Old Computer's PSU bit the dust due to brownouts

Windows7User2010

My old computer, aka the old 486 machine, its power supply died last night because of the brownouts when I left the system on.

When it was still set to 115W, the PSU thought it was on the 230W switch. When I set it on 230W, the PSU didn't turn on. I noticed my computer didn't POST (Power On-Screen Test) at all... I figured it dealt with the power supply's wattage malfunction. However, the Hard Drive, and DVD burner powered up, so did the PSU fan, but no video, no beeps, nothing. I did the following when I was troubleshooting the problem:
I unplugged all of the cards, unplugged the Hard Drive and DVD burner, left only 1 stick of RAM in the system (and no RAM installed), and only left the Motherboard, CPU, Heatsink & Fan in the system, and nothing. I recently dusted out the PSU, but that didn't cause the problem...

I even took out another AT style PSU out of my garage; hasn't been used in 3 years after my other computer died and the PSU won't power on at all. Do any of you know the problem was correct? I'm also going to buy a Athena Power 300W AT Power Supply (P8/P9 w/ Push-button switch) at Microcenter since there is no easy way to fix the old PSU...

DeepFriedCookies

Sounds more like a fried motherboard..

Lupinthe3rd

Yeah the only option is to try another PSU in it first to be sure, or try the PSU in another machine, otherwise yeah, probably a dead board now.

Windows7User2010

Lupinthe3rd wrote:

Yeah the only option is to try another PSU in it first to be sure, or try the PSU in another machine, otherwise yeah, probably a dead board now.

I have no other PC in my house that accepts the PSU, but when I have my PSU not hooked up to my motherboard, the PSU does the same thing. I used a voltage meter to test the PSU, and some of the connections are dead. The capacitors in the PSU are fine, the board on the PSU is pretty much rusty and has a bunch of grime on it. I tested the wired with the voltage meter as of now, the P8 connections (Orange, Red, Yellow, and the 2 Black wires have connection, the blue wire is dead.), and the P9 connection (the 3 red wires, white wire, and 2 black wires all have connections). I also tested the power switch wires with the OHM and no connections. I'm going to open the PSU to test the components on the inside for problems...

edit: just tested the PSU, and some parts are died. I just tested the other PSU and the PSU does work, just not the computer with the booting problem.
The Power, Turbo, Heatsink, Keyboard, Reset, and Turbo buttons do work. The CPU, on the other hand, I moved some of the jumpers off for testing purposes.

Hopefully I don't have to buy a new PSU, however, I'm planning to cut off the push button switch and solder the wirings to the flip switch.

Just tested the PSU; the system still won't boot. Can I just use tin foil and a 120W light bulb to make the motherboard heat up?

Windows7User2010

I really hate doubleposting, but, my motherboard bit the dust (BIOS chip died; 3 pins on the P8/P9 connection don't get a connection anymore). First solution to my problem out of the 2 worked (bought a new 300W PSU). Now my second solution is to buy a used motherboard on eBay that has 4 PCI slots and 4 ISA slots for $55 w/ free, fast shipping. After I get the new/used motherboard, I'm going to test the motherboard to see if the problem is solved. If so, I'm going to buy a USB 2.0 PCI card, Keyboard/Mouse I/O Card, and an Ethernet card that'll work with Windows 9x.

stitch

You're investing $55 in bringing a 486 back to life? *why*?

Windows7User2010

stitch wrote:

You're investing $55 in bringing a 486 back to life? *why*?

I'm planning to make my old computer as a NAS, or as a server. That and I have old PCI cards that I want to use again since I haven't used my old PCI hardware in ages...

stitch

A NAS powered by a 486 is going to be shit fucking slow. You would be able to probably find an old cheap P4 for that price and your performance would be significantly higher than what you can get out of a double digit MHZ CPU.

noone

55$ for a 486 motherboard?? That is super overpriced.

Anyways... stitch is right, a 486 is going to be slower than molasses processing files. Hell, even the processors in routers can do laps around a 486 in dataprocessing, period. Plus it's fairly simple to pick up old machines that are much more recent that would be able to handle stuff better than that.

Windows7User2010

stitch wrote:

A NAS powered by a 486 is going to be shit fucking slow. You would be able to probably find an old cheap P4 for that price and your performance would be significantly higher than what you can get out of a double digit MHZ CPU.

I'll use it then as a firewall as well insead of a NAS... or just as an old gaming computer (DOS games preferrably, or other games).

Josh

Are you sure you're a CCNA?

486 as a firewall?

Windows7User2010

Josh wrote:

Are you sure you're a CCNA?

486 as a firewall?

to block viruses, spam, and web sites as well.

BlueSun

You'd be much better off using the 486 as an old DOS gaming system. Or just keeping it for nostalgia purposes.

Beyond that, it just doesn't have the power to do much of anything else. If you use it as a firewall, it's going to cut your internet connection to pieces. Unless you're using dial-up. If you use it as a NAS... better plan on it being an archive backup or something like that you won't access very often.

Windows7User2010

BlueSun wrote:

You'd be much better off using the 486 as an old DOS gaming system. Or just keeping it for nostalgia purposes.

