Dead Confuter

I think I have killed my PC. I am using ellefurtle's computer right now, but in the morning I shall take the back off mine and see if my untutored eye can see anything that is obviously wrong. I doubt it, though.

Annoyingly I was quite pleased with myself earlier on, but I expect my ham-fisted attempts at PC maintenance have earned me my just rewards.

The past couple of days, I have been getting warnings about heat on the computer whenever I have been playing Warcrack for maybe a whole three minutes. I wasn't sure that there wasn't a bug somewhere because that's the only time I got the warning. Anyway, I did some deep scans to make sure there was no naughty malware or similar, but the warnings still popped up, so I turned the PC off, let it cool down and opened it up to look at the fan and heat sink.

I - and you can see it all unravelling from here, can't you - disassembled and removed the heatsink and fan. Cripes, it was dusty and that, I reckoned was the problem. So I cleaned it and despite having the devil's own job, reassembled it with help from Furtle. (Who knew there was a plastic plate behind it that would just fall into the back of the PC?). Well we fished that out, repositioned it and reassembled and reattached the heatsink and fan. I put the cover back on and wired it all back up to the various doodads I have - you know, mouse, printer, screen etc.

Pleased with myself, I turned it on. The greenlight came on, thought about it for maybe a second and turned itself back off. I tried again: same result.

So, I unplugged everything again, dragged the PC back out and took the cover back off. I hadn't reattached the wire to the fan properly. Hoorah! Problem solved! Repeat the re-covering and reattachment of bits, plug it in and Hey Presto!

Green light comes on, flickers and goes back off again. It no workee.

I shall leave it for tonight and look again in the morning when it is a) light and b) I am less tired. But I have that feeling...

I expect that I shall have to ask someone better equipped than me to look at it. I hope I haven't done anything too expensive.

Buggrit.

Dead Confuter

I think I have killed my PC. I am using ellefurtle's computer right now, but in the morning I shall take the back off mine and see if my untutored eye can see anything that is obviously wrong. I doubt it, though.

Annoyingly I was quite pleased with myself earlier on, but I expect my ham-fisted attempts at PC maintenance have earned me my just rewards.

The past couple of days, I have been getting warnings about heat on the computer whenever I have been playing Warcrack for maybe a whole three minutes. I wasn't sure that there wasn't a bug somewhere because that's the only time I got the warning. Anyway, I did some deep scans to make sure there was no naughty malware or similar, but the warnings still popped up, so I turned the PC off, let it cool down and opened it up to look at the fan and heat sink.

I - and you can see it all unravelling from here, can't you - disassembled and removed the heatsink and fan. Cripes, it was dusty and that, I reckoned was the problem. So I cleaned it and despite having the devil's own job, reassembled it with help from Furtle. (Who knew there was a plastic plate behind it that would just fall into the back of the PC?). Well we fished that out, repositioned it and reassembled and reattached the heatsink and fan. I put the cover back on and wired it all back up to the various doodads I have - you know, mouse, printer, screen etc.

Pleased with myself, I turned it on. The greenlight came on, thought about it for maybe a second and turned itself back off. I tried again: same result.

So, I unplugged everything again, dragged the PC back out and took the cover back off. I hadn't reattached the wire to the fan properly. Hoorah! Problem solved! Repeat the re-covering and reattachment of bits, plug it in and Hey Presto!

Green light comes on, flickers and goes back off again. It no workee.

I shall leave it for tonight and look again in the morning when it is a) light and b) I am less tired. But I have that feeling...

I expect that I shall have to ask someone better equipped than me to look at it. I hope I haven't done anything too expensive.

Buggrit.