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Thread: My Poor Puter

  1. #1
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    Red face My Poor Puter

    I'm pretty sure I know what's wrong now but I guess I'll bounce the idea off you guys.

    Recently, my computer shuts itself down. Sometimes it beeps, sometimes it doesn't. What will happen is it will just shut itself down - at the most inconvienent times. And not restart - shut down.

    My mom and bother have not been having the problem but it would go 5 times in a row for me until I just gave up. It happened again tonight so I left it for about an hour.

    So something occured to me. A few months ago, the fan was making really weird noises. Now, it's quiet. Infact I put my hand back there and the reason it's quiet is because I don't think it's spinning at all! Very little hot air coming out the back!!

    So what I'm thinking is it shuts itself down as a safty thing to prevent massive overheating. I get it the most because I'm usually doing so much at once.

    My plan is to get one of those little compressed air things to blow the dust out of the fan and if that doesn't work, simply install a new fan.

    (At first I thought it was just WindowsME being...well...WindowsME. But I think overheating is the issue.)

    thoughts? comments? condolences?

  2. #2
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    Try a new fan. You can use a big exterior fan (you know, the one you put in a room) temporarily. you can use that to extend the amount of time your computer operates (put it up right against the back of the computer). However, use your computer spareingly until you get a replacement fan. Don't want to melt any circuts!

    Expect a moderately pricey replacement ($50 US for a cheap fan)
    Our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, because our destiny lies above us. - Matthew Mcconaughey - Interstellar

  3. #3
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    A friend of mine had the same problem.
    It's either the fan in the back, or (this was the case with my friend) the fan on-top of the cpu.
    If either of them has stopped spinning, it's likely an over-heating issue.

  4. #4
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    Originally posted by Jean-Pierre Bazinet
    A friend of mine had the same problem.
    It's either the fan in the back, or (this was the case with my friend) the fan on-top of the cpu.
    If either of them has stopped spinning, it's likely an over-heating issue.
    My PII did that too several weeks ago! The fan in the power unit died and blew the entire power supply. Fortunately the computer guy at work found me a replacement without charging me anything. But I lost a weekend to DL stuff.

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  5. #5
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    and as temporary solution, remove the CASE COVER and position it somewhere where it gets good ventilation
    http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/6324/fightclubmlzq1.jpg

  6. #6
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    tisoy and Granite - thanks for the ventilation tips!

    Yeah new fan should be it.

  7. #7
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    Thanks Dave B....I guess I should have posted an update about what actually happened.

    We took it in asking for a cleaning and maybe a new fan wherever one wasn't giving 100%. They cleaned and replaced the fans but continued to have the problem and could only track it down to the motherboard, which was replaced along with the RAM. (RAM's pretty cheap but motherboards can hurt )

    Well we got it back and they had somehow plugged the sound card in wrong (not pushed in enough or something) Well the computer cannot be taken in again - this is EXAM and ESSAY time for me.....I can't afford to not have another computer for a weekend. So we wait until school is done...I do all my essays without musical insperation

    I could easily have fixed it myself but the worry was "it's their fault and they'll probably gladly fix it for free....but if I accidently DO something while in there...static...scrape....whatever...then it's not covered. and this computer cannot be out of service for the next 3 weeks. at all."

    Now everything is working pretty good. Perfect hardware wise but I'm sick of the machine and all the problems it gives me. I'm sick of my brother accidently downloading spyware from outwar.com, I'm sick of WindowsME and how it hates our new printer and printers in general.

    Well I worked all year. Not much but enough to afford transportation to and from college this year and a little something for a computer. maybe $2500-3000 Canadian. Well enough of this "sharing a computer" business. It really sucks when you NEED to get on it to do school work and little brother is playing Yahoo pool or finding a new way to make you spend 2 hours getting everything running again.

    Gonna get my own computer, in my room. For me. Network it to share the internet, scanner and printer. Should be nice. Take real good care of her too.

    umm....*cough*. Yeah I'm done

  8. #8
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    do what i did a few years ago..... BUY A NEW COMPUTER!!! :big grin:
    "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

  9. #9
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    My new one will have XP. I COULD get XP on this one:

    Pentium 4 1.3GHz
    512MB RAM
    40Gig Hard Drive
    GeForce 2 MX 32MB Video Card <--There's the breaking point

    But XP and a brand new video card is all it needs really to be decent again. Why don't I just do that?

    There's still the issue of sharing. We're both going to need a computer for school work and he will get prefrence because he's the younger child. And he will take forever and goof off too.

    When I want to do work I want to be able to jump on and go. Not wait a single second. With a brother I gotta wait and it's just very inconvienent. I've had 2-3am nights that I could have been done by midnight if he didn't have school work.

    So getting my own is my choice. That's when I stop caring about THIS one and let my brother just send it to hell "by accident". After spending hundreds on getting it in working order or needing me to fix it (I'll be really busy in college...I'll get around to it "soon" though) they should have a little more respect for me, technology wise.

  10. #10
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    yeah my friend has XP and keeps his parents and brother in containment

    But the fact is I still need my own computer. Basicly anything is more stable then WindowsME and XP is what I'll be going for.

    Thanks for all your help everyone!

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