PC Troubleshooting 101

Cleaning a Dusty CPU (Part 2)

Conrad — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:06:00 +0000

Continued from previous post……

Remember to dust the box outside in a well ventilated area for an infrequently cleaned CPU can contain a lot of dust(which is an allergen). Refrain from using a plastic paint brush as much as possible for it can cause static damage. Should the need arise for too heavy a dust deposits, do so but with caution.
Blow air into the power supply to remove dust form the fans and the components within. Dust the board ensuring all components are free from thick deposits of dust. If you are daring enough(another word for having ample technical know-how) you can remove the video cards and memory modules for a better cleaning.
Pay attention to the vents around the computer so you prevent immediate re-soiling of your work as you plug it in. Re-assemble and enjoy your now healthy and clean PC. One more thing, if you tend to live in a dusty area, try buying cooling fans that have filters so you clean the innards of your PC less and change filters instead.

Cleaning a Dusty CPU (Part 1)

Conrad — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:05:55 +0000

There comes a time in a PC’s life where in a little cleaning comes to order, especially when your cooling fans fail to achieve their optimal speed due to excessive dust. High temperatures can send a computers sensitive parts into the recycling bin, burning out chips that can handle the heat but not for too long a time.

The basic setup has your computer’s power supply, processor(CPU) and occasionally the high end video card having their own cooling fans to take the heat away from the parts they are installed onto. Dust hampers the cooling power of these fans and even insulates the several hundred if not thousands of components contained within the board from the cooling airflow from them.

Dusters in cans are the best tool and they come from many manufacturers but best use moisture free ones that will not cause more damage that you aim to prevent. Remove the cover of the PC’s CPU and unplug all wires and connectors(of course remembering where they all came from so you could plug them back in).

Humidity and Your PC

Conrad — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:51:01 +0000

Heat may be the biggest threat but humidity poses a bigger threat to your pc than heat alone. Having sensitive microelectronics and improper humidity balance makes for one fried computer. That is why huge data centers for big companies invest big not only on proper cooling but also in dehumidifiers that takes moisture out of the air that is blown into the computer data centers.

For your PC, a sure sign of high humidity would be moisture damage in the form of corroded on the many computer parts such as the casing and other parts. Be sure to locate the computer in a well ventilated area that has proper air circulation. This prevents moisture from damaging the motherboard and other parts.

Heat dissipation

Conrad — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:33:59 +0000

Heat is one of the computer’s worst enemies. A number of parts inside a computer generate heat, the most crucial of which is the processor. Computer processors generate so much heat that it needs constant cooling in order to function properly. Inefficient cooling will make the processor get so hot that it will start to malfunction. With enough heat it can actually damage the processor itself and burn right through the motherboard.
You should always be aware of the heat issues inside your computer case. Check that there is enough air circulating within the computer case to prevent any hardware failures.

Ground that PC

Conrad — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:49:12 +0000

Many people fail to observe proper grounding of their computer’s power supply. Ground is supplied in the round pin of the plug that sadly some people take out. Grounding is important for it dissipates electricity that may leak from the computer’s power supply and other peripherals sending it to the user rather than to the grounding system of the house or power company where it dissipates safely. Having improper grounding can short out the computers many parts as well as shock anybody who touches the computer’s casing.

An easy way to check for this is through the use of those ground testers that you can get in any hardware store that lights up when current is available. Use that to touch any part of the computer’s casing and should you find the indicator glowing, better check that grounding. It saves you from that painful jolt when you do touch the PC case when barefoot or touching something that is grounded. So be safe and get grounded, in the electrical sense….

Screech….ing hard drive – Don’t count on System Restore Points (Part 3)

Conrad — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 22:32:27 +0000

Don’t count on system restore for this one for it only works best for software errors and not for hardware failure. If you do not have a secondary hard disk installed, or you might not have enough space to house all your files and the OS in the drive you were left with, then sadly you have to get a new drive to augment or replace the drive that is about to fail considering the fact that the failing drive hasn’t seized up yet. If that were the case, you can curse all you want but say good bye to all your documents and important files whatever type they may be.

Screech….ing hard drive – Moving or copying the files (Part 2)

Conrad — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 22:28:49 +0000

Even new drives can crash if there was a problem within the manufacturing process. They have been tested and tested again before delivery to the store but defects do get through the testing programs. If you happen to have more than one drive on your PC, that would be nice and would make the copy process easier. Just select all the files you need and copy them into a temporary folder where you can retrieve them later in the other drive once it is set up to boot as the primary drive. The primary or master drive is the one that has the operating system installed onto it which in many cases would be Windows.

Blue Screen of Death – Part 2

Conrad — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:28:57 +0000

The �blue screen� as it is more commonly called can be a simple sign that your computer is overheating and more ventilation is needed. This can be addresses with a couple of extra cooling fans or that the existing fans might be dirty and chock full of dust and grime. This can even be a sign of memory module failure which can also be attributed to overheating ( some memory modules literally cook on the boards giving off the nasty smell of burned plastic). Cooling improvements and replacement can remedy the situation granted that no other motherboard components have been cooked to a crisp.

Blue Screen of Death – Part 1

Conrad — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 21:28:02 +0000

Many of us have experienced it many times over, the dreaded �Blue Screen of Death� when using personal computers or just about any computer as a matter of fact. Mostly associated with windows errors, this is called a memory dump which signifies that windows in it�s many versions has encountered an unrecoverable error and has ceased to function. This is a signal to panic for the term paper or presentation you�ve just spent the whole week making and refining has turned to dust hopefully which you might have had a back-up file on some other form of medium.

CPU failure

Conrad — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:27:23 +0000

If you experience frequent CPU failures and get feedback from the store that the power supply has blown. Try to get a larger capacity or higher rated power supply. You might have too many devices hooked up to the power supply (internal and externally) both of which take power from the same power supply if they have no individual power adapter. Say if you have a 300 or 400 watt power supply, try getting hold of a 500 watt or higher model and try to get the bit pricy one so it would last. Repetitive power supply failures can cause damage to the internal parts of your CPU and even the board itself which has built in fuses to protect the Microprocessor unit itself from such damage. If the board has also failed, you would have to get another board to transfer the cpu onto.