On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 02:32:05PM -0400, Brett Russ wrote:
Sparkle ATX 400W power supply Anyone have any other insights or agree it sounds like a bad PS? I still can't explain symptom (1), will probably buy another battery to be sure. Five years seems like an old PC, but I'm not a gamer so this suits me fine.
I agree that the power supply is suspect. You can measure the voltage on a spare power supply hard drive connector, there should be 12v from black to yellow, and 5v from black to red. If that checks out, you should measure from the motherboard ATX connector as some of the other voltages may be out of spec. You can find the standard ATX pinouts and voltages online. Finally, you can test with the power supply completely disconnected from the PC. Again, you can find instructions online for how to do that, as it requires a jumper wire for the power supply to power on. Alternatively, it may be easier to just try a replacement.