I was just working on some… well, some work, obviously enough, and my piece of crap computer switched itself off with no warning and now it won’t turn back on. No funny noises or anything in the lead-up to the offness, the motherboard’s still drawing power (the LEDs on my USB wireless LAN adapter and my wireless keyboard and mouse - which are plugged in through the normal plugs - are on), there’s nothing smelling like it’s burned out or anything… I’ve tried unplugging everything and plugging it all back in, I’ve pulled the box open and checked all the connections… I’m letting it cool down while I’m here in this 'net cafe just in case it simply overheated, but if that wasn’t the case, can anyone offer any help at all? I’ve got work due tomorrow - Murphy’s fecking law - and I’ve e-mailed the boss with what’s happened but I want to try and get everything back up ASAP.
And if all else fails, anyone know any good places to get it checked over and repaired?
This happened to me last year. It turned out that the fan had gone bad, and the machine was overheating regularly. In the end it fried part of the hard drive which had to be replaced along with the fan. Luckily it was still under warranty, but unluckily it was a US warranty so had to send it back to the States for service. Mom is using it now and it’s fine.
If it’s a notebook, most of the shops in Taiwan will tell you that they can’t replace the fan, which seemed absurd to me considering that most of the fans originate in Taiwan. But hey…you might have better luck trolling Guanghua or seeing if you can talk a student into doing it.
HTH it is very frustrating. In the end I bought a new Acer notebook while I was waiting for the other one to sort itself out, and I was glad I did. Expensive “fix”, though.
Hopefully you got a USB HD enclosure. You can pop your HD out of your desktop, slip it into the enclosure, and then connect the completed USB HD enclosure to any computer. You can pull your work data from that and finish in time for tomorrow.
Got one you can borrow if you really need it. PM me. Lord I hope you be in Taipei, that being the case.
First check if the memory isn’t loose in the slot. Check if the cpu is sitting correctly in its socket and all the power connectors and boards are sitting in.
Sounds like the mainboard packed it in if it is one of those all-in-one boards. Mainboards are cheap, I suggest go buy another one and slot it in.
Best way is to take it to a computer shop for a diagnosis for a small fee.
[quote=“wyseau”]First check if the memory isn’t loose in the slot. Check if the cpu is sitting correctly in its socket and all the power connectors and boards are sitting in.
Sounds like the mainboard packed it in if it is one of those all-in-one boards. Mainboards are cheap, I suggest go buy another one and slot it in.
Best way is to take it to a computer shop for a diagnosis for a small fee.[/quote]
I’d go with wyseau’s suggestion. I’ve had 40 computers go down on me since Christmas. 90% of the time, when it won’t power on yet you can still see the led lights inside, it’s a motherboard issue.
Thanks for all the tips. I’m running XP, but not on NTFS. (Don’t trust it. Too hard to recover things from in the event of disaster.) Not running that Dell model either. I’ll head home and go over all the connections again, check that everything’s seated properly, and all that. If all that fails, I’ll just take it to get repaired. Thanks for the offers of help with the dataswap too - I reckon I’ll go buy a USB HD enclosure anyway, because God knows this’ll probably happen again at some point.
While I think of it - has anyone used Nam’s services for getting a repair done? I see his ad off to the right at the moment and I’ve just e-mailed about it. He seems on the up-and-up, and it’d be good to get it done by someone who actually speaks English (although the supporting of another Forumosan’s also quite a nice bonus )
Got it sorted out tonight - power supply crapped out. There was just enough power going through to light up the LEDs, not enough to actually do anything useful. Got it all sorted out by Nam, who is about to get yet another glowing review from a happy customer once I’m sorted with the next few thread. And no, I don’t generally back things up, but I tell you what, I’m getting myself a DVD RW and making at least weekly backups now (or at least until I get lazy again, which will unfortunately happen, and probably before the next major catastrophe.)
Oh, and I managed to pull off Operation Data Swap independently - fished out my old computer (which had been making funny noises before and threatening to release the Magic Smoke) and booted into Knoppix with my “proper” HD plugged into one of those HD USB thingies. I swear, buying that thing may turn out to be a really good investment, since I know I’m going to have these problems again - computers always die at the least opportune time.
Dude I’d skip the DVDRW if you’re only going to use it as a data backup device. Glad to hear you got the USB UD enclosure. Hope you didnt spend more than $1100 NT. I have 2 of the devices. Both have 120GB WD HD’s inside. One is my primary backup device which I do whenever I can bloody remember. The 2nd is my backup backup. I carry my primary HD enclosure with me all the time. All I need is one good whack and I’ll be crying like I lost my best friend. The 2nd HD enclosure sits in a drawer. I sync them whenever I got time.
All in all, congrats on sorting things out. And kudos to Nam for yet again another sweet job done.
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