Pc Component fault or virus ?

xxdeebeexx

closed wrote: »

Where is the small green light?

not this one?



Are you backed up?

Hi definately not that one. It's the light under the power cable at the back of the computer, very near to the top.
I have all my photos backed up and have saved my documents onto a hard drive. I don't know what else I should do.

Thanks

Dx

closed

As other have said, assuming the mains lead hasn't been damaged/crushed it's likely to be the power supply unit, if it fails completely they are very easy to change, and cost less than £10 - I'm sure someone will come along and say you need to spend more for a super one, but it's not necessary imo - you just need one rated at or above your current wattage

Hammyman

Your documents and files will be safe.

Either it is the capacitors on the motherboard drying out and dying the death or the ones in the PSU.

Have a look around the CPU and you'll see several vertical cylindrical components like the ones arrowed in the picture below - these are capacitors. If the tops of them are anything but completely flat or it looks like there is dried fluid on them, they're cream crackered. In the photo below, the only ones that are not knacked are the two at the bottom with the black plastic sleeving. All the others have the tops domed to some extent or are leaking.



The good news is that they're pence to buy. The bad news is they're a sod to change and you'll be lucky to find someone who'll do it for less labour than it costs to buy a new motherboard.

asbokid

if it is swelly caps syndrome, will you change them for her, hammyman, as a gesture of goodwill to a damson in distress?

xxdeebeexx

Thank you all. I will take a look in the morning. I have just backed everything up....

Dx

xxdeebeexx

Good morning, you are right Hammyman, I took the sides off my pc and inspected the 'thingies' that you mentioned. One is definately suffering with the swelly caps syndrome. I tried holding down the start button as suggested by dogmaryxx and that didn't work. I removed all my plugs, screen, mouse, keyboard etc and tried it again and still no improvement.

Last night I googled the problem and found a number of possible solutions and printed them off. It was suggested that I could test the PSU by unplugging the main power supply to the motherboard. I did this , plugged in the computer and had a constant green light.....

I copied these instructions from TechSupport Forum

Originally Posted by babonim
Yay for me! Hopefully this will help someone else out. As I read from other people, they thought it was the power supply. I did too at first. A few others said that they had their computers not work after a storm or an electrical surge, even with a surge protector. I do believe it is an issue with the motherboard.

I was looking at a friends computer that was put out by a storm. When unplugging the all power connectors to the motherboard (and all drives), and then plugging in the power supply to the wall the green light would then stay on. This of course made the next course of action to plug in the main power connector (the one longest rectangle one) to the mother board while the power supply is plugged into the wall.

Viola!

Just as the power surge from a storm knocked it out, a little surge to the motherboard breathed back life to the computer. While this is a bit of an unorthodox method to get a computer to work again, it sure beats buying a new mother board, or buying another power supply to have the same result.

Hope this helped

It sure would positively reinforce me, if some people gave feedback if this works for them.


And it worked !!

I don't know if it will solve the problem permenantly and I expect it was dangerous and possibly put my motherboard at risk but I had a look at replacing the thingy and I'm not sure that I could. If I can hobble along until my lovely nephew can visit then I will be happy. I will put a request on Freecycle for a PC and who knows, I might be lucky.

Thanks for your help

Dx