And for goodness' sake, don't use your household vacuum
cleaner to clean the dust bunnies from the inside of the
computer. I did that once, and once was all it took. $800 and
a new motherboard (and CPU) later, I was back up and
running.
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"When I say something, I put my name next to it." -- Isaac Jaffe, "Sports Night"[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| I was careful, and taking ESD precautions, however I did not in this case
actually have to go near anything vulnerable. I was really just making the point
that a sick PC might not be due to Windoze (although it very often is!), and
with care it was so easy to fix that just about anyone could do it, given
similar symptoms. At least it is worth a look, even if you don't have the
confidence and knowledge to touch anything, as the problem is often visible
through the RAM access cover, which is a user-accesible item. I had thought for
a while that the problem was software related, as it began folowing a kernel
upgrade a while back, and seemed to be related to Firefox somehow. I should
have added that anyone doing it should wear a grounded wrist strap, and work on
the PC on a grounded surface, as well as using tools such as screwdrivers with
resistive handles, and of course no-one should apply force to delicate
bits. The vast majority of people who perform maintenance on their PC, or add
extra cards or RAM, manage to succeed. Laptops are no more delicate electrically
than desktops, just smaller, so connectors etc are tiny and hard to work with,
but you generally don't have to undo any of those to remove debris from the fan. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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