On 10/03/2011 05:37 AM, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
3. uses a high efficiency low-noise PSU, which does not like power
ups
at all (in fact restarting the computer now takes a dozen tries, with
minutes waiting for caps to drain ; yes I could change the hardware but
it works fine under load and a new PSU is how many years of energy
savings again ?).
If your PS has trouble starting because of faulty caps, it's probably
not because they are draining---on the contrary, they are probably worn
out and leaky (electrically), causing trouble for the startup circuit
which wasn't designed for the extra losses. Often you can identify the
failing electrical capacitors because their casing is swollen or maybe
even burst open and leaking the actual electrolyte.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
You'd have to disassemble the power supply to see that, however, and
there are possibly dangerous voltages inside even for some time after
disconnecting the power, so I don't recommend doing that.
The bottom line is that the power supply is probably on the fritz and
likely to fail altogether. Decent power supplies aren't that expensive,
I recently got a nice, quiet one for around $30-40.