“Classic,” she said, stealing his chair.
“But what if the fan spins but voltages are wrong?” Leo asked.
“Now the switch.” She tapped the small rocker switch on the power supply unit itself. It was marked with and O . “Is it on the ‘I’ side?”
Leo stared at his screen. Or rather, he stared at the lack of a screen. His beloved PC, the one he’d pieced together over two years, sat silent as a brick. No fans whirring. No beeps. No glowing LED strips. Just the hollow stare of a dead monitor.
Maya smiled and handed him a multimeter. “Then you become a detective. Set it to DC voltage, 20V range. Touch the black probe to a black ground pin, red probe to a yellow wire—that’s +12V. Orange is +3.3V, red is +5V. If they’re off by more than 5%, the PSU is dying.”
“Means your PSU works,” Maya said. “The problem is elsewhere—maybe the motherboard or case power button. But you just learned how to check the heart.”
Leo did as told, heart pounding. “Now plug the PSU back into the wall, turn on its rear switch, and see if the fan spins.”
Leo shrugged. “Loose cable… and the rear switch.”