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Gateway E4000 will not turn on

I found this computer in a vacant house where I was working. They were tossing out all the furniture and stuff in there. It was a complete computer, with monitor, keyboard, mouse. The monitor works, but the computer will not power up at all.

I plug it in, the power switch has a green LED that lights, and another LED on the motherboard lights. Pushing the power switch does nothing.

Ohm meter verifys the switch works. No voltage on any of the 5v and

12v leads for the drives. Not sure what wires to test on the MB connector, but none seem to have any voltage at all, using one of the black wires on a drive plug as the ground.

I suspect a bad power supply, but the fact the LEDs light makes me question that. This is no common power supply either, weird shaped thing and so far I am not sure how to even remove it from the case. It's not like the old computers were a few screws took out anything. I have other power supplies that would plug into the MB, but there's a

4 wire special plug that is not on the common PSUs. If another PSU works, I'd just transfer the whole guts of the computer to another more common case, because I'm sure that PSU would cost a fortune since it's a custom job.

There are no other switches anywhere on the outside of the case. There is a switch on the PSU that reads "Test Switch" and has a LED next to it. Pushing it does nothing.

Any ideas where to go from here?

Thanks

Reply to
jw
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Since several LEDs are lit, I suspect that the +5 stand-by is working. You can try forcing on the power supply by shorting /PS-ON to ground on the ATX connector with a paperclip or bit of wire.

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It may not POST, but the power rails (+5, +12, etc) should come up. If they don't, try disconnecting the ATX connector from the motherboard and once again short /PS-ON to ground on the end of the power supplys ATX connector. If it then does power on, you might have a shorted MB. If it does not, it might indicate a bad power supply.

Reply to
JW

Sometimes the only thing that has become bad in the power supply is a resistor that sort of "kick starts" the main switcher. It supplies power to the switcher chip directly from the rectified mains voltage, for a few hundred milliseconds until enough power is supplied by the helper winding. Kind of like the starter on cars which is not made to operate more than a minute or two per event. If this resistor has deteriorated and drifted up in value the main converter in the power supply may not start.

Now this is on the mains side, high voltage, dangerous turf, so if you are not familiar with such situations it may be better to invest a modest sum into a new power supply.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

SNIP

OK the 5V keep alive is working so the PSU 'should' be good.. Yes, pull out all the cards and the memory and then see if the PSU comes alive when you push the on button.... Main fan should come on... If it does, take it from there, putting stuff back one by one... When you push the on button, do you see any of the fans 'kick' and stop ? If so, there is a PSU short somewhere. Look for bulging tops on caps on the motherboard..... If they're bulging, they probably need replacing...

Reply to
TTman

I did what everyone said on here. I found a Gateway website that says to disconnect all the wires to the drives, motherboard and everything else, but leave the hard drive connected. Then push that TEST button on the power supply and the LED on the power supply should light. It does nothing. I disconnected EVERYTHING including the hard drive and nothing happens. I put meter on every power supply wire on motherboard connector, got 5v on two pins. Thats all. This tells me the power supply is dead. As soon as I can figure out how to get it out of this stupid case, I'll open the power supply.

According to some web articles, it appears that Gateway is known for power supply failures, and this model was even replaced with a slightly stronger model power supply. I'll try to fix this one first. I'm a retired electrician, so I know how to handle 120VAC safely.

Being a pentium4, that extra 4 pin connector I mentioned is on all P4 systems, and powers the CPU. I have not worked on any P4 systems before now. My spare power supplies are all P3 or earlier, so they dont have that connector. I'll see if I can fix this power supply. Otherwise this computer will get parted out. I'm not investing around $70 in a computer that may have other problems and is old too. Of course there is always Ebay if I find a cheap used one.

No bulging caps on MB......

Thanks

Reply to
jw

Don't know whether it applies here, but some PSU's won't power-up without connection to a MB... there's a jumper on the MB which enables power-up. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Ummmmmmmmmm.........

I'm trting to rationalize what you said here. If the PSU is not connected to the MB, what good would a jumper on the MB do to make the PSU power up? This dont make sense, because the MB is completely out of the picture as far as the PSU is concerned....

Did I miss something?

Thanks

-----------

BTW: There is a switch on the case that is pressed when the cover is on the computer. Its connected to the MB. I taped that down just to eliminate that from the any possibility of it causing a no power situation. I should just put a jumper across that plug. Just another useless feature of these newer computers intended to protect us from "nothing" since there's nothing (voltage wise) inside a computer that can harm a person, unless they open the PSU.

Reply to
jw

Yes. Unless cable connector to MB provides jumper function, PSU doesn't run, period. Drove me nuts once until I traced the harness.

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Yes. He said "some PSU's won't power-up without connection to a MB" IOW: with some PSU's a PSU-MB connection is required for power-up.

Reply to
ehsjr

Yes, you missed something..

The power switch goes through the mother board as part of the power management.

The little green wire must be connected to common (black) to have it turn on.

Jamie

Reply to
Jamie

So you must be saying that one of the wires connected to the MB by the

20 pin connector must be grounded to switch on the PSU, right? You said GREEN. Are they all green? Mine has one green and several black which I assume are the grounds.

Thanks

Reply to
jw

[...]
[...]
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jw,

If this is an ATX-type power supply then many of your questions are answered here, in the ATX Power Supply specifications:

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According to this, the only Green wire on the main (24-pin) PSU power connector is PS_ON# (the trailing '#' means inverted, e.g. LOW means ON). This pin has a section all to itself:

3.3.2. PS_ON#

PS_ON# is an active-low, TTL-compatible signal that allows a motherboard to remotely control the power supply in conjunction with features such as soft on/off, Wake on LAN*, or wake-on-modem. ...

Hope this helps...

Frank McKenney

--
  "But America is a great, unwieldy Body.  Its Progress must be
   slow.  It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy.  The
   fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest.  Like a
   Coach and six--the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the
   slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace."
                   -- John Adams, to his wife Abigail
Reply to
Frnak McKenney

enables

the

another

=20

Certainly some wire, often but not always green (i think i have seen gray for this as well). Since you have a green it should be reasonable to try it.

Oh and that switch is a case intrusion switch for security reasons, = rarely used really.

?-)

Reply to
josephkk

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