can i fix my power supply?

Question

I have an emachine, that i think the power supply is not doing its job. I don't have any money now, so I am wondering if anyone knows anything about them to repair? Its a Bestec ATX-250-12E

Answer 1

Hi there:
You state that you do not THINK that the emachine power supply is doing its job
WHY ?
What are the characteristics that you find that lead you to this conclusion?

In any event - opening up your computer case and cleaning the fans, the heastinks, and all the dust that collects, may be all you NEED to do. As the heasinks in particular get covered with dust, the power supply and CPU overheat- can you can severely over stress the otherwise "working" parts.

DO- take apart your power supply and blast it with air after using a screwdriver or pencil to block the fan blades from turning. Use a damp cloth on a screwdriver to clean areas that air will not clean. Just disconnect the power supply cord before cleaning.
Again, there are usually 4 screws holding the fan on the CPU heatsink, which you remove, and make certain the fins on the heatsink are all clean.

I do repair power supplies, but " repair" WHAT? You are extremely vague. IFit isnt broke, you can't fix it. If your computer is working, what makes you think that the power supply is " not doing its job". If the power supply was not working, your computer would be totally DEAD...
The Bestec 250 would normally keep an off the shelf machine going quite well, -- I HAVE seen power supplies PACKED solid with dust, and they blew both the power supply and the Motherboard. If you ADDED all sorts of stuff on your eMachine without upgrading the power supply to match, then you would run into problems.. You do not state what you did, or what the problem is. CLEANING everything in your computer can make a huge difference alone. " Repairing " a power supply would mean that something is broken, and you do not state what is broken.

Post back a note explaining the problem and people will be able to help. Did you add devices or anything to your machine? Is the machine DEAD? Have you looked at the heatsinks on the CPU and power supply and are they packed with dust?
Carefully taking your machine apart and cleaning it is trivial, but if it is packed solid, will make the machine run as efficeintly as new.
You could also have SOFTWARE problems with Windows XXX ( you do not state which ) slowing down to a crawl with dozens of programs running at boot up ( bad) and huge TEMP folders filled up with hundreds of megs of garbage, and spyware and adware and other pests slowing you down - in which case you need to do a complete FDISK, FORMAT, reload windows, and
install Spybot, adaware, firewalls, and anti virus, and start over.

Please post a note to describe the actual state of your computer, and what is wrong. I would put " repairing" your power supply at the BOTTOM of a long list of things to do FIRST.
Once a power supply is SEVERELY damaged, it is probably not worth the effort to fix it - I just overheated the power supply on the machine I am typing this on, and just put in all new capacitors in the power supply and on the motherboard on the 3.3 and 5 Volt
rails. I was lucky in that I caught the problem before it destroyed both the power supply AND the motherboard. The heatsinks were getting covered in dust, the CPU heatsink was getting plugged, and this helped to overstress the computer when it got hot. Just the cleaning alone has this unit working better than it has in a long time - I had no idea that it was as bad as it was, and the dust in the heastsinks was not visible until I ripped the computer apart.
On power supplies I will upgrade capacitors, upgrade the chokes the transformers, add missing components, upgrade the resistors used to burn off votage, add fans, alter the " silent " run circuits so the fans run on raw 12 volts, and tweak various other features. If the controller integrated chip is gone, or other high power rectifiers are cracked etc. I just use the parts for other power supplies. My standard solution to a small power supply is to add one or two others - old AT power supplies are free, and with the 12 volt out on the first AT or ATX, going to an off the shelf 12 volt relay ( from a car, a coffeee machine, a microwave, etc. ) you can run any number of other power supplies' 110 inputs. The outputs from the added power supplies I route to harddrives, CD's, fans etc. while the original I use JUST for the motherboard.
You must jump the added power supplies' Power Good to the 5V, but this is the only modification really needed. I also cut off all unused leads on all power supplies to keep things clean.

hope this helps

Please post an update - I will check back

robin

Answer 2

I agree with Richard, Emachines suck. I have one and the power supply went on my right after the warranty expired. Imagine that. But you are better off buying a new one. I got a 600W from ebay for $25.00, which is a great deal.

Answer 3

Try cleaning the dust off it with canned air, but I wouldn't open it and try to fix it yourself if I were you. There are warnings on it that you shouldn't open the power supply case because of shocks.
Hopefully cleaning it out might help until you get some money!

Answer 4

Sorry but you're better off leaving it alone and getting a new power supply when you have the cash $$$. You can get a decent 400w for less than $50 at most places anyway.

Answer 5

power supplies are sealed units for the most part. Cheaper to buy a new one v. fixing it. Check on ebay or similar for deals. Be careful though, you might need to get a specific model to 'fit' in your case

Answer 6

if you've added extra hardware to the pc then it is possible it cannot handle the extra stuff. according to what you wrote the ps is a 250w, and you may need more power. i think it's better to just get a new one. 450w is usually enough. repairing one is no fun unless it's just replacing the fan

Answer 7

E-Machine. God I hate them. Go to tigerdirect.com they have power supplies and they do not cost that much. You can always use their bill-me-later option.