Earlier this morning, my roommate was complaining about the 5GHz wifi having
problems. Given that my Mac mini is the access point in question, I ended up
pulling it to my desk to work on it. That meant I had to move my Apple Cinema
Display to it, since I don't have two monitors to really work with, or room for
them on my desk.
I run Disk First Aid, find the problem fixed, and move the Mac mini back to
its spot. However, while plugging the DVI cable into the back of my Dell XPS
410, I heard a bit of a /pop/. Given that the tower's PSU wasn't plugged in, I
figured it was the tight fit of the cable, and kept going. Got power to the
machine, turned it on, and looked at the monitor.
Nothing.
Tried it again, but same thing. No video on the screen.
I pulled my Mac Pro out to check if I'd just lost my monitor, but it worked
just fine. Next, I pulled a TV out to use as a temporary monitor for the Dell.
Nothing.
As far as I could tell, the graphics card was dead, given where the pop came
from. However, after a bit, I decided to try something that just /came/ to me.
I swapped the PCIe power cable to a different plug from the PSU, and it booted.
Monitor worked just fine.
The other plug was what popped. And given that the PSU in that machine had
attempted to boot while its own switch was /off/, I'm saying that PSU is
effectively dead. I'm not trusting it at all, so I'm going to need a
replacement...eventually.
I have a working Mac Pro, now that the GPU on *it* was reseated, so I'm just
going to stick with it for now. I'd rather not drop another $120 on the Dell
right now. Especially when I've got other things to focus on.
