Brian Hartsock's Blog

For the past couple years, my Motorola E815 served me well. But after some unfortunate events, I was left with a phone with no screen that only worked on speakerphone. I decided it was time to upgrade, especially since I work for an email hosting company.

I decided that I wanted to try out a Blackberry. The reason I chose Blackberry is still somewhat a mystery, but it probably has something to do with my dislike of Windows Mobile and touch screens. Oh I almost forgot, everyone who has a Blackberry is addicted so it has to be good right?

The Blackberry 8830 model was the newest model Verizon was offering, so that’s what I got. So far, I love it. The user interface is just plain good. It is simple and elegant. Like any good phone, it does exactly what I need and does it very well. I highly recommend it.

Disclaimer: Doing this can destroy your power supply.

A month or so ago, my desktop computer died. It wouldn’t turn on, after no symptoms of problems. My first guess was the power supply. So, I replaced it.

Nothing.

Next guess was the motherboard, so, I replaced it.

Nothing.

At this point, I didn’t want to spend anymore money if I didn’t know for sure what was wrong. So, I decided to test the power supply. Following this guide I shorted out the green wire (PS-ON) to a black ground with a paper clip while the power supply was off. I then plugged in the power supply until the fan started to spin, and quickly unplugged it.

Now I know my power supply works, if anyone knows how to test a motherboard or processor, let me know.