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Serious question, has power supply testing gotten too easy for our own good?
Last Tuesday I had a tower come in from a dentist's office in Tacoma that would boot fine for ten minutes and then just die, no blue screen, no warning, nothing. Back when I started doing bench work in the late 90s, you had to pull out a multimeter and check each rail by hand, and honestly you learned what a dying 12 volt line felt like before it fully gave out. This time I plugged in one of those 30 dollar PSU testers, it showed all green, so I swapped the board and wasted four hours chasing the wrong part. Turns out the tester only checks voltage with no load, and the second any real draw hit that thing it folded like a lawn chair. I finally ran it under a load with a spare drive and a couple fans hooked up and watched the 5 volt rail sag down to 4.4 and keep dropping. Client paid the diagnostic fee and I ate the labor because I trusted a 30 dollar gadget over my own gut. Do you all still load test your supplies, or has anyone found a tester that actually catches sag under draw?
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ninam8610d ago
30 dollar paperweight strikes again...
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