i THINK its my power supply

[jjoel]

Ok i have an old acer 300 mhz aspire computer.

sometimes i can get it to turn on for about 30 seconds, other times it will turn on for 2 seconds and just lock up COMPLETELY LOCK UP. Im not able to move my mouse or anything. infact my hardrive is formatted. also sometimes i turn it on and the monitor doesn't even turn on from the sleep kinda mode.

now i took my computer apart and was looking for something being fried then i put it back together. when i turned it on i noticed this strange humming noise from my power supply when i would plug it in (it wasn't even switched on just a weird sound). so im thinking that it might be my power supply giving out. could anyone verify that for me?

also before my computer crashed i kept getting the BSOD so im kinda thinking its the power supply.

and if it is how much would a 250 watt power supply cost me?

[ranchdog]

You are looking in the right direction
for your problem.

Too bad you don't live around the corner
here... I'd give you a 250W PSU.

Is there a Mom 'n Pop PC shop close-by
somewhere? Maybe a repair shop? Some-
one who rebuilds PC's who may have a
spare?

Cost? A 250W PSU is almost a "take it off
my hands."

But when you need one... you need one.

Luck.


RD.

[Jhorner1]

jjoel
I just did a quick internet search and found 250 watt power supplies as low as $15 for generic, and $20 for brand names.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Don't shoot your horses until you know what is wrong.

I have a 200 Watt supply on an IBM 200mhz AMD and it does what it needs to. My bro has another in an Aspire with a 150 Pentium. It is fine. A friend has one on an A-Open 150P and it does ok, even burns CD's.

Have you tried to run your pc with just the bare essentials? Try it without your CD-ROM and hard-drive. (Remove modem and all but vid card too) Go into BIOS and check all your settings. Clean all the fans and dust bunnies out, even on the backside of the mainboard.

Is your HDD formatted, or do you have an operating system on it? I've never heard of a BSOD without an operating system before.

We can probably get to the bottom of this if we take one step at a time. Sometimes too much info or steps at once is only clouding up the picture. Try what I mentioned and report back on that only.

This IS the pc you were having trouble with about 3 months ago isn't it?

Did the humming start only AFTER you dis/re-assembled your comp?