Re: Should I put a new power supply in my old XPS R400?

i wonder if you happen to have disks in the cd and or dvd drives... the
system attempts to identify the type of media in those removable drive upon
startup and looks to see if it is perhaps bootable media... wasting lots of
time. i don't think that the components you described are too taxing for
the standard power supply, and the standard one from dell is far less
expensive (and it is a proprietary power supply by the way - a standard atx
unit will not work). they are on ebay for cheap (under $20 delivered) and
are the same for the txxx, rxxx, vxxx series dimension machines.
also, here are dell's notes on replacing the power supply should it come to
that...
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dkhan/rr11.htm?c=us&l=en&cs=&s=gen

"George Earl" <gearl@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:a8vve15s97hirq5fv7to6jrsorgduhiuob@xxxxxxxxxx
>I think maybe the power supply in my 6 1/2 year old Dimension XPS
> R400(!) is going (see 'Symptoms' below).
>
> I checked PC Power & Cooling and they recommend their Silencer 360
> (310W, 350W peak) for which they want $79 + S/H.
>
> My question: Being that everything else in the PC appears to be
> working just fine, would you spring for the power supply or would you
> put the money toward a new PC instead?
>
> Also, in this PC I have two hard drives, a CD-ROM drive, a DVD writer,
> a Zip drive, a Matrox G450 video card that has a cooling fan, and a
> 1GHz processor upgrade that also has a cooling fan. Do you think the
> Silencer 360 mentioned above is enough to power all of this?
>
> Symptoms: When I started my PC this afternoon it took three tries on
> the power button. The first two times not much happened. The third
> time it started to fire up, then for a couple of seconds there was a
> lot of blinking of lights on the power switch, the CD-ROM drive and
> the DVD writer and clatter from the CD-ROM drive and the DVD writer as
> they tried to spin up, then the PC dropped into the normal boot up
> procedure. Since it has been up I have seen no symptoms or problems. I
> recently pulled the front faceplate and thoroughly vacuumed where the
> power button hits the power switch, so I don't think dirt back there
> is the problem (though I kind of hope it is but I'm not ready to shut
> down the PC to find out till I've thoroughly backed up and imaged).
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
> George
> gearlnospamno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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