DIY Computer Repairs

Computer Repairs For The Needy

This is the place to come to for help & advice with regards to any computer  repairs that you may need advice on.  We are not gods here, but we will see what we can do to help. One thing that a lot of people hate when their computer runs into  problems,  is that you know you will have to spend at least $50 bucks to have it inspected! Then it is very likely you will spend another $50 or more on the part that is faulty. Well good news, our advice is always free but if we help you out at all then a small donation to our coffee fund would be greatly appreciated. You may post your issues as a comment below and we will try to answer them.

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I know it is the norm for anyone to have some issues here and there with their computer at times  & many people complain that computers are money suckers that will take a lot of money to maintain! But this is not the case here, as this section will allow you to post questions about any computer problems that you may want us to analyse and help you to solve.

This post will list some of the most common problems that may occur with your computer, so before you even start taking your computer apart,  ask yourself  what is the last thing that you did before this happened?  A power trip?  Playing games? or a cat went in your room and did something.

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1. Computer seems to be obviously slower then before and eventually freezes.

Whenever there is a situation that gets your system to freeze.  It has got to be somehow related to heat.  You can download speed checking programs like speed fan for example to monitor the temperatures in your system.  If indeed any of those parts are too hot as indicated by the program.  Shut down your computer and dust out the part of casing.  Also observe for any fans that might have failed.  Simply leave the case open and start up your system.  Use a torch to see if any fan is not moving.

** Note.  Remember to power off the main wall socket and press the power button once to discharge electricity before you touch anything inside **.

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2. The display is distorted and images are fuzzy with lots of lines or dots.

If you notice that the display is not perfect the moment you turn on your computer, until it enters your desktop.  You see a lot of imperfections in the display  even without any drivers installed.  This is easy.  A huge percentage of it would be banked on a faulty graphic card.  You will need to get that changed to see if it solves the issue.

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3. You experience random rebooting of the system while you are using the computer.

This is usually caused by hardware.  There are a few possibilities.  It could be failing ram sticks or conflict in hardware or a dying power supply.  In each of those described issues, you will need to download ram testing programs like memtest to run stress tests on them.

For conflicts in hardware, you will need to remove almost all unnecessary hardware and see if the rebooting is still occuring.  Sometimes, you will need to uninstall the related drivers package to see if it is due to the software as well.

If you suspect a power supply might be failing, simply swap out the power supply to see if the problem goes away.

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4. Clicking noises are coming out from your computer

This one is for sure a spot on question.  Hard drive is dead.  But before you throw out the drive, make sure you know what I mean by clicking.  Some drives make some noise when data is being accessed.  This is due to age but does not mean it has failed.  A continuous rattle of clicks that sounds like ticks in a very fast pace like a bullet train is normal.  But a broken drive will click once within a 1 or 2 secs.  The clicks are separated and you can hear one click at a time.

However, some drives do die without clicking sounds, and it will end up not getting detected by the motherboard or simply refuse to boot.  Do not jump at any computer technician strangling him that he is cheating you because your drive did not click so the drive should not be dead.  It can happen.

5. Freezing and slow downs related to Heat issues

Heat issues are very common in computer troubles.  It is normal for the computer to accumulate lots of dust even though it is closed in a tower.  This is because the fans that ventilate the system will suck in air that has dust and eventually filter them on the fins itself or choke up the holes of the casing.  If you can accumulate dust under the bed, your computer will look like the inside of a vacuum cleaner.  Download a program called speedfan.  This program checks your entire computers temperature from