We recently had a storm here and lightning caused a power outage. A friend of mind had her computer burned out and her internet modem. I can't fix the modem but the computer I'm hoping was just the motor gone. I did have an old power supply lying around. Just for the record this was a desktop a Dell Vostro 230 running Windows 7.
When replacing a power supply make sure you use one that is equal to or greater in power than the one already installed. This one was rated 300W output.
Before taking the old one out I decided to hook up the motor inside by just unconnecting the old one and plugging in this one to see if it would work. That's when I discovered problem one. The pin connector on my motor had 20 pins but the slot inside the computer had 24. I was sure it would still work but I wanted some confirmation online first. It would. So I connected the 20 pin to the 24. without forcing it to hard, it will only go in one way.
Then there was a second 4pin cable that had to be connected.
When I plugged in the power, it started up and the computer started booting. So I unplugged everything again and removed the old power supply. This involved removing four screws from the back of the computer case that was holding the supply in.
Then I tried to put in the replacement but it wouldn't fit. I realized it was the black plugin part where the power cord goes in. In the older motor it was on the opposite side to this one and there was a notch to accommodate this design. So I got a pair of pliers to bend out the metal around the plugin area so I could put the power supply and and screw it in properly. One of the screw holes still didn't line up properly but three still made it firm and secure.
I didn't pay much attention to the old motor, because if I did I would of realized, all the power connectors where for SATA plugins. The hard drive and DVD drive where SATA. This replacement only had older IDE plugins.
Luckily, I had a few adapters IDE to SATA power adapters. They have the older IDE plugin on one end and the SATA power plugin on the other. I had two available, just what I needed for hard drive and DVD. So I connected them all up and plugged in the computer, hooked it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse. And everything was working fine.
