My PC is broken - Help!

[WhyAlwaysMe]

A couple of days ago I was surfing when my desktop PC simply switched itself off. I pressed the big 'on' switch which came on and the machine whirred for about ten seconds before switching off again. There was no sign on anything on the monitor.

Since then it is totally dead. I opened it up and couldn't see anything obviously wrong and I changed cables but no dice. I've had it for three years and never had an incident before.

Is there anything more I can do before I call a PC repair guy? If it comes to that I would rather just buy a new box or can I get my existing box fitted with all new parts? I would also like to transfer the contents of the hard drive over to the new machine. Any ideas about how to move forward on this? I am not worried about taking the cheapest option but instead want to take the best option. For example a new pc repair shop has just opened near me which is part of a small chain. They look credible but what put me off is they charge by the hour (£70) and don't offer anything on a fixed price. There are many companies in the yellow pages and I have seen £35 quoted there which looks to be a better option but will be pot luck to an extent.

Any ideas about how to take this forward please?

[Snowtorch]

Hello,


First of, awesome name - was a good laugh. When you push the on button what noise do you hear? This is relevant and will help me deduce whether it's the harddrive that's ****ed up, or if it's the CPU. Basically, if you hear a clicking, in my experience, the harddrive tries to be read from but the CPU can't process the data. In which case it's easy to extract your harddrive, more on this later.

Three years is young for a computer, but I had an MSI laptop break down on me in the middle of an exam period over a year's use - sucks but not unheard of.


Can I do anything else than call a PC repair guy?


Depends on what it is you want to do here. If you want to extract your hardware, then yes, you don't need a PC repair guy for that. A PC repair guy cannot fix your machine if it's a hardware fault, then there's only one thing to do, and that's reaching into your pocket and spend your betfair cash on new hardware.

If you want to reuse your old box, you do not have to pull out your hardware, of course. You need to figure out what is at fault though and repair accordingly. I cannot see the problem in putting your existing hardware into a new cabinet, or buying new hardware and putting it in your current cabinet. The only things you should look out for are things like ventilation, so without seeing anything of your hardware I cannot directly guide you here unfortunately.


Harddrive


Do yourself a favor and do this bit yourself IF you chose to go down the PC repair guy path. Having worked in the business when I was a kid making scraps to fund my weekend gambling, the stories about people ripping information from harddrives they should not, rings all too true. This bit is incredibly easy if you have a bit of patience and purchase an 18£ adapter.


I use this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sandberg-USB...7&sr=8-1-spell


Step 1:

Make sure you are not sitting on a carpet, that there is no static that can mess up the circuits. If you have an anti-static glove you can use then that's awesome. Generally, assembling a machine requires this. I cannot tell you how many CPU's I've shortcircuited without.

Alternatively, given it's your harddrive you are dealing with here, I have gotten away with sitting on a wooden floor in underwear You just want to be careful, is all I am saying.


Step 2:


Find your harddrive, open up, look around. In my computer it uses the same bay as my CD drive (this is quite common) so it is placed in the same area of my CD drive.


Step 3:


When you find it, gently wiggle free the cables, then unscrew the bolts.


Step 4:


Alright, so, I am not sure what adapter you are using at this point. That said, on mine it is quite simple. It either fits, or it doesn't. That's it. Put slide the adapter into the right slot, and use the USB end of it on a new computer.


Step 5:


Make coffee and wait, depending on how many gigabytes you intend to transfer, this can take a long while.

---------------




I hope my guide was useful, I am not sure what your level of knowledge is here.

On the final bit, whether you should go with a PC guy. Obviously, if they mess up, you can hold them accountable. It can however get very expenive, and sometimes they won't wear antistatic gloves in these kind of places, so a motherboard that worked well before can suddenly get fried. Basically, you don't know what you are going to get. Do it with caution, get a finite price, and don't pay by the hour. Else it can just be a check where they write the amount - don't do this. Everyone, including software engineerers (my field) we have to put a final price on our head.


Let me know if you have any questions or what kind of approach you intend to take on this. I will do my best to help.


EDIT: I forgot to add, I would recommend that you buy a new stationary machine that has your requirements. Mostly because they are quite cheap, so if you have the budget for it, you are certain it works and you will not have to worry a thing about ventilation and the like. The biggest pain I have ever experienced is putting in your CPU. It is ridiculously frail and sneezing on it will cost a new one.

[WhyAlwaysMe]

Thanks a lot for such a detailed reply. What I want to do is buy a new desktop and extract the hard drive info, this seems by far the best solution. It definitiely didn't make a clicking noise so I am sure it was not the hard drive that failed. Paying anyone over say £100 to fix it would be a waste of money really.

