So I hooked up my wife's empeg to upload some new tunes to it failing to realize that instead of the power supply for the empeg, I used the power supply for my ThinkPad.

It was only on for a couple of seconds before I noticed the problem. Once I hooked up the correct power supply, the unit powered up but now the screen blinks and "clicks" Also, the hard drives never spin up. I hooked up a serial connection and in the terminal I don't see anything unusual other that it can't find a hard drive.

Does anyone have any ideas before I start searching ebay for another empeg?

- What are the specifications printed on that ThinkPad power supply?

- Did you smell anything? (Seriously.)

- The hard drive problem may have been a coincidence of timing, please check the FAQ on all the possible causes of drive trouble and rule those out.

- The screen doesn't click as far as I know. I'm guessing you're hearing a hard drive click.

It's highly likely that the empeg is repairable, don't panic yet. Others have done particularly bad things like hook it up to AC current, and they had to do some chip replacements on the motherboard, but it's fixable if we can trace the fault.

If all else fails, you can mail it to me and I'll look at it when time permits (usually immediately). At the moment, I'm the doctor of last resort for these units.

Cheers

What are the specifications printed on that ThinkPad power supply?

16V DC 4.5A Polarity is the same as the empeg supply

Did you smell anything? (Seriously.)

As soon as it happened I checked for smells, nothing strong. There is a faint burnt component smell near the display, but it's so faint I think (hope) that it isn't anything. I took the player apart and didn't see anything that looked burnt either


...

Okay, I just unhooked both hard drives and the unit powers up fine. It was one of the hard drive. If I just hook up one, the unit functions properly. I can handle a bad hard drive.

Okay, it seems that the unit will power up when either hard drive is in, but not both. I grabbed another drive and tried it with both of the original drives and had the same results. Two drives doesn't work, but one drive does. Think I have a power supply problem?

Yeah, those specs for the ThinkPad power supply might actually be just fine. I've heard of people successfully using ThinkPad power supplies to run their empegs, although I don't know if they were that exact model or not.

And a faint warm-electronics smell coming from the display is normal. The display is actually heated by the cathode filament wires.

I don't know if the hard disk failed because of the power supply or not. But definitely go through this entire FAQ entry to find out if the problem is a disk or if it's just one of the other usual things (cable crimp or solder joints on the IDE header).

Yeah, those specs for the ThinkPad power supply might actually be just fine. I've heard of people successfully using ThinkPad power supplies to run their empegs, although I don't know if they were that exact model or not.

Tha's actually what I'm doing quite frequently (both with the power supply of my old 30X (?) and current T40P.
On the T40P powersupply is printed: Output 16V DC, 4.5A

Jelle

Okay, it seems that the unit will power up when either hard drive is in, but not both.

Will the hard drive that works run properly when hooked up to the end connector and also the middle connector of the IDE cable? Or does the failure always occur on the same connector?

I think you know where I'm going with this...

tanstaafl.