On Thursday 10 October 2002 12:57 pm, Tommy Holmes, Jr. wrote:
> I always am told not to open and tinker with the power supply on PC's and
> just have accepted the warning.  Now, however, it has come to my attention
> that my children have been accessing the power supply on one of our PC's to
> clean and restart the cooling fan.  Is that dangerous and, if so, just why?
>
> Tommy Holmes, Jr.
> [log in to unmask]

Tommy:
I was brought up the same way that you were. The reason I was given is that
there are some very large capacitors in the PS that can store very large
amounts of energy. Touch the wrong thingie, you get zapped. While I don't
know if it could be fatal, I've been zapped a few times and it is not a
pleasant experience. My take is that it's OK for qualified technicians to go
poking around in there, but it's not any place for me. Power supplies are
cheap. Very bright little kids (as your's certainly are) are priceless.

Regards,
Carroll Grigsby

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