The dell that had no power

I recently worked on a Dell Deminsion 2350, that would not power on at all.

The first thing that I did was open the case and check the Power Supply Unit (PSU) connections to the motherboard. The connections were tight, the computer still didn't power up, although I seen a lit light on the motherboard I wanted to confirm my suspecions of a faulty power supply unit.

So I went and purchased another dell machine to salvage parts from. This dell gx model (GX 520) I bought did not come with a hard disk drive (HDD). So the first thing I did was take the HDD out of the deminsion 2350 and put it in the gx 520. At this point the gx 520 decided not to power on, then I could smell something burning and immediately unpluged the machine. So I swapped out the PSU in both units, and the Deminsion 2350 powered on for the first time in weeks.

However, when I pluged the molex power source into the HDD, the deminsion 2350 didn't power on anymore. And gave the same burning smell. Turns out, the HDD is bad. So I put another HDD in and installed windows and the computer is currently functioning normally (just like a new computer).

This is more proof, that little things can cause big problems.