My main PC died...
The (power) lights were on, but no one was home.
I tried rebooting, and nothing happened - no POST, nothing.
I pulled the cover, rotated the memory, reseated all the cards, tried again - nothing.
It occurred to me that the lack of even a POST might indicate a video failure. I pulled the video card and sure enough - I could see three blown capacitors.
Fortunately, being the pack rat that I am, I had a spare video card. When the cooling fan on the old card went bad, I bought a better, faster card, but kept the old card - just because that's the way I am. At some point, I ended up buying and installing a replacement fan for the old car, thus giving me a spare.
After popping in the spare card, I was able to boot up and get back in business.
Now, I just have to figure out exactly what the specifications are on the blow caps, and order three new ones from my friends at Mouser Electronics. Hopefully, that will allow me to put this card back in service and allow me to return the other card back to the spares pool.
Digg It!
Bookmark it!
Posted by David at February 20, 2006 02:31 PM