[CLUE-Tech] power supply fried my motherboard

[Adam Bultman]

Interestingly enough, there was an article on Tom's hardware where they
did just that: they removed the fans from an Athlon, and pentium chips to
see what would happen.  If you search his site, you'll find it, there's a
10 MB or so movie you can download.  Shortly thereafter, there was another
showing that the athlon wouldn't die if you did that, but still, it's bad
when the smoke comes out of the Athlon.

adam

On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Mike Staver wrote:

> About the athlon - I've never fried one, and don't plan on doing so.
> Athlons aren't sensitive - just not very smart like pentiums, that's
> their only downfall in my opinion.  By smart, I mean they don't have the
> theram protection like the pentium III and higher has. The pentium 4 has
> a much more advanced thermal device than the p III, but the p III will
> still shutdown at a certain temprature.  The athlon is supposed to do
> the same, but only if the temp increase was gradual enough for the chip
> to catch it.  They've said that if you're heatsink falls completely off,
> it happens too quick and you've lost your chip.  However, I've never had
> that happen.  Worst case for me so far - my fan ball bearings have
> started to wear out, slowing down the fan, and causing my chip to heat
> up.  No biggy, I think my machine just locked up and shut it down, and
> when I turned it back on, I could hear the grinding sound of my fan.
> Turns out, I had a cable hitting the blades that over time had ruined
> the fan.  So, I wouldn't worry about it, unless you plan on running your
> athlon without a heatsink from time to time :)
>
> Jeffrey Greer wrote:
> >
> > In the last two months my dual celeron with abit bp 6 mbd computer has had
> > trouble powering on.  Recently it wouldn't power on at all, but the fans on
> > the motherboard would work.  I thought the motherboard was bad.  I bought a
> > new abit kt7a motherboard put the new system together and experienced a lot
> > of flakiness as I powered the system on.  Problems in hardware seemed to be
> > occuring randomly as I switched out components.  After a couple of hours of
> > switching components I smelled something burning on the new computer, then
> > nothing worked.  I've concluded my power supply fried my motherboard.
> >
> > I have a Premier ps-atx-300sn 300w ps. (btw: I bought this locally)  I will
> > never buy a cheap power supply again.  I believe power supplies are the worst
> > system killers of all.  I didn't try to buy cheap power supplies.  I just
> > never paid attention.
> >
> > I now think I will go with an Enermax power supply.  These seem to be
> > recommened by a lot of people.  I'm considering these two supplies:
> >
> > http://www.mpcparts.com
> > Enermax 350W ATX 2.03 PS Dual Fans WHISPER QUIET EG365P-VE FC  $46.00
> > Enermax 430W ATX 2.03 PS Dual Fans WHISPER QUIET EG465P-VE FC  $76.00
> >
> > My components will be - socket a mbd, 756mb pc100 memory, athlon xp 1600,
> > 7200 wd drive, 5400 maxtor drive, ati radeon all in wonder video,
> > soundblaster live, nic, scsi cd burner.
> >
> > Are there any compelling reason to go with the 430w supply?  Also, can I get
> > any ps locally of same quality and price?
> >
> > One more question.  What is the probability of my athlon xp cpu being fried
> > also?  So far I've never seen a fried cpu, however I believe athlons are
> > sensitive cpus.
> >
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>
> --
>
>                                 -Mike Staver
>                                  staver at fimble.com
>                                  mstaver at globaltaxnetwork.com
>                                  http://www.fimble.com/staver
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