About 10 months ago, my child, who is a teenager, came to me saying that their computer wasn’t displaying on their monitor. I looked at it, the computer was running, one of the fans wasn’t running, and neither was the fans on the GPU. The CPU on this machine has a built in GPU, so I moved the HDMI cable from the GPU to the the I/O panel, we had picture! I pulled and repeated the GPU, didn’t work, I checked the drivers, all updated. My thought was it got too hot and fried. I ordered a new fan and a similar GPU. Installed both and it all worked fine!
Then, about 2 months later, my teen comes to me again saying their computer just shut off and won’t turn back on. Ok, well then, let’s take a look! My first thought, best cast it’s just a PSU, worst case, it’s the motherboard.
I went and looked at it, it didn’t turn on. I checked to make sure it was plugged in, still nothing. I moved the PC to a known working power outlet, still nothing. There were no POST lights, nothing. The motherboard looked fine from a quick glance, but the PSU fan was pretty dirty. I didn’t have any spare PSU’s around, so I went ahead and ordered one with more output, and a better efficiency rating so that we could upgrade in the future. I had a feeling we would be needing to.
The PSU came in pretty quickly, thanks Amazon! After figuring out where everything was supposed to go, I installed the new PSU and BAM, it worked! I talked to my teen about ensuring the computer stayed clean and clear of obstructions and established a cleaning schedule, which we still do today with no new problems (knock on wood).
Until next time, cheers!