DELL Studio Slim 540S

I had a client today that has a DELL Studio Slim 540S that had a failed power supply (ACBel PC7068 250W).

SOLUTION 1:
Now the obvious option is to replace the power supply, easier said than done though when you are dealing with a custom design by one of the big manufacturers as they pride in breaking all the standardization rules so that you have to buy the parts from them. but the part was not available at DELL.

the next step to pursue is one of two ways depending on the client preference and the budget allocated.
SOLUTION 2-A:

Replace the the power supply with a used power supply, so I contacted our local used parts depots and we found none in stock. There were many parts available online but the repair was time sensitive and we couldn’t wait for the part to arrive in 3-5 business days so we opted for the next option. I should mention here that used parts carry a limited warranty (varies from 30 to 90 days) and the chances that it may fail in the near future are greater.

ACBel PC7068 Power Supply

SOLUTION 2-B:
The last option is to replace the whole chassis along with the power supply and move all the components to a new chassis.
we had to take many details into considerations to make things work properly.

1- the motherboard: we had to make sure that the motherboard orientation fits the new chassis properly and that the motherboard screw hole are aligned with the chassis. Again due to the manufacturer custom design that doesn’t work in many cases.

2- the system had a low profile PCI express X16 video card installed, so we had to pick a small form factor (SFF) chassis with 450W standard mini ATX power supply to keep that card, although we were leaning towards using a tower for better cooling and air flow.

After migrating the motherboard, processor, memory cards (RAM), video Card, hard Drive and the DVD to their new home, and connecting the power cables to the different parts, there came the challenging part which is plugging the many front panel connectors to the motherboard pins and since DELL made sure that the pins are not labeled and the connector they used in their computer are bundled just to make it more challenging for us.:)

DELL Studio Slim 540S new Chassis side view

So after a lot of common sense and color matching along with some guessing and trial and error we got the power switch, Hard Drive (HDD) LED, and front panel sound working but the front USB ports didn’t which is not a big problem since the motherboard has 4 USB ports at the back and if more are needed USB hubs are an economical solution.

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