If you are a dad running a household with 4 PCs, two laptops and bunch of ipads, you become your own little IT specialists.
Issues range from no connectivity, frozen screens to completely inoperable.
If you recall, the last adventure I had was my PC magically shutting down for no reason. I had assumed it was a badly seated stick of RAM at first because opening up the case and making sure everything was seated right actually fixed the issue.
It later turned out to be a bad CPU cooler.
This latest adventure:
Ninjagirl: My computer is not turning on!
Montoya: Did you try pushing the power cord in fully?
Ninjagirl: Its not the power cord, everything was working fine yesterday, its just not turning on!
So much for my planned 2hr session of playing some Star Citizen, lets get this done!
I started by removing peripherals, printer, vinyl cutter, mouse, keyboard.. monitors... Nope, still not even posting.
Ugh, now I have to remove the entire case from its comfortable spot. I hate moving PC cases after they are all wired in and settled in the perfect location! I undo the cables and put it on the kitchen counter, which is where I like to work on these things.
It looks like the fans are not even spinning... could it be the PSU? Ive never had one fail before, but there is always a first time! This one is 2yrs old, so it would be surprising.
I refer to youtube and see the paper clip test. Essentially what you do is pull out the motherboard connector and complete a circuit between the green and black wires. If the fan on the PSU spins, then its good and your problem is somewhere more expensive and important. If the PSU fan does not move, you are in luck and its only a $50 PSU.
I place the paper clip in the right spot, hit the power switch... no fan!
Great!
Off to Amazon!
48hrs later Im unpacking a new PSU. I wire it in, double check all clips are secured. Plug in the power cord, flip the switch to on... and... SUCCESS!!!
It is always such a fulfilling feeling when you hit that power switch and everything works!
The kids think Im some sort of computer genius after seeing me weave all those cables around and magically making it work.
The wife says I owe her a patio set, which is totally unrelated to this story.
Issues range from no connectivity, frozen screens to completely inoperable.
If you recall, the last adventure I had was my PC magically shutting down for no reason. I had assumed it was a badly seated stick of RAM at first because opening up the case and making sure everything was seated right actually fixed the issue.
It later turned out to be a bad CPU cooler.
This latest adventure:
Ninjagirl: My computer is not turning on!
Montoya: Did you try pushing the power cord in fully?
Ninjagirl: Its not the power cord, everything was working fine yesterday, its just not turning on!
So much for my planned 2hr session of playing some Star Citizen, lets get this done!
I started by removing peripherals, printer, vinyl cutter, mouse, keyboard.. monitors... Nope, still not even posting.
Ugh, now I have to remove the entire case from its comfortable spot. I hate moving PC cases after they are all wired in and settled in the perfect location! I undo the cables and put it on the kitchen counter, which is where I like to work on these things.
It looks like the fans are not even spinning... could it be the PSU? Ive never had one fail before, but there is always a first time! This one is 2yrs old, so it would be surprising.
I refer to youtube and see the paper clip test. Essentially what you do is pull out the motherboard connector and complete a circuit between the green and black wires. If the fan on the PSU spins, then its good and your problem is somewhere more expensive and important. If the PSU fan does not move, you are in luck and its only a $50 PSU.
I place the paper clip in the right spot, hit the power switch... no fan!
Great!
Off to Amazon!
48hrs later Im unpacking a new PSU. I wire it in, double check all clips are secured. Plug in the power cord, flip the switch to on... and... SUCCESS!!!
It is always such a fulfilling feeling when you hit that power switch and everything works!
The kids think Im some sort of computer genius after seeing me weave all those cables around and magically making it work.
The wife says I owe her a patio set, which is totally unrelated to this story.
?
