far less then the price of a new PSU.

beauf · 27-12-2014 03:25PM

Its so old its useless. Drill a hole in the Hard Drive and then throw the lot out.

TerrorFirmer · 27-12-2014 04:27PM

You would actually pick up an entire dual core machine with 2GB of ram which would be grand for desktop use for the cost of a new power supply these days (about €40-50).

Even if it was high-end in 2000, that would still make it a Pentium....III I'd say! :eek:

Squaredude · 27-12-2014 04:33PM

If you just want to see whats on it, you could just pull out the hard drive and connect to a modern pc. You may need to buy an adapter to do so but it would be cheaper than a new power supply.

Skerries · 27-12-2014 06:16PM

yeah just try and retrieve the data as it has gone to the great scrap heap in the sky

beauf · 27-12-2014 07:46PM

If you haven't looked at it in 20yrs there's nothing useful on it.

So what would be the point.

Caution, this may be a stupid question... PC Power pack

Comments