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What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:10 pm
by JellyFish
Just wondering what you guys do when your computer acts up or is not working for whatever reason. Do you guys take it in, to a shop? Do you guys fix the problem yourself? Or do you guys have a place online where you go to get help?

I've recently been having problems with my PC. It seems to be shutting down or restarting abruptly whenever I try to use it before it fully starts up. Also sometimes it shuts down and starts making a beeping noise (coming from the computer box). Sometimes it wont turn back on, instead just make the beeping noise. Strange. So I'm wondering what you guys do when stuff like this happens?

Thanks for reading. Cheers!

Re: What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:13 pm
by John Cartwright
Whenever my hardware friend has software issues, I will fix it for him. Whenever I have hardware issues or requirements, he will help out me. Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours kind of thing.

I would never consider bringing my computer into a shop, they are seriously over priced and generally don't do as good of a job.

How many beeps do you get? Kind of sounds like a power supply issue.

Re: What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:00 pm
by Darhazer
Whenever my hardware friend has software issues, I will fix it for him. Whenever I have hardware issues or requirements, he will help out me
Same here 8)

Re: What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:12 pm
by Benjamin
I fix it myself. You can do some research to find out what the beeps mean for your particular motherboard. The number and duration of the beeps can help you diagnose the problem.

The first thing I would check is that your ram is seated properly, the cpu is seated properly, all your pci cards are seated properly, all the hard drives are plugged in nice and tight, and all the power connections. If one of your ram chips is going bad you can try taking one or the other out to see if the problem goes away. If that doesn't solve your problem, then it could be hardware failing on your PC. In that case you'll need to find out which piece of hardware and buy another one. If it is hardware failure, it's more than likely the motherboard, based on your comments.

Re: What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 1:05 am
by matthijs
If I still would have a PC, I would try to figure out myself what the probable cause is and then buy a new set of hardware (motherboard, etc) and put it in. That stuff is so cheap nowadays I wouldn't bother spending days figuring out what's going on and if it can be fixed. If it'd be for my mac, I'd go to the Applestore. My experience with them is excellent so far. If it's a harddisk or memory problem I could replace it myself, otherwise I'd let them do it

Re: What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 2:42 am
by onion2k
I live by the motto "If in doubt, give it a clout".

Re: What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 2:50 am
by JellyFish
They're about five to six beeps. And they're slow, sorta like the ones of a moving truck backing up. It kinda reminded me of morse code, I recall it being "-... ...".

Re: What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 6:04 am
by jayshields
Fix it myself. Hardware is sometimes very annoying to fix. Software is easy because there's always the last resort of backing stuff up and then reinstalling the OS if you're having too much trouble.

I have had some nightmare problems with hardware, stuff that's taken months to figure out. Once I spent about a month messing with a computer components only to realise it was the mains power socket which was unstable which I was testing the computer from.

You should find out what BIOS manufacturer your motherboard BIOS is made by (you can probably see the logo straight after powering on). Then Google for the beep codes. By the sounds of things it will probably be a power or overheating issue. RAM problems usually result in a smaller amount of beeps.

If you can get a rough idea of the problematic bit, swap it out for a new/spare one and see if it fixes it. It's handy to have a full spare computer with a similar set up to your own for swapping stuff out and doing trial and error. If it's overheating go into the BIOS and check the temperatures and see what they're like, if it's high then try a new heatsink/re-apply thermal paste.

Re: What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 1:06 pm
by superdezign
Almost every time I have a hardware issue, it's heating related. And 9 times out of 10, it's the CPU. Making sure the heatsink is properly fitted normally does the trick. I move my PC from my house to my gf's house on occasion, and things become loose internally when it's moving in the car.

Re: What do you do when your PC acts up?

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 3:38 pm
by jackpf
I work at my school as an IT technician in the holidays and the guys kind of like me there, so they help me out when I have problems :)

Quite nice of them tbh.