Power supply voltage switch

Raumarik · 22 Nov 2006 at 15:15

Kids in the school have taken to flicking these from 230 to 115V, PSU goes bang, so far I haven't had any motherboards or CPUS/HDDs damaged by them but is it possible?

I'm trying to make management take it more seriously, so far I've got them all fixed under warranty but I think at some point the supplier is going to wise up.

In the meantime I'm gluing these switches in place

Fireskull · 22 Nov 2006 at 15:48

Had that happen twice but its never taken anything else with the psu

wolvotim · 22 Nov 2006 at 15:52

If they don’t want to take any notice just sit back and wait until they get landed with a massive bill then is the time for the smug "I told you so".

Its great reminding management of their bad judgements I love it

.

Joe42 · 22 Nov 2006 at 16:07

What make psus are they?
If they are cheap oem ones its possible they could damage components yes.
Best thing is to either glue up the switches or remove them. But i suppose that would void the warranty.
Schools are the harshest environment for a pc there is.

Raumarik · 22 Nov 2006 at 16:42

I can't remove the switches, had a look inside and it'd be a huge job, only myself able to do it and there's about 400 pcs! I've glued most of them, fortunately it's mainly the newer higher spec PCs that are affected, annoyingly all Dells so they have custom PSUs..

I've warned the management in writing about it, said that it's really a case of pupils being left in rooms unsupervised that's causing it and each department will have to pay for any repairs not covered under warranty. They won't be happy but I'm not footing the bill for vandalism

Joe42 · 22 Nov 2006 at 17:07

Presumably the only way they can get away with it is by shutting down the pc, switching it off and then changing the switch.
If the pcs were left on 24/7 or left on all the time during the working day and you banned the switching off or shutting down of pcs wouldn't that fix it?
It would be a lot easier to tell if a pc has been switched off than if the voltage switch has been changed.
I'm sure you've got a program or can get a program which tells you when a pc is switched off?

mikeymike · 22 Nov 2006 at 17:08

wipe some naaasty crap on the switches, dare em to touch it then

Fireskull · 22 Nov 2006 at 17:11

lol or a pin

oldskool trick

SiriusB · 22 Nov 2006 at 17:17

Joe42 said:
Presumably the only way they can get away with it is by shutting down the pc, switching it off and then changing the switch.
If the pcs were left on 24/7 or left on all the time during the working day and you banned the switching off or shutting down of pcs wouldn't that fix it?
It would be a lot easier to tell if a pc has been switched off than if the voltage switch has been changed.
I'm sure you've got a program or can get a program which tells you when a pc is switched off?

Most vandals wouldn't care less if the PC was on or not tbh.

Joe42 · 22 Nov 2006 at 17:32

SiriusB said:
Most vandals wouldn't care less if the PC was on or not tbh.

No, but my point is they wouldn't want it blowing up there and then because a passing teacher would probably catch them or they would get into trouble.
I'm guessing what they prefer to do is switch it off and flick over the voltage switch so it blows up when they are long gone and nobody knows who did it. And i reckon you could pretty much prevent this by banning the switching off of pcs by pupils.

Raumarik · 22 Nov 2006 at 17:57

to be honest the last two I think were just done with the teacher in the classroom, problem is they rarely notice as it's only a small pop sound.

semi-pro waster · 22 Nov 2006 at 18:01

Could you consider some sort of blanking plate/mesh over the back? I suppose it partly depends on if the PSU vents air out the back what material you make it out of but that should prevent them from being altered by any casual vandal. It would only need to be a simple piece of metal of X inches by X inches with 4 screwholes.

Just get your CGT department to make up however many you need, in fact why not get them to make it as a project for the kids so they are protecting the PCs they'd otherwise break.

Raumarik · 22 Nov 2006 at 21:18

someone suggested that actually, they'd apparently done something similar at other schools. My point is that if a kid wants to break a PC they will, I know when I was a kid if I'd wanted to I could have, they don't take a lot of punishment from a determined mind to knacker and the kids that I think are doing it are making a good job of it!

plates might work but I suspect they'll must do something to the power cord by twisting it in the PSU.. trying to think like them now!

Joe42 · 22 Nov 2006 at 21:30

Kami said:
to be honest the last two I think were just done with the teacher in the classroom, problem is they rarely notice as it's only a small pop sound.

When i accidentally did it to a psu it made a tremendous bang. Scared the living daylights out of me. :eek:

How about have the teacher check all pcs are on before they leave the room? As i say, ban pupils from turning pcs off, and if any are found to be off when the teacher checks at the end of a lesson they can keep the class behind and find out who was at the machines that are off.

The problem with screwing something over the switch is you would almost certainly void the warranty.

hp7909 · 23 Nov 2006 at 05:59

Kami said:
}{snip}I've warned the management in writing about it, said that it's really a case of pupils being left in rooms unsupervised that's causing it and each department will have to pay for any repairs not covered under warranty. They won't be happy but I'm not footing the bill for vandalism

Think you should also (anonymously) write to Dell