Beyond that, it just doesn't have the power to do much of anything else. If you use it as a firewall, it's going to cut your internet connection to pieces. Unless you're using dial-up. If you use it as a NAS... better plan on it being an archive backup or something like that you won't access very often.

I'll just use it for DOS games, and as a jukebox.

DeepFriedCookies

Actually a 486 DX2 does fairly well on anything less than about 1.5Mbit. Most residential class internet, I guess. I've done it before.

That said, the minimum for a firewall these days is at least a Pentium 3, if you have a decent connection. Plus, you can use modern networking cards, not age old ISA cards that are unstable as fuck and can handle up to a 10Mb/s connection.

Speaking of which, I need a good gigabit switch, as I've upgraded enough to the point where all of my wired systems have gigabit ethernet now. Any ideas on a good, cheap switch? (Or just a wireless router, I mean hell, I don't have enough computers to warrant a full switch.)

stitch

DeepFriedCookies wrote:

Actually a 486 DX2 does fairly well on anything less than about 1.5Mbit. Most residential class internet, I guess. I've done it before.

That said, the minimum for a firewall these days is at least a Pentium 3, if you have a decent connection. Plus, you can use modern networking cards, not age old ISA cards that are unstable as fuck and can handle up to a 10Mb/s connection.

Speaking of which, I need a good gigabit switch, as I've upgraded enough to the point where all of my wired systems have gigabit ethernet now. Any ideas on a good, cheap switch? (Or just a wireless router, I mean hell, I don't have enough computers to warrant a full switch.)

I have a Linksys E4200. It's honestly not all that cheap, but it does have wired gigabit, WiFi-N, IPv6 support and a fairly decent stock firmware. DD-WRT is in the works and may be stable by now, but I have yet to try it.

Also 1.5Mbit is pretty shit these days:

BlueSun

1.5 Mbps?! Might as well be dial-up speed these days. I have a 10 Mbps connection and even that seems too slow at times.

As for a gigabit switch, you could try ebay and see if you can find a decent one for cheap.

I use a Cisco SG 100-16. It was $100-something. Unmanaged, but it suits my current usage.

DeepFriedCookies

1.5Mbs is like, the standard where I live. Damn hillbillyville, USA lol.

I would definitely prefer a Cisco, seeing that they're basically as good and reliable as the old Linksys routers. I wish I still had my old one. I have one of the newer ones and it' just feels so.. consumerist. If that makes any sense. To add to that I'm too lazy to flash DD-WRT on it. So not only am I dealing with a flaky wireless connection, I'm also dealing with the router's cheap feel. >.<

BlueSun

I've never really cared much for Linksys routers. They're decent when you flash third party firmware on them, but otherwise no.

gdea73

I liked old Linksys routers with DD-WRT. If they can't run DD-WRT (i.e. WRT54GP2, WRT54Gv7) then I basically just pull off the antennas and throw them out though, lol.

But WRT54Gv2's and the like are nice routers, and running DD-WRT, very stable. If the power hadn't gone out a few days ago, my RT-2 (WRT54Gv6) would've been up for over 2 months.

Josh

Aside from the Catalyst series, I have had great experiences with these models:
http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/P ... 6833150080
http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/P ... 6833150151

Windows7User2010

I just bought the motherboard on eBay, and I'm gonna get the motherboard between June 2nd and June 4th.

stitch

it's your money but I still maintain it was a waste

BOD

Windows7User2010 wrote:

Josh wrote:

Are you sure you're a CCNA?

486 as a firewall?

to block viruses, spam, and web sites as well.

.

Windows7User2010

Just got the motherboard today, and I love it so far. Only 1 small, minor problem: my hard drive is being detected as Primary Slave instead of Primary Master. However, when I hook up my DVD Burner (as Slave) w/ the Hard Drive (as Master) on either the Primary or Secondary Controller, the Hard Drive is forcefully detected as Primary Master. Should I just disable the Secondary Controller? Also, the BIOS on my board is an AMI WinBIOS (similar to Windows 3.1)

BOD

Sounds like cable select mode to me.

gdea73

If you have both a primary and secondary IDE controller, you can just set the DVD-RW drive to secondary master, and the hard disk itself to primas. And check your jumper settings, on a 486-era PC I don't think you'd have working cable select, and though I could be wrong, you'll be better off setting the jumpers manually. If you want them both on the same (primary) channel, set the hard drive to master with the jumpers and the DVD-RW to slave. If they're on separate cables, set both to master on their own IDE channels; there may be a different setting on the hard disk for primary when it's the only disk on the channel, so check the mfgr's manual.

DeepFriedCookies

Omg those BIOS were hell.

Make sure none of the jumpers are set on "Cable select", as that was the biggest fraud in the IT industry.

Waitwaitwaitwaitwait.. a DVD burner.. in a 486?

gdea73

*sigh* ... yep. We've been through this in some other thread. I still have no idea why have even a DVD-ROM drive in a computer that was manufactured before USB 1.0, even, was a standard...

DeepFriedCookies

Why have a DVD burner in anything older than a Pentium 4?

And Northwood. Not the original Pentium 4s.

It just seems like making a DVD on that hardware would be SO time consuming, omg, it would drive me nuts. I can barely stand to do it on my sandy bridge system..