[Techtalk] strange hardware question

Miriam English mim at miriam-english.org
Thu Jun 21 23:10:52 UTC 2007


Maria McKinley wrote:
> Has anyone had an experience where a computer case seems to "go bad"? I 
> had a computer die on me, and ever since then, even though I have 
> changed out all of the innards, I can't get the hardware to boot up 
> anymore as long as it is in this case. This is actually the 2nd time 
> this has happened to me, and the other case I finally just got rid of. 
> Any idea what could happen to a case to cause this?

Hi Maria,

While I haven't had this happen to me, I can think of two ways this 
could happen.

Some motherboards have a switch attached to the case that prevent the 
machine working if the case is left open. If the switch dies then the 
motherboard would see the case as still open and refuse to start. If the 
switch moves slightly then it can't sense the case being closed. I never 
connect such switches in my machines because I am forever muddling 
around in their internals, quite often with the case open. I have a 
feeling those switches would have to be in the "normally ON" state so 
that closing the case would change the switch to OFF. If I'm right then 
simply disconnecting the switch wires should be enough to let the 
machine start again.

The other very remote possibility is the chance that a wire has caught 
somewhere, lost its insulation and in time rubbed through the case's 
paint. At that point the short may prevent the machine working. I've 
never heard of that happening though and seems to me very unlikely.

Best wishes,

	- Miriam
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