Any idea what the fault could be? Say if the cpu goes would it be normal for the power not to turn on atall? The graphics card was never very good and it was freezing quite often if I had too many applications open at once, so I am glad to be replacing really.

[skit]

A couple of days ago I was surfing when my desktop PC simply switched itself off. I pressed the big 'on' switch which came on and the machine whirred for about ten seconds before switching off again. There was no sign on anything on the monitor.

Sounds like a PSU issue to me. Or more remotely a CPU issue. Unless it completely crapped out you should at least get to the BIOS with no issues.

You could troubleshoot it yourself either if you have some spare hardware laying around or ask someone for his.

So if there's something coming up on the screen when you turn it on I would say most likely PSU.

Is it making any unusual noise btw? Wouldn't blame the gpu or the hard drive. If those were to blame you would at least see the BIOS info come up on screen once you pressed the on switch.

[Snowtorch]

Thanks a lot for such a detailed reply. What I want to do is buy a new desktop and extract the hard drive info, this seems by far the best solution. It definitiely didn't make a clicking noise so I am sure it was not the hard drive that failed. Paying anyone over say £100 to fix it would be a waste of money really.

Any idea what the fault could be? Say if the cpu goes would it be normal for the power not to turn on atall? The graphics card was never very good and it was freezing quite often if I had too many applications open at once, so I am glad to be replacing really.

Hmm... Well if you push the on button and nothing happens, and by nothing I do mean absolutely no-thing. If the monitor is found or it stops during the booting, then it counts as something, mind you.

So if nothing happens:

• Power supply fault. Fairly obvious to see this one, if there's any light, any coolers or any whirring going on when you turn on the machine it's probably not the PSU.
• CPU fault (usually if the cooling creme on the CPU isn't there anymore the CPU simply fries. It gets very, very hot, mind you.) If there's a black screen when you turn on the machine and you can hear it running, it's the CPU. It basically means there's power - but the CPU can't read anything from the harddrive so it doesn't get anywhere. It's just electrons running around the circuits like headless chicken. Therefore, if you can hear the harddrive click or move then it's the CPU.

I cannot remember in detail what it is that is characteristic for a motherboard error. I would say that, logically speaking, if NOTHING happens, like, if when you turn it on it does absolutely nothing, no lights, no noises, no nothing. It COULD actually be a motherboard fault - but then, it could be a alot of different things. Best bet is to remove the side, start it up, and see what happens with your own eyes - if anything happens

I hope this was helpful.


I recommend that you buy a new machine and use the sandberg thing I linked to extract data from your harddrive - it's really easy but if you are not comfortable with it, I can try and find you some training videos. Harddrives are cool in that they are identical on both laptops as well as stationary machines so you can't really go wrong.

[homero]

1) In order to test the PSU, plug out only the main cable (the one in the picture). Let the other cables conected.

Now with a spare cable, a clip or something similar find and attach it to the green cable & the black one next to it:




The PSU now must start and you go to step 2. If not, then it's broken.


2.a) Go to Bios (repeat "Del" key right when you power on) and go to "PC Heath Status", "Hardware Monitor" or similar and make sure +12V +5V and +3V (within a margen of error of 10%) are given:




2.b) If you can´t go to Bios, use a tester:




Make sure your's reads 12ish. 13 isn't good. Picture is only for showing where tu put the tester



Sorry for my english

[WhyAlwaysMe]

Thanks a lot guys . As there is no power whatsoever I think it is likely to be the PSU. I read it is not uncommon for them to fail after three or four years. Also there were some voltage drops here last week the power almost went clean off three times in ten mins. I think it could have been that which caused the fail. I have taken the PSU out and will take it to a PC shop. Looks like I can get a replacement for £20-£30 so it has to be worth a go.

One thing I read is that it is quite common for these PSU units to be a bit underpowered on older pc's, especially if you have upgraded various things since you bought the machine. I hadn't done that but my PSU is only 250W which seems to be about the lowest they do nowadays. So if you have an older PC you have added to it may be worth checking your PSU wattage as in addition to a complete fail it can cause other faults with your pc which can affect it's performance. Putting in a better model could save you problems in the future.

[homero]

PSU Watt needs depend on the hardware you have to feed.

In order to don't complicate your live, get a real* 450W - 500W "80 plus" and you're good to go.

Antec VP430 is good and cheap, for example.

* I mention real, because you should avouid those generic psu labeled at 500W or more when they can only go for like 300W or less

You have to read the PSU label and multiply the ampers for each V.

