[tlug] Stupid mistake?"

["David J Iannucci" <jlinux@example.com>]

Hi all,

I'm thinking I made a stupid mistake. Short version: my wife is in Japan
now, on an extended trip, and I had her take her (small form factor)
desktop PC with her (borrowing a monitor from a friend), because it was
the easiest way to give her a comfortable computing environment with all
of her "stuff" just there with no hassle.... and she needed to use the
'Net at home rather than "around town", etc etc.

Well, now that she's been using it about a month, all of a sudden, the
machine won't power up. There's just a soft, falling whine (like a HDD
spinning down), and then blackness. Not even a post screen. When she
told me this, I suddenly realized that I hadn't thought she might need a
voltage converter. I'm so used to the idea that electrical things just
pretty much work between US and Japan.... never occurred to me :-(

Have we fried her power supply?  It's lower voltage than the PS is
expecting, but... does that matter?  Is there any other plausible
explanation for this?  If this is the right diagnosis, has there
possibly been damage to internal peripherals?

Thanks.

Dave