Sunday, October 19, 2014

Just For The Heck Of It, Let's See What's Inside


The power supply in my wife's desktop PC died recently. Here's a view of the corpse.


Decades ago, one could earn a living by repairing things like computer power supplies. Outright replacement cost of such items was fairly high, so it was worth a man's while to be conversant with their innards, and equipped to diagnose and correct their failures.

Those days are long gone. Replacement cost is now so low that it's not worth a man's time to take the cover off such a thing for a look inside. But, since my time is worth nothing, I can pursue futility all day long if I choose to, so let's take a peek.


Hmmm. It's a wonder to me that a thing of such complexity can be manufactured and retailed for about $30.00 CDN. I couldn't purchase a small fraction of its components for $30.00.

It doesn't photograph well, but there's evidence of one transistor that's blown its top, and other nearby items that are scorched.


So there we are -- one more addition to the landfill site or the scrapyard, and China can sell one more new power supply. The wheels of commerce still turn, but they roll right by the likes of me. So it goes.

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