It's kinda hard fo me to doit in english, so i'll post some pics:

This is an example of a generic psu with fake wattage



Those 600W are complete BS since we do this math:

Volt * Amp

5*16 +
12*14 +
3.3*13 =

291W ish

Way lower than 600W


There's a whooooole story about psu's. Again, in order to make your life easier (since trading is already a pain in the arse...) just go with a good brand, 80 plus, 430W - 500W psu.

There are very cheap ones.

Just remember: Everything you have in your computer is conected and feed by your psu. You can't go to cheap there

[WhyAlwaysMe]

All fixed - I'M BACK!!! Swopping over was very straightforward, there are some handy youtubes if anyone finds themselves in the same situation.

So I took my old PSU into a big UK store called PC World and went to the guy on the repairs desk to ensure I got one of the same size. He points me to them and I chose a 300w one instead of the 250w I had, I didn't want anything bigger as I plan to replace this PC soon. As I go to pay the guy turns to me and says 'you need a 250w one, this will blow up your machine'. I explained I had heard it is better to get a stronger wattage and he says sarcastically 'yes that's fine if you want to blow up your machine, go ahead'. So I did.

So who is right? I mean the guy is at the repair desk so presumably he is repairing customers PC's all day and this is a store that just sells PC's hence the name lol. I on the other hand have no technical knowledge so I just left it at that.

Was he talking out of his arse then? If so it's actually making the situation worse for people saying this becasue when they add other stuff to their pc they will find it starts playing up. What do you guys think? I will write in an complain if so, he shouldn't talk to customers this way anyway.

Thanks again everyone, the back up tool for the HD looks a godsend too for anyone changing pc's or with a problem.

[skit]

So he told you need a 250W insted of a 300W one because it would blow your PC up? Nonsense.

Maybe the 250W was more expensive and all he wanted was the bigger profit?

[The Geek]

All fixed - I'M BACK!!! Swopping over was very straightforward, there are some handy youtubes if anyone finds themselves in the same situation.

So I took my old PSU into a big UK store called PC World and went to the guy on the repairs desk to ensure I got one of the same size. He points me to them and I chose a 300w one instead of the 250w I had, I didn't want anything bigger as I plan to replace this PC soon. As I go to pay the guy turns to me and says 'you need a 250w one, this will blow up your machine'. I explained I had heard it is better to get a stronger wattage and he says sarcastically 'yes that's fine if you want to blow up your machine, go ahead'. So I did.

So who is right? I mean the guy is at the repair desk so presumably he is repairing customers PC's all day and this is a store that just sells PC's hence the name lol. I on the other hand have no technical knowledge so I just left it at that.

Was he talking out of his arse then? If so it's actually making the situation worse for people saying this becasue when they add other stuff to their pc they will find it starts playing up. What do you guys think? I will write in an complain if so, he shouldn't talk to customers this way anyway.

Thanks again everyone, the back up tool for the HD looks a godsend too for anyone changing pc's or with a problem.

Guy in PC world is talking shite. I have 500 watt PSUs on all my PCs even though most don't even need a 300w one.

[WhyAlwaysMe]

So he told you need a 250W insted of a 300W one because it would blow your PC up? Nonsense.

Maybe the 250W was more expensive and all he wanted was the bigger profit?

Yes that is exactly what he said. Actually the 250w one was cheaper so he wasn't trying to profit. Maybe he just likes to throw his weight around. He must get off on it somehow I guess.

[homero]

sometimes is an abailabitily issue. 250W psu are not selling massive like the bigger ones.

Glad you fix your computer

[Shaun]

More than likely they wanted to clear those PSUs most modern systems these days don't have less than 500w

A computer will only draw the power it needs so there is no way to over do it, only issue is that it fits the case it is intended for.

[Snowtorch]

He points me to them and I chose a 300w one instead of the 250w I had, I didn't want anything bigger as I plan to replace this PC soon. As I go to pay the guy turns to me and says 'you need a 250w one, this will blow up your machine'.

Funny this, really. You could have bought a 500 watt PSU and it would have done the same as your 300 watt one. A PSU only gives electricity to match the demand of your devices. Meaning, a graphics card can never take more electricity than it takes to run itself. A human being may eat more cake than he can - but a graphics card won't eat more electricity. It eats the exact amount needed to run, and that's it. So he was full of shit.


When you buy a PSU, the rule of thumb is: HEAVIER IS BETTER. So pick up 3 PSU's and go for the heaviest. Stupid advice but it's bloody true, I cannot tell you how many PSU's have been made out of lightweight materials that just up and fry because the quality is useless. Therefore - heavier is better. Keep this in mind. It's a good tip.