JCC Offical Computer Help Thread V2.0

What wattage is your PSU, Richie?

 

This doesn't sound good

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Oh, I had two Acer laptops and (for whatever reason) I lost network connections on them. Not sure if it was triggered by an update, but I had a similar problem. Yeah, was never able to connect to any network again.

 

Probably security issues. Who knows.

 

I glance at my nearly two month old Acer laptop and say, "Please do not do that."

I have to look up how to do the simplest things in Windows 10, it's both frustrating and interesting. Am beginning to get comfortable with the idea that I may not be an Apple user after my current tech needs updating. The random solid state button freeze is kicking up on my 7 month old iPhone 7+ (at least it had the decency to start 7 months in, unlike my first 7+ which exhibited that behavior one day in) and Safari freaks out at every last little thing. Yet more change in my life, but this is good.

 

I've been having trouble with my PC resetting itself during games for a while now. I strongly suspect it is my PSU, as when I ordered my computer I went for a cheap unbranded PSU, plus there is an occasional grinding noise of a fan dying, and it's not from the main unit or the graphics card.

But I've never replaced a PSU before. Is it hard? I'm the sort of person who always has trouble changing graphics cards, so this scares me a bit. Are there things I should look out for when buying a new PSU? How much trouble am I going to have?

Advice welcome.

 

Get an EVGA Gold. They're solid.

Make sure you have the original motherboard manual to hand and take a video as you unplug everything so you can retrace your steps. It takes patience but it's not difficult.

 

@Blobofat
Help. Just installed new psu and think I may have killed my pc.

When turning on the machine the grahics card lights up briefly, then I hear a clicking sound, then the computer dies, then tries to start up again, ad infinitum.

Not sure if I have pushed the motherboard power connector or the cpu power connector in far enough, they were both very difficult to push in.

Or I may have screwed something up when I was trying to connect the various connections.

Any ideas, anyone?

 

Sorry to hear that. I'd take it out of the case and put it together one piece at a time and see if it works. If there's a problem with a component it will flag up as you assemble it.

 

Probably a stupid question but it should be asked. Did you use the cables that came with the new PSU or did you use the ones from your previous PSU?

 

I used the new ones. I looked up the common problems with psu units, and the whole non-standard pin layout thing came up, so I knew that could be a problem.

I could have fried something with static as I didn't have a grounding band, but I tried to keep my bare foot on a radiator most of the time, and I wore dishwashing gloves while touching the interior of the case.

I did struggle with both removing and inserting the 24 pin motherboard power cable. I worry I could have damaged the motherboard at the time by putting my hands on the other side to brace it. Really, I found connecting all the cables difficult.

I didn't have a power supply tester, so I guess there's an off-chance the new unit is defecive, but it seems unlikely.

 

@Blobofat Well, I opened it back up, pushed on the connections, and pushed the main motherboard power lead (the thick 24 pin one - my psu is only partly modular, that and the cpu power cable are wired into the box) away from a circuit board it was touching (probably belonging to the graphics card), and hey presto, it's alive.

Do you think it may have the mb power cable being in contact with the board? I haven't cable-tidied yet, and don't know how well insulated these things are.

 

The cliking you describe

They're usually well-insulated so not likely. Tbh it could be any number of things which is why I breadboard them if there's an issue and work through it methodically. But if it's working now then hopefully all good.

Sorry I said it was easy! I've built quite a few over the years because I used to need a farm of them to run loads of sample libraries in my DAW and it worked out cheaper. Usually it turned out ok although defective fans etc threw a spanner in the works every blue moon. I'm glad we're now at an age where everything can be done in one machine.

 

Can anyone recommend a non-Apple made power cable. I need to replace the charging cable for my iPad. This is the second time I’ve had to do this and I don’t want to have to do it again.

 

There’s no such thing as a cable that will last indefinitely but Amazon Basics lightning to USB cables are cheap enough and tend to last long enough that it’s somewhat more tolerable.

 

You kind of left that sentence hanging. Were you going to say that it sounds like the PSU was resetting itself (which is what I assume it was, but I don't know)?

I'm sure it's a fairly easy (if time-consuming) job for most, but I'm an indecisive, overly anxious, and rather fatalistic personality at the best of times and I know, quite apart from the major problem I described, I caused a series of problems for myself by panicking when I should have simply taken a moment to calm down and think a problem through. Lack of experience is only solved one way, though, so the encouragement was worthwhile. Hopefully if I have to do it again I won't find it as difficult (though that 24 pin connection is a bugger - why can't they make it a more consumer-friendly socket? Once you get inside the PC it starts to remind me of the hassle I had back in the early 90's upgrading my Atari ST's memory).

 

Yeah, didn't realise I'd left it in. I was going to say that the clicking on and off sounded like the graphics card, or the case itself, or maybe even just some dirt was shorting it. As long as it's not a component on the mobo itself as then it would need replacing. But if it's ok now then hopefully its nothing to worry about.

Do you remember things like SCSI? I used to hate those old sorts of connectors, DB25 pins and all that. They could bend and then you'd have to spend time trying to straighten them up with little pliers. That said, once they were in they were in. SSD inputs feel really fragile to me, like they could snap with not too much pressure. Definitely not military grade!

 

It could have been the graphics card. I felt it looked a little skew-whiff when I opened the machine back up to see if I could push some of the cables in tighter, so I gave that a bit of a push as well, just in case. It could even be that the big power cable snake that was resting on the card had pushed it a little out of alignment. I don't know. That big cable still being so close to the card makes me nervous, I'll have to open the case up again in the next few days and use a cable tidy or two to fix it somewhere safer.

I do remember SCSI. I think my first PC (a clock-doubled DX66) had at least two SCSI ports. I can't remember what I had plugged in there... perhaps a scanner? I'm not sure. I remember my dad bring home a ZX81, with that 16k ram-pack which had a rather unstable connection with the motherboard - "ram-pack wobble" was the bane of many a ZX81 user's life, when pressing too vigorously on the membrane keyboard would cause the Ram expansion module to wobble, losing connection and resetting the computer, often losing hours of not backed-up work. I do not miss cassette tapes as a storage medium.

 

ZX81 - my first computer. I remember programming an F1 track on mine and showing my nan. The 'car' was a block. She didn't look impressed.

Totally agree about cassette storage. My son was amazed when he went to the science museum and watched a demo on a BBC micro. He thought it was so neat he was straight on his iphone texting about how cool things were back then. Yeah, right....

 

I remember being incredibly impressed at the time with "Monster Maze", a game where you attempted to escape a maze (rendered in 3D perspective) without running into the T-Rex which roamed the corridors. Of course text adventures, on the other hand, don't really age. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on my ST, text only though it was, is still one of the best ever, imo. Fiendish, but brilliant.

Owned an Acorn Electron and a Sinclair Spectrum, too. Getting a game to load on the Spectrum could be a challenge in itself, as you fiddled with volume knobs in the hope of getting the horizontal lines on the loading screen to look right. The ST's 3.5 floppy diskettes were a revelation when I upgraded!

 

My laptop is 6 years old. Thinking of getting this. Is this a good deal?

https://www.costco.com/lenovo-ideap...-intel-core-i7---1080p.product.100533843.html