Help me to find Equivalent Power Supply

[endblockclip8]

Does anyone still have the disassembly instructions? We've had this 610 for 4 years now and have had very little problems with it but the infamous Blinking Screen has started. I've read through all 15 pages but all the links are now dead. Thanks in advance.

email: fords-rule@yahoo.com

[as400jockey]

So the blink returned on my machine. I am convinced that it's somehow related to the power supply connectors.

I bought a bunch of ATX pins - male and female - along with some 4, 8 and 20 pin mail and female plastic shells. You can get all this stuff at performance-pcs.com . I assembled my surgical tools - small wire cutters, an automatic wire stripper (when you squeeze the handle it strips the insulation), and a crimp tool. I also bought an 'ATX removal tool'. THis allows you to remove a pin from an atx connector without driving yourself crazy.

The connectors are known as "mini-fit junior", sometimes as "ATX". Be careful when ordering pins. There are boatloads of things known as 'molex', and it would be easy to order the wrong stuff. I chose the gold-plated connectors, since the problem with this POS seems to be the power supply connectors.

I spent a couple hours re-terminating. Before this operation, it was blinking regularly again. Cleaning and wiggling was having limited success.

I had to re-do several of the wires. The crimp tool that I have is not ideal for these 'mini-fit JR' connectors. If I end up doing this again, I'll be looking for another crimp tool

I reterminated all but one of the connectors. One of the connectors coming from the PS had pretty short wires, so it would have been difficult to navigate in there with all the tools.

So far, so good. Not a blink, and thankfully no SMOKE (which implies that I put all the wires back in the right place .

For the fifteenth time, I will say

"This is absolutely, positively, the LAST time I am going to screw around with this piece of <doo-doo>. This is a waste of time, and even though this is a great machine when it's working, it's just not worth the <bleep>ing hassle."

Watch this space for any updates. No news will imply good news. If the thing starts blinking again, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

[as400jockey]

AAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Relentless pieces of garbage.

It was working OK yesterday. I had a couple looping winzip batch files running, to drive the CPU to 100%. Not a blink.

Then I went to ABC.COM and started watching LOST in high-def. THat drive it right over the edge.

blink blink blink.

I let that run a few hours. I think that fried something. Now it's dark 95% of the time, including through the boot up process. The backlight doesn't come on for about 3 minutes until the bootup process dies down.

SAVE YOURSELVES!!! If your 610 is blinking, get yourself an 8 pound sledge and put the machine out of your misery!!!

I think I'm going to try one more thing.

I'm going to open up the case, disconnect the lcd inverters, and run a DVI cable from the video card to the outside of the box. I will just use the thing with an external monitor, which can be placed on the desk in front of the 610...

If _THAT_ fails, then we'll know it's the video card.

I tried swapping the video card once, with a similar card (dvi and svga instead of dvi and s-video, same chipset, etc) but the machine wouldn't even get past the bios, if I remember correctly. Didn't make sense... but then little does with this POS...

[as400jockey]

610XL

Earlier (weeks ago) I fixed 3 of 3 by cleaning the PS contacts. Three blinking machines fixed. Yippee!

2 weeks later one just up and died. Stone... cold... dead.

That one's power supply just croaked. And it was one of the Rev 01 jobs... one of the 'good' ones. I saved the old rev 00 PS's. Popped one of those in that machine, and it's right as rain. Go figure.

The second of the three was blinking again. I ripped it apart. Left the metal shield off the back, and the back completely off so that I could tinker with stuff while it was running. I was able to confirm that it's not the video card (I connected an external DVI monitor. Not a blink. Every time I went back to the internal panel.. blink blink blink.

It's not the inverters. I disconnected one at a time. The panel would dim but not go out completely. Blink blink blink, only dimmer.

I was about the cut a hole in the back cover to enable this to be used with an external monitor when just for giggles I wiggled the PS cables around again. That was 2 days ago and not a blink since. Go figure.

The third of the three is at a friend's house. Blink blink blink. Black 60% of the time, blinking several times a minute, out for 10 seconds or so each time, on for 5 seconds, maybe. I opened it up, pulled the PS cables up out the top of the tower, disconnected, reconnected, left them hanging. No more blink. I did NOTHING else to the machine. That was 4 days ago. Go figure.

I still say it's related to wiring somehow...

My latest theory - cold solder joints on the motherboard.... where the power connector attaches. That might explain it...

Some time ago I swapped lcd panels. blink blink blink. Either both panels are bad, or it's not the panel. I think it's not the panel.

Maybe someone will steal it and I can just laugh thinking of the poor SOB that stole it... trying to watch YouTube while it blinks all day long.


Bu------------WAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[rowe40]

How do you get to the PSU?

I want to be tortured with trying to fix my daughters 610

[Asterass007]

Can anyone tell me what the problem is with my power inverter. It is not charging. It charges for like 4 to 5 minutes and then it stops charging. What might be the problem. Thanks a million.

[as400jockey]

I keep messing with these POS's.

I took one of them and replaced the mini-fit JR pins on the PS connections - both the PS side and the cables from PS end of the computer cables. These pins are a pain to crimp, and I have a few loose ones. Don't bother - that's not the problem anyway.

I'm convinced that it's a wiring issue, because the problem comes and goes. I have left the PS wires hanging out of the back of one of these machines. When it starts blinking, I can often get it to stop by moving the wires around. It's been getting harder to find joy with this method... one machine has been blink-less for a month after freeing up the PS cables and wiggling them around.

another has been more temperamental. But - just this morning I twisted the wires around to the other side of the tower and it hasn't blinked yet.

I am guessing that it's a bad solder connection on the mobo. Maybe a cold solder joint that has let go. Maybe a pin in the mobo power connector has stressed and failed. Perhaps similar to the alleged xbox red ring problem - a solder joint that goes bad after a while from too much heat. Or, from too much stress - these cables are shoved into too little space, so maybe even tilting the screen up and down could be straining the connections.

Because it's such a pain to get at the mobo, I took one of these machines and did some surgery on the back cover. I cut it so that I can remove the back cover without removing the stand and all the cabling from the tower. Basically a couple vertical slices running from the little hinge trap doors down to the bottom. I also cut a hole where the dvi cable connects to the bottom of the mobo. This will allow me someday to connect and external monitor if I ever decide to just give up on this.