Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!think!mintaka!daemon
From: atheybey@lcs.mit.edu (Andrew Heybey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Dead 2000 Power Supply
Message-ID: <1S8JX7#3YQHSr=daemon@mintaka>
Date: 17 Jul 89 16:10:18 GMT
Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius)
Reply-To: atheybey@ptt.lcs.mit.edu
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Lines: 42

Yet another tale of woe (YATOW).  I came home Friday night to find my
2000 (which is usually left running all the time) asking for
Workbench.  We had had a thunderstorm, so I assumed that the power had
momentarily gone off.  I didn't want to use it that night, so I turned
it off.  Saturday night, I turned on and was rewarded with a flash of
the power light, and brief gronk from the disk drive, then nothing.

I dismantled the thing, and found nothing obvious--the fuse is fine,
and there aren't any melted components that I can see.  Once
dismantled, I can hear a very faint snap or zap from the PS when the
power shuts down after it is turned on--possibly a spark.  Also, twice
the PS has supplied continuous power when switched on.  Each time,
however, I turned it off and started plugging things back together,
and it then returned to its previous behaviour.  I have been inside
the PS case once before, when I replaced the fan whose bearings were
starting to go.

Questions:  I am assuming that the PS was zapped by lightening.
However, when I replaced the fan, the PS was run unloaded for a brief
time (30 secs at most--just to make sure that the fan spun in the
correct direction).  Will running unloaded damage the PS?  

Has anyone tried sticking an IBM-type PS into a 2000?  How much
hacking is required?  I already got a quote for a replacement Amiga
PS, and it is quite expensive.  Of course, I haven't priced a 200 watt
IBM supply yet, but I would guess that one can be had for considerably
less than $165.

On a different tack:  I have just moved into a house, and am now
paying for my own electricity (horrors!).  How much does the
A2000+A2052 (CBM 2MB board) + A1080 draw anyway?  It's a 200 watt
PS--does it always draw 200 watts, or does it vary with load?  Or does
it supply 200 watts, and draw more?  Is there a way to measure the
load without unplugging everything in the house & reading the meter?
I've got your basic VOM.

Thanks for any & all answers.
--
------------
Andrew Heybey, atheybey@ptt.lcs.mit.edu, uunet!ptt.lcs.mit.edu!atheybey
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Room 509, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA  02139    (617) 253-6011