Windows failure redux

On Sun, 27 Jan 2019 10:06:20 -0000, RichA wrote:

I might, just might owe windows an apology. I mentioned that the hard drive corrupted. One error fix lead to another reported error, then another, etc. So, i copied out a few files i needed from the OS drive, wiped it, repartioned, reformatted, put win 10 back, restored most of my programs. Then i loaded a second drive with the same thing and installed it as a back up. So, istarted up windows a few times and used it, then it went down just like before. Same myriad errors. Then i noticed that the back-up drive (not ssd) was making a faint noise like a car with its engine rpms going up and down. I swapped out the computer's power supply with a spare new one. Voila! The "corrupted" drive booted up like nothing had happened. The is no apparent damage and the file system is intact. All the reported errors (and they were specific) weren't actually present. A $15 computer power supply would have told me something was wrong.

That's unusual. The only power supply failures I've ever had were catastrophic. The thing just dies completely, often with a bad smell and/or a flash.

I always use decent supplies like Corsair. The cheap rubbish (like Alpine) claim stupid things like 700W for £20, yet if you exceed half of that rating, it goes bang immediately. Even so, I've never had any symptoms like you describe with even the rubbish ones, just an explosion, which only takes out the power supply, at least they seem to protect the rest of the computer :-)

On Sun, 27 Jan 2019 23:01:47 -0000, RichA wrote:

On Sunday, 27 January 2019 09:10:35 UTC-5, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 27 Jan 2019 10:06:20 -0000, RichA wrote:

I might, just might owe windows an apology. I mentioned that the hard drive corrupted. One error fix lead to another reported error, then another, etc. So, i copied out a few files i needed from the OS drive, wiped it, repartioned, reformatted, put win 10 back, restored most of my programs. Then i loaded a second drive with the same thing and installed it as a back up. So, istarted up windows a few times and used it, then it went down just like before. Same myriad errors. Then i noticed that the back-up drive (not ssd) was making a faint noise like a car with its engine rpms going up and down. I swapped out the computer's power supply with a spare new one. Voila! The "corrupted" drive booted up like nothing had happened. The is no apparent damage and the file system is intact. All the reported errors (and they were specific) weren't actually present. A $15 computer power supply would have told me something was wrong.

That's unusual. The only power supply failures I've ever had were catastrophic. The thing just dies completely, often with a bad smell and/or a flash.

I always use decent supplies like Corsair. The cheap rubbish (like Alpine) claim stupid things like 700W for £20, yet if you exceed half of that rating, it goes bang immediately. Even so, I've never had any symptoms like you describe with even the rubbish ones, just an explosion, which only takes out the power supply, at least they seem to protect the rest of the computer :-)

I've only had one fail before this and it went in a similar fashion, things began not to work. Generally, you'd expect capacitors to fail, a rectifier or an MOV. The one I replaced was junky, apparently, I replaced it with a better one. Odd thing was, the cables routed out of the SAME SIDE as the power input and fan exhaust! Haven't seen that before so I had to do some cable re-routing to make it suitable.

The same side?! Are we talking about the same sort of PSU? A computer PSU has the mains power coming in from the outside of the computer case, and the low voltage output inside the computer. Any other way would involve cables hanging out the back of your desktop surely?