John,
I just proved that idea wrong - that the power supply had to be good if the
fans are working.  My fan within my power supply was running just fine, but
it was making a lot of noise and I was having all sorts of computer program
glitches because of the bad power supply - freezing up, not turning off even
with 'control/alt/delete', and then not being able to start Windows again at
all, and ended up reformatting three times within as many weeks.  Finally, I
got scared that it really was a problem with the power supply and the whole
computer could catch fire because of it.  So, I replaced the whole unit, fan
and all with a new power supply.  Now all my problems are gone except the
one I've had since the computer was new, which is where it will suddenly
reboot itself for no apparent reason.  Thankfully, it only does it
occasionally.

Anyway, I get the feeling that a power supply can be bad in such a way that
it doesn't completely shut off all the power to the computer or the fan.
Maybe it's sort of like a 'short' in a house electrical system, in that it
only has split seconds when it's not working, and that's when it would be
that I'd have the freezing and inability to reboot etc.  It would be as if
the Windows OS was almost totally destroyed because of it.  It was scanning
itself for disk errors, telling me all sorts of things were missing, and
insisting on going into 'safe mode', but then not allowing me to go anywhere
from there etc.  I spent hours trying to get booted up again, because I
didn't want to lose all my information, but to no avail - I had to reformat
each time.  At least I know exactly how to do that now!  :-)  (And, how to
burn all my files onto CDs regularly, so I never have to lose much.)
Carol Hanson


> Tried that, Tony. No change. Still just the fans. CPU looked in fine
shape,
> but I've never seen a bad one. Same goes for the motherboard, AGP card and
> RAM. Quite a bit of dust around the fans. A little elsewhere. Do I have to
> bite the bullet and try a new processor - seems logical to try that
first -
> saves dismantling everything.
>
> Went into a computer shop today and the techie said, if the fans are
going,
> the power supply must be OK. My conclusion too. That's right, isn't it???
>
> John O'Regan
>

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