I have the identical Thermaltake tester, and it seems to work well. I
use it in conjunction with the trusty Fluke 117 to make sure things are
good.
The negative 5 volt line is OK. Those were deprecated some years ago,
and are usually not on newer power supplies. If you want all the gory
details, punch up ATX on wikipedia. It sounds like your PSU is OK. Which
sucks, because that would be the easy fix.
If you've never installed or swapped a mobo, it can be a little hairy.
You have to properly configure all the BIOS settings, and lay down the
heat sink grease on the CPU properly, and not zap anything with static.
Assuming you're running Windoze? It will freak out if you put in a
different mobo. Easiest fix would be to try to find an identical board
on Ebay. Or, if your PC is on the older side, might just be time to
upgrade. Current tech like DDR3 memory is dirt cheap, while stuff for
older hardware is NOT.
My current work & home standard and favorite machine, though it's
getting elderly at this point, is a Dell Precision 390. They were high
end engineering workstations 5 or 6 years ago, with a Core 2 Duo CPU. I
don't do video games or CAD/CAM, so they're plenty fast for me. You can
score them on Ebay, sometimes for under $200. I do custom builds too
(VortexBox media server) and have -- crikey (?!) -- 5 PCs around at the
home at the moment.
-Wayne
On 8/16/2012 11:01 PM, Jim Stone wrote:
> Well, I have more information, but don't think it is good. I didn't want
> to wait a week to get the cheap tester from eBay and picked one up today
> at a computer supply store. Here is the one I got:
> http://thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?S=1405&ID=1545#Tab0. It comes
> with no information or instructions, other than a sticker on the back
> saying to first plug in the 20/24 pin connector. I pulled that from the
> motherboard and plugged it into the tester. I then plugged the power
> supply in and it instantly came to life, or at least the fan started
> spinning. The tester chirped and all of the lights except for the -5V
> one came on. I also unpluged one of the 4-pin connectors and it lit up
> the proper +5V light. I unplugged the SATA power connector and tried to
> plug that into the tester, but for some reason couldn't get it to
> connect. Still, I would guess that the power supply is not my problem;
> the motherboard is.
>
> Is that correct, and if so, how big a deal is it to replace the board?
> It doesn't look like it would be that difficult, but I am a complete
> neophyte at this, so....
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