Being the computer geek in the family means I am frequently called upon for computer emergencies. The most recent one involves a Dell computer that bit the dust. The machine wouldn’t POST and gave only a memory error beep code. After several rounds of moving the memory chips to different slots and then trying new memory, I finally gave up and decided it’s time to start fresh. I figured it was most likely an issue with the motherboard.

Now the folks at Dell are kind enough to use a bunch of non-standard hardware. This means that whenever you want to replace something, you pretty much have to go to Dell or to Ebay. Their power supply connector is a standard ATX connector, but they wire it differently. Therefore, you need a Dell specific power supply as a replacement. Continue reading →