[OFB Cafe] Voltage for a PATA DVD Burner

[Kris Deugau]

Timothy Butler wrote:
> 	OK. Yes, I may be asking about current. Electricity is definitely not  
> my forte. The big question I am trying to look into is why a  
> particular computer keeps killing optical drives. I was wondering if  
> it could be supplying them with too much power... Thoughts?

Ah, OK.  Yeah, under- or over-voltage does rude things to electronics - 
but you'd likely see problems with other components since the +12V rail 
at least is used all over the place.  The +5V rail isn't used nearly as 
much these days but it's still worth checking.

Any halfway sane multimeter should be able to show if the +5V or +12V 
lines are badly off (don't recall offhand what the formal ATX specs say, 
but +/- 3-5% should be fine) - simply poke the black probe into one of 
the 4-pin HDD/optical power connectors on a black lead, and the red 
probe into on a red (+5V, IIRC) or yellow (+12V IIRC) lead while the 
system is running.

-kgd