Power supply with bad -12V

[i]

I was at a friend's house this weekend when she happened to mention that her computer's sound was no longer working. I offered to take a look. When I powered the system up, the process paused for a hardware monitor warning. She immediately said something to the effect of, "Oh yeah, it started doing that a couple of months ago ... just press F1 to continue." I asked if she minded if I looked into it instead, and it turned out that the hardware monitor was detecting that the -12V output from the power supply was only providing about -8.6V.

She's planning on buying a Macbook in November. She's hoping this current system will last until then (it's an otherwise well-built PIII system running Windows XP).

So my question is: is the power supply issue any concern, especially for another 2 months? Does anything rely on 12V in a typical PIII system? Data corruption would be the only thing I'd worry about. She doesn't care about crashes, flames shooting out the back, etc. (She sooooooo needs a Mac.)

Other information for story completeness: 1) the sound problem turned out to be due to a dead AC adapter for her speakers. 2) Also, she's cute.

 

[Will Rickards]

Why doesn't she just finance the macbook purchase so she can do it now?
Or are there some lineup changes in appleland come november?

 

[timwhit]

Based on #2, maybe you should tell her that you will come over again and try to fix the power supply.

(I wonder how many members will quit based on this comment?)

(This is a joke.)

 

[ddrueding]

IIRC, 12v is used for hard drives. Nothing else really matters; as if it fails you can just replace it then, but the one thing that matters is indeed running on sketch power. If you have a half-assed PSU sitting around, I'd offer to swap it.

Perhaps offer to check the plumbing as well?

 

[i]

Why doesn't she just finance the macbook purchase so she can do it now?
Or are there some lineup changes in appleland come november?

She would, except she's financing a trip to Australia in October. The Macbook is going to have to wait until afterwards.

 

[ddrueding]

Considering she likely won't take her computer to Australia, that's even less time the current machine needs to run.

 

[Handruin]

Based on #2, maybe you should tell her that you will come over again and try to fix the power supply.

(I wonder how many members will quit based on this comment?)

(This is a joke.)

:-D

 

[sechs]

Is there anything in a P3 system that would use the -12v?

 

[time]

Groltz posted info on this issue some time ago.

The short answer is: not since ISA, and that's talking about -5V. -12V probably dates back to the original IBM PC or AT!

According to Speedfan, the PC I'm typing this on has -0.878V on the -5V line and -1.58V on the -12V line. It has a good quality PS and no stablity issues.

 

[time]

That should be: -8.78V on the -5V line and -1.58V on the -12V line.

 

[i]

Thanks time!