Ever had this happen before?

[Bires]

I was called to a friends' place last week because their puter stopped working. I did the swapping dance and determined that their PS was dead and the motherboard too.

The mobo was a ESC Via chipset with a 2600+ on it. OK. No biggie-the cheapazz (e-machine) PS killed the mobo. That I've seen.

Funny thing is I rebuilt their computer this afternoon (thanks Newegg), fixed up the software/drivers, removed spyware and tidied things up, and delivered it to find their keyboard was dead too.

So I figure:
PS death knell kills the motherboard and keyboard connected to it, or...
Keyboard short kills the motherboard and PS overheats.
(both would be new ones to me, after >10 years as a hobbiest, then pro, then hobbiest technician.)

Whattayathink?

[shocky123]

Possibly... the PS could have gotten it's ground(0V) rail screwed up.. which could potentially cause the keyboard voltage to be offset causing a short.. but I thought keyboards were properly grounded and such..

Also could be some power surge of some sort that nailed most of their peripheals(sp?)

~Kyle

[eSDee]

I have seen PS connectors break before so that is one slight possibility. Some cases don't protect the PS connector at all, which makes it easy to bend/break. However you probably would have noticed any kind of physical damage.

Or it could have been because it was an eMachine

[Bires]

...it could have been because it was an eMachine

THAT goes without saying.

No physical damage to speak of. "It just stopped working."

[oscarmadison]

Friends don't let Friends e-Machine

[Grimm]

PSU kills motherboard... friend kills keyboard in frustration.
No mystery there.

[tupacboy]

e-Machine... i secretly laugh everytime i see one at someone's house... i mean.. they really thought they got a good deal...

[Bires]

e-Machine... i secretly laugh everytime i see one at someone's house... i mean.. they really thought they got a good deal...

Oddly enough, I have the opposite reaction. Sure, they suck, but none of their parts are proprietary. They are all standard ATX-compatiable stuff. So, if something dies in them (which of course happens often) I can swap in my spare parts.

[Markel]

e-Machine... i secretly laugh everytime i see one at someone's house... i mean.. they really thought they got a good deal...

Stephen Dukker strikes again.

[Markel]

Oddly enough, I have the opposite reaction. Sure, they suck, but none of their parts are proprietary. They are all standard ATX-compatiable stuff. So, if something dies in them (which of course happens often) I can swap in my spare parts.

In the last couple of years (especially since the Gateway buyout) eMachines has improved a lot, and moved away from their lowest-quality, non-compatible roots.