Ryan Bigg

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Computer Woes

01 Feb 2010

Today I had to deal with two Windows-based computers’ problems for Mark and Marlene. Here’s what happened.

Mark

Mark has a 4 year old Compaq Presario f500 which occasionally when you switch it on it’ll keep rebooting itself without showing anything on the screen. The fix for this was to turn it off, leave it off for a couple of seconds and then turn it back on. Then the problem went away until you turned it off and on again, in which it would resume. I couldn’t figure this one out. The other problem Mark had with his computer is that when he left it alone the screen would go strange. We figured out this was his screensaver, and changing away from the “Pictures Slideshow” option fixed it. I suspect there’s something in there that isn’t quite right.

Marlene

Marlene’s daughter has a recently bought no-name-brand case with a no-name-brand motherboard in it. Marlene had the computer at her house because she told me about the issue last night and I couldn’t fix it over the phone and her house is easier to get to than her daughter’s. The issue was that the computer wasn’t getting past the first POST screen, the one with the CPU & Memory information. I opened up the case when I got to Marlene’s house and saw that the cable for the CPU fan had a tiny cable tie clip on it that was stopping the CPU fan from spinning. Apparently this stops the computer from getting past that point! I moved it out of the way and tucked it around some other cords to make sure it wouldn’t get in the way again, sealed the case and tested it, it worked and so I thought that was that.

Until 5:30 tonight.

Marlene phones me up. The computer’s making a beeping noise. I can hear it in the background, “BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP”, pause, rinse, repeat. One long beep. It wasn’t doing that earlier. So I trek as far north in Brisbane as I have ever gone to play around with this box. I needed to fix this problem as I felt it was something I did. I get there and sure enough it’s making the “BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP” noise. I take the side off the case and the cord for the CPU is where I put it and that fan’s spinning alright.

I looked it up on Wikipedia and it said that it could have been a memory issue, so I took that out. No change. I took out the graphics card. No change. I took out the sound card. No change. I unplugged the power and data cables to the harddrives and DVD drives. No change.

What the hell?

I was on the verge of giving up so I just put everything back in the case one thing at a time, starting with the graphics card.

CHANGE!

The computer emitted a singular quick beep indicating successful POST and a choir of angels was heard in the distance.

Pieced it all back together and it booted fine. Did the ol’ go-through-and-remove-all-the-spyware-shit-that-builds-up routine and another happy customer!

tl;dr:

  1. Wacky screen after a period of non-use? Try changing your screensaver.
  2. Long singular beep? Ensure the PCI cards are seated correctly.