“Non-Computer Guy” Fixes Own Computer
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With a title ironic enough to appear in “The Onion”, let me preface this post by saying that I don’t “consider” myself a “computer guy”. Sure, I “assembled” a computer a few years ago, to act as a Media Center, but that hardly counts as rocket science – it’s basically plug and play of the various bits and pieces, like an electronic Meccano set. Recently that computer had some problems. It would just stop responding, at odd intervals. If I left it off for a few days, it would run for anywhere from 1-2 hours, then just stop responding to external stimuli (although I didn’t try a hammer!). So I took it upon myself to investigate.
Using the inter-googles, I thought that heat might be a problem – turns out is was, but not in the way you’re thinking! Anyway, I went out and got a watercooler for the CPU, installed that, and fired it up. Guess what? It worked – for 1-2 hours, then stopped responding… I investigated all sorts of arcane computer-geek knowledge bases, but still couldn’t hit upon an answer.
Then I thought I’d swap out the motherboard for exactly the same replacement part – two problems with that: that motherboard is obsolete, and there’s apparently a whole lot of work involved in moving Windows 7 so that it will play nicely with new, fundamental-level hardware. Ick – hard work, who wants that???
So I did something else. I LOOKED at the motherboard. And just like in the song, some of these things did NOT look like the others. Four electrolytic capacitors on the board had these little black dots of goo on them, like a pen that has leaked (photos). That didn’t look right, so back to the googlewebs, and thirty seconds later I knew my problem – the capacitors had overheated and eviscerated themselves. So I went to Radio Shack, got four of the same, yanked out the motherboard, replaced the capacitors, and voila (that’s French for walla, which is Australian for “bewdy mate!”), we’re back on track! (Neil fetches beer to celebrate)
Parts: $4.60
Labor: “free” (call it 4-5 hours total, including thinking time)
Result: Priceless!
Avoided cost: new motherboard, hours of pulling hair out over software ‘stuff’, and stress.
In addition, I now have this fancy schmancy watercooled CPU – not strictly necessary, but hey, I have it. However, the radiator for that baby is more than the internals of my case can handle, so it needed to be mounted on the outside. Using the laser cutter at NovaLabs, I chopped a suitable hole in the acrylic (after burn-testing it!) to let me mount it externally, extended the power wires to the fan, and once again,
French was heard – voila!
I am now researching Bitcoin mining with my GTX460 GPU, but that’s for a different day…
My take on all of this is the following:
1) If I can do this, anyone can, so don’t be afraid to try.
2) If things don’t look right, they probably aren’t.
3) NovaLabs has people who can not only provide you with help, but who will also willingly encourage you in a manner that is knowledgeable, supportive and positive.
Go and fix stuff. Now!
