BXProject

If your short of old drivers Doc may be interested.

Think I may have found the problem, but whether that's the root cause I don't know. I can't even make out for certain what value they are.

I've discovered that it looks a fairly standard ATX supply, with an 8 way connector to feed the two CPUs, and the usual 24 pin block. BUT, there is nothing connected to pin 9, and something connected to the normally empty pin 20. If I knew they were simply swapped I'd have a go with an off the shelf unit. Can't find the Dell pin outs anywhere, but a few warnings about PII and PIII era Dell PCs having a non standard ATX layout.

The man in the know says 'There p4, its not worth the effort'

Make of that what you will, he normally likes reviving antique shit!

Antique? It's the newest computer I own! Anyways, I've invested money in this thing now, so I'm not giving up just yet. The system doesn't work at present, so if I can't find the fault with the PSU I'll just bung a standard ATX one on and swap the wire in the connector. Everything else matches up, just the 5 V standby power wire is missing. So the extra wire on pin 20 MUST be that. If it cooks the mobo I'm no worse off than at present

You have tried a hammer right?
Surely a board can be had off the bay for not much? Being more than 3 minutes old and all?

Update time - I pinched the PSU from Lana's PC and swapped the wires round in the connector (must remember to swap 'em back before I return it ) and it seemed to work. I say seemed, as it locks up mid way through booting, on the loading Windows screen. Will try and install another OS, as I'm fairly sure it's not a hardware issue (unless it's the mobo - fairly cheap ~ £50) as I've swapped RAM and processors and it still does it. No option in Server 2003 that I can see to boot in safe mode...

Would you like a PSU? I have a great many antique PSU's which might do the trick.

Possibly, cheers Ideally needs to be 650 watts, blow through front to back (otherwise I need to cut a hole in the casing as it slides in from the back), 24 pin mobo connector and an 8 pin EPS connector. What you consider antique are probably new and high tech to me, I still have a couple of old AT PSUs, which I really must throw out!

But I still want to try and fix the old one, if I can find the fault...

okay, i'll have a look, think they are all side/bottom exit though

Well, it's not the end of the world - I assume the normal main purpose of the fan on the side is to remove heat from the CPU, and as a bonus provide some air movement over the transistors in the PSU. On mine the CPUs have a dedicated big fuck off fan, and I can always drill and mount an smaller inline fan on the PSU. (Only issue might be if the big fan was speed controlled, as a smaller one would need to turn faster).

Less than 650 w would probably be OK too, as I doubt they'd have specced it without a decent margin of safety.

Finally got my big Dell fan heater to boot into Windows (it don't half chuck out some heat ) and it seems to be running smoothly and quickly. Gave up installing XP for now as the only genuine copy I have prompted me for a floppy disk with SP2 to be inserted! And the two dodgy copies both crashed when booting from CD.

So just booted into Server 2003 for now - at least I know all the hardware is working. Might replace the capacitors in the PSU as they're the most likely failure, although no visual evidence and I've got nothing to test 'em properly. For a couple of quid it's worth a go.

Stick that shiny PSU on yet?

Not yet. Wires are too short to reach the mobo in the stoopidly larger case it's in, but if I mod the case a little they should be able to take a more direct route. Been busy with cars this week!

what sort of excuse is that??

A very lame one! But it's on the back burner for now, as I have a BX to weld, and a couple of projects on the house I really must finish! Like stopping the water coming in through the back wall up against the hillside.

houses.. piffle.. easier to walk off in a huff, remembering to take all your tools with you

BTW, WTF does stack overflow at line 0 mean?

I think it means you've piled your cups up too high?

bugger, I didn't even know I'd put any cups in the PC!