brinkema@fjcnet.GOV (John R. Brinkema) (08/07/89)
My relatively new GS (December) died last night. There was a 'crackle' and the computer died. The green power light on the CPU is off. The green power light on the Monitor is on. I assume that this is a power problem. I checked all the cables and outlets; the all seem OK. I open the CPU box and tried to look at the power supply, but at the moment I don't have a phillips head small enough to take off the power supply lid. Is there anything inside the power supply that a reasonably competent owner can fix? What should I be looking for. If I have to turn this over to a service person, is it any cheaper to give them just the power supply? If so, I need to check it; what are the output voltages. Lastly, am I missing some obvious (or not so obvious) alternative analysis of the problemr? Thanks for your help. jb.
billh@hplsla.HP.COM (Bill Harris) (08/16/89)
I had much the same problem on our IIGS (also bought last December!). Its problem was a bit more intermittent than you described; it did start working briefly twice as I was troubleshooting it. I first opened up the computer case and verified that no voltages were coming out of the supply. I then opened up the power supply case, verified the internal fuse was still good, and decided to take it to my dealer instead of troubleshooting a switching power supply with no schematics. (I couldn't find anything obvious through visual inspection or simple voltmeter measurements.) The dealer (Computerland) verified that the supply was bad and replaced it with a new supply, all for about $180 including tax. That included the minimum of 1 hour of labor. They also tested it with a string of disks attached. I suspect that they wouldn't have charged me less for bringing in only the supply. Oh yes, I asked, and the repair person said that they have had very few defective IIGS power supplies. Bill Harris billh%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com
throoph@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Henry Throop) (08/16/89)
In article <5020003@hplsla.HP.COM> billh@hplsla.HP.COM (Bill Harris) writes: [....] >Oh yes, I asked, and the repair person said that they have had very few >defective IIGS power supplies. > >Bill Harris > I had on go bad on me - no system errors, but a 'clicking' coming from the power supply every time a character was printed to the text screen. Real annoying. My dealer had not heard of this before, but replacing the power supply (under warranty) fixed the problem. Interestingly, I read a few months later that this is actually normal (according to Apple) and a by-product of the switching design. Incidently, the power supply ws not the only thing to go bad on me - I also sent through 3 motherboards, 2 keyboard, 2 monitors, and 3 disk drives before I got everything working. Henry Internet: throoph@jacobs.cs.orst.edu