The PC was on and in Vista, I had the side of the case off (it's a Dell Dimension 9200) and noticed that I'd forgotten to plug the power cable into my floppy drive. I went to push them together to connect it and the system died immediately. I pressed the power button a number of times but no response was forthcoming. More by luck than judgement I pressed one of the jumpers on the mobo (CMOS one I think though it may have been the re-set password one) and it kicked the system back into life immediately. Everything worked perfectly and the only thing that had changed was that the date/time had re-set to when the system was first built - something easily rectified.
What should have happened? Was I very lucky? Does the law of averages suggest that something should have stopped working or that the power pack should have blown up or the hard drives corrupted or something like that?!
2007-03-23 02:46:55 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
luck was indeed on your side rather than poor judgement
it was the psu (power supply unit ) doing its job
it detected a power fluctuation and stopped it in its tracks
you could have easly damaged the motherboard/hard disks/ memory/cpu
a lesson learned eh
i hope this helps
atb
2007-03-23 04:19:38 · answer #1 · answered by stevelaing 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well for one, you're lucky you didn't transfer a static charge and kill your machine.
Most likely, the Dell wouldnt be able to register a new drive running on the floppy IDE interface while it's running, hence causing it to crash down.
The bios would need to reset the configuration data for all your drives and apply irq and pc values to each device again for it to work. I'm guessing it started again as whatever you pressed purged the CMOS to reset the BIOS data.
It does sound peculiar though it all of a sudden stopped and then only started working again after you reset your CMOS.
I'm guessing your IDE Cable was plugged into your floppy drive when you bunged the power cord in?
2007-03-23 03:13:34 · answer #2 · answered by DEAN L 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most likely you corrupted the BIOS on your PC. When you booted without the floppy drive activated, the BIOS would have started with a configuration different to when the floppy was plugged in. You then reset the BIOS by the CMOS jumper, allowing the PC to reboot.
As you suspected, it's not a good idea to mess with the hardware when the PC is on, unless it's a hot-pluggable item. Got away with it this time.
2007-03-23 03:00:34 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
ALWAYS unlpug power from wall when messing around inside the box. a floppy wont always cause what happened to you but sometimes it will. basically you caused a fault interupt in the power cycle. the fact that you could reset CMOS and you were fine was a blessing. count yourself VERY lucky. typically that kind of behavior will cause the motherboard to take a nose dive. next time you notice something unplugged inside your computer, unplug from, wall (there is always at least 5 volts running thru computer even when turned off), reconnect disconnected thing, plug back in, reboot
2007-03-23 03:09:26 · answer #4 · answered by Joe b 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Law of Sod says that you were lucky there, mate! Could have been a big bang and either the machine or you could have vanished in a cloud of smoke.
As you now know, don't make or break any connections with the juice on, the momentary surge as the live connections arc is more than enough to fry everything.
2007-03-23 04:16:29 · answer #5 · answered by champer 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I am rather surprised that none of the answers so far mentioned what could be the worst scenario. For your computer to function in any meaningful way there is one critical component. This component is very easily damaged by electrical current and is impossible to replace if broken. It's known in technical terms as the human operating device, that's you mate. Never take the casing of any electrical device without unplugging it from the mains. Electricity has a very nasty bite, you are very lucky, don't tempt fate.
2007-03-23 08:02:30 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Absolutely it will die. Unless it's an external drive which would be connected via another port. If you push that power calbe in anyway other than perfectly straight you will cause a short and poof! There are tons of protection circuits built into you motherboard however that should protect your peripherals from damage.
2007-03-23 02:55:53 · answer #7 · answered by a_talis_man 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You should have fried your power supply or your floppy at the very least. You did get lucky, and I would not recommend trying that again. Next time your PC might not come back.
2007-03-23 03:04:43 · answer #8 · answered by Kenn N 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
its a protection system. see when you connected the device it kinda like sent a shock to the mother bored and to the power system. its just like if you was in a thonder storm and your house got a serg of energy. if that really did happen the computer would of protected its self like it did when you connected the device. but in a way you was lucky. also most computer have this nothin to worry about.
hope this answers yout question
2007-03-23 03:23:25 · answer #9 · answered by Mark ツ 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, you should always turn your computer off before trying to add or remove or change anything inside of it, so yeah, I think you are fortunate that it still works. There is no telling what kind of damage could have been done if you would have touched the wrong thing.
2007-03-23 02:56:13 · answer #10 · answered by Chevy Girl 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