Oops, I'm late to this discussion, but yeah, 2.88V on a LithIon cell IS low.
Had a buddy who "packed up" a hard drive... showed all the usual signs of a hard drive failure (noise on spinup, R/W errors, etc), so he bought a new one, same problems... I checked out his power supply (oops, that sounded homoerotic!) and found it was pushing ~11.6V on the 12V line and ~4.7V on the 5V line... with all the cool USB stuff and high-draw video cards and such, power supplies get taxed. New PS and off it went.
Funny enough, replaced a HDD in a friend's computer (in Weyburn last time I was out) it had been on the out for a while and she also complained the computer wouldn't start all the time, sometimes she'd have to hit the power button a dozen or more times... sure enough after the drive swap, took multiple attempts to start the... Jesus... the PS fan's seized... a quick trip (well, after FINDING a computer shop in Weyburn) to the local Computer Solutions, I think it was...
"I need an ATX power supply"
'Does it have to be ATX?'
"Umm, yeah?!"
'I can order that'
"You don't carry power supplies?"
'We do, just not ATX ones'
"Show me what you have...?"
...kid comes back with an Everest brand power supply with ATX connectors, I explain that ATX is the type of power supply... allows for "soft on" and has a single 20 pin power connector for the motherboard rather than the two on an AT. He was happy to have learned something new.
Bren R.
