My computer was working fine a now will not turn on. None of the perihpherals (including PSU fan) work. I opened the machine a saw a green light lit on the Mobo. I disconnected the PSU and plugged and connected this to power with the main power cord. The fan did not work amd the unit simply had a low frequency hum coming from it. I assume but I am not sure that under these circumstances the psu fan should have spun.

The bottom line is that I guess that I have a psu problem and I am hopeful that this 250 watt Bestec unit (model ATX-250-12E)did not cause problems with the mobo.

I will be grateful to anyone that can bestow their thoughts on this issue.

Cheers,

Scott

A layman's test of the powersupply can be done by disconnecting the 20 pin connector from motherboard, bridging the green lead to any black (ground) lead and then connect to mains power. If the PSU fan does not spin the unit has failed. If the fan spins you still don't know if the unit works properly or not. Use of a multimeter will assist in determining if all circuits are putting out correct voltages.
Until you have a known good powersupply in the machine you have no way to determine whether there were any other failures. That said, emachines seem to have a reputation for crappy powersupplies and you may be lucky enough for that to be your only problem.

I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

Hello and goood day!!

Its your computer reeally old?

There are some things you can try right now. The green light you saw on your MOBO indicates that is getting power from the PSU. This not necceseraly means that your PSU is working but it can be faulty. The best and cheapest way to test a PSU problem is trying it on another computer. But i prefer to try a working PSU on your computer. ( I had bad luck conecting faulty PSUs on working computers). If it works you got yourself an answer. If it doesnt then it may be another problem besides the PSU.
Another cheap way to test a PSu is to use one of those PSU checkers they sell at money computer stores. It gives a signal to your PSU to turn ON, and also checks the correct voltage its comming out of the power supply cords. Using that piece of equipment to try the PSU, i leave it ON for about an hour. If it has some type of problem sooner or later it will show it of and fail. (you can try a multimeter too but it may take you a while to learn how to use it in a proper manner.)

So if by any chance you try it with a working PSU and it didnt work. You may have some other type of problem. Post whot type of things you got. GL!!

'Bestec' is synonymous with 'crap'

I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter.

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If it helps, I had a PSU die and it didn't kill the motherboard, they seem to die painlessly from the perspective of the rest of the computer!