Mike Dresser wrote:
On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Michael Kahle wrote:blow this one up... be sure I will NOT be sharing with anyone... a future employer will look me up and Google and decide he cannot afford my less than adequate performance.Some of the best hardware problems are prefaced with things like "Nah, it'll be fine" "Hey, I wonder what happens when you do this" "It'll be fine, it's tougher than it looks." And/or followed by "!*@#(* ATX power supply didn't shut off" "Hmm, that was interesting." "Where's the extinguisher?!?"
Rumor has it that the U.S. Auto industry has been secretly putting "black boxes" in cars & trucks for analysis after accidents. Along with the usual "Aww..S##T!", the most common "last remark" among our Rednecks is: "Hold my beer and watch this!"
One of the better "Light Shows" I ever saw happened one night while installing a MoBo in a new case. When I had finished the hardware part I plugged everything in and hit the power switch on the case for a "smoke test".
There was an immediate flash of light from the area of the switch on the case, the "Power Switching Center" did a short, groan then flashed too, then the lights to my area of the house went out. It was an obvious short in the power mains, & had tripped the circuit breakers all the way out to the box in the garage.
After un-plugging everything and re-setting circuit breakers, I made a visual exam of the damage... Everything seemed intact except the Power Switching Center, which was fried. Interestingly, the 15 amp circuit breaker on it never tripped, but the 20 amp breaker on the circuit in the garage had tripped! Anyhoo, it seems that whoever hooked up the power supply to the computer's power switch was either color blind or couldn't read...they had wired it so that turning the switch "on" put a direct short across the power mains! Some probing with an ohm-meter showed the switch was still working, so I re-wired it correctly and cautiously "tested" it again...every thing worked fine! Fortunately, this particular config prevented any power from reaching the computer, including the PS, so nothing internally was damaged.
I now personally re-check the power wiring on EVERY new case that I buy... Cheers (and condolences), -Don Spoon-