I have with me a Ultra Slim Computer’s power supply which someone claims it made a loud sound and no longer works so I thought I’d rip it apart as I was always curious how it compares to standard computer power supplies that “normal” computers have. This power supply (part number 397747-001 & spare part number 397803-001) is from a HP DC7800 Ultra Slim PC (GV709PA). It’s rated at 135W with 19V @ 7.1A output.
(high resolution picture so you can see all the text)
After unscrewing it all we have the below, there’s a lot of metal surrounding the components so I’m guessing this is how they dissipate the heat. Hmm, looks like I can re-use the case as it fits the Arduino.
Still more metal around and some epoxy too! We can see two capacitors. If you look on the bottom left of the first photo you’ll see a black mark, my bet is this is where a component was and it blew when the person that used this power supply hear that loud noise.
Image below has full resolution goodness :P. So inside the power supply is a few large MOSFETs, a large 400V 150uF capacitor, some transformers, and smaller components. You can see they designed the MOSFETs to be on the outside of the PCB so they could be mounted to the metal directly.
And that’s that 🙂
Looks like it took some significant persuasion to come apart 😉