Squirrelly Power Supply

UPDATE: I’ve just been informed that this is a boring post: Please avoid reading. Thank you.
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I’m one of those types of computer user that doesn’t turn off my machine. Al Gore probably hates me. I probably pay $30/yr for the additional electricity I use. However, overnight is when my machine downloads the latest virus update and spends at least 150 minutes churning through my storage drives looking for nasty viruses. I decided some time back to let my machine churn overnight rather than have it suck resources during the day.

I also recently had need of a new power supply, and found a fantastic deal on one. 500watts max, large quiet fan, and to my door, shipping included for $15, no rebates. What, I wondered, is wrong with this picture? I figured I could always send the thing back if it didn’t fire up my machine. Perhaps the 500watt claim was off, and they would rather sell them cheaply than repackage the things. I don’t need all that power; I was fine with my old power supply, whose internal fan had been moaning and getting ready to die.

The power supply worked as advertised. Cheap, and with one of those large fans running a tad slower than the old style 3 in. fans, quieter — I could now hear my wife’s power supply fan from across the room.

I’ve since taken the old power supply and ripped it apart, replacing the 3 in. fan with a spare one I had laying around. I’m a terrible pack rat like that. I keep old computer parts. That power supply is with an old motherboard in a cobbled together spare computer I’m toying with (Ubuntu and MythTV if I can get the wireless to work)

Back to my new power supply. The first time I had occasion to turn it off for any length of time, it complained a bit with some strange sounds I attributed to my case fan. But last night, I decided to turn off my computer again. Turning it on again was the problem.

It was only partly turned on. My motherboard obviously had SOME power, because the case fan and the CPU cooling fan were spinning, but nothing else. Was the motherboard bad? No, I suspected the power supply almost immediately. I figured it was supplying some power, but not enough to trigger the motherboard’s voltage sensors.

I wanted to prove that the motherboard was still good, so I proceeded pull my new power supply, replacing it with my old one from the spare computer. I never got that far.

I unscrewed the power supply from the case (everything being unplugged from the back of the computer, including the 110v power cord) and had a hunch — was it this large fan on the power supply? I wanted to see the big fan on the base of the power supply turn. I hadn’t as yet unplugged the wires leading from the power supply to the motherboard (maybe it was a short/partial connection in one of those?) so I plugged the main power source into the back of the power supply now in my hands. Nothing.

I turned the power supply upside down to look at the fan, and repeated the on/off switch on the back. The computer started to spring to life!

Wait, turning the power supply upside down made the thing work perfectly? WTF? My computer was now complaining that the keyboard wasn’t connected, so I quickly turned everything off again.

Thinking that I must have jiggled something back into the correct position, I reassembled the computer, screwing the power supply back into its place inside the computer case.

All wires back in place, I flicked the power switch.

Nothing.

Crap. Okay, it was the upside down power supply thing, right, so now, I figured I’d see what would happen if I turned my entire computer upside down and then attempt to turn it on.

Yes. My computer started fine — upside down. It remained on when I turned it right side up, and now I am typing the story to you.

My computer will remain always on for the foreseeable future.