Re: Hard drive power lead question

Hi Brian. Thanks for that. Very informative.

Think you are right about it being a faulty power connector.

Popped in an extra hard drive this afternoon, into the computer - on another power socket - and it's taken that perfectly. Both drives + the cdrom working fine, using different power connectors (but avoiding the faulty one).

The power connector had perhaps been on gradual decline for a while, since I had a similar problem in January (although it had worked fine since then, until today). Will just have to remember to avoid that particular power connector in future.

Thanks again

Jon


"Brian Vagnoni" <BrianVagnoni@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1FF62C09-B477-4F48-90D6-0B0329F88F07@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The ps only sees a load, it doesn't see individual devices. The devices don't
see one another either, at least not from a power perspective. If there was a
dead short the supply would only see the short and not turn on the whole
system. If you had a short you would have never even been able to power up.
Computer power supplies are protected by feedback loops for over and under
voltage & current both on the input and output.

Brian Vagnoni

"Brian Vagnoni" wrote:

Not, unless one of the devices is a dead short the electrons don't care. You
have a bad connector plain and simple. I have 4 and 5 devics daisy chained on
one cable. Maybe you are using a ps not rated for your board & cpu, or not
enogh watts like trying to run a p4, a couple of drives, pci cards, and
memory off a 150 watt micro atx power supply.

If everything is rated ok, and as I stated one device isn't a dead short or
clse to it, the one device shouldn't affect the others operation. It's simply
+5 volts dc, and +12 volts dc on that connector. Nothing fancy.

Brian

"Jon" wrote:

>
> "Evils Dark" <insert_user_here@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:894D948C-ECB9-42AC-BF17-689B22718B32@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > "Jon" wrote:
> >
> >> I am no hardware expert, as you will soon observe.
> >>
> >> Turned on one of my computers this morning and it would not boot. It > >> had
> >> been working fine the previous day, with no changes. The hard drive > >> was
> >> not
> >> even detected in the BIOS, although the cdrom was.
> >>
> >> Took off the case, and swapped the power connector to the hard drive > >> for
> >> one
> >> of the spare ones, and now the computer boots. Everything > >> hunky-dory. A
> >> case
> >> of a failed power connector. Or so it seems.
> >>
> >> I also noticed that the power connector, for which it was not > >> working,
> >> seemed to be linked to the cdrom. So I'm wondering whether it's > >> better
> >> practice to use a power connector for a hard drive, that is not also
> >> linked
> >> to any other device, and whether that may have lead to the problem.
> >>
> >> Alternatively is it more likely to be symptomatic of a hard drive > >> close
> >> to
> >> the end of its life, or some other cause (like a failing > >> motherboard,
> >> CMOS
> >> battery etc)? Thanks.
> >
> >
> > I connected a fan to a drive power cable and the fan ran OK, but a > > drive
> > on
> > the same power cable was not detected. Swap the cables back and see > > if the
> > drive works OK. If it doesn't, its probably the CD. If it does, it > > might
> > just
> > have been loose.
>
> Thanks for your response.
>
> From that, it does sound like having 2 different devices on the same > power
> cable can sometimes cause problems for one of them. So thanks for > confirming
> that possibility.
>
> Yes, it did occur to me that I may have jogged the machine in some way > and
> hence loosened a power lead. The odd thing is that what seemed like > the
> same problem occurred a few months back, and doing what you suggested > solved
> the problem at that time ie I opened up the machine - unplugged and
> replugged in a few power connectors, making sure that they were all > tight,
> and the machine then booted fine. Not this time though, unfortunately. > Had
> to swap the power lead for one of the spare ones to get it to work.
>
> Am thinking of adding a new hard drive to the machine in the near > future, so
> may experiment a bit more with it at that stage. Thanks again.
>
> Jon
>
>
>

.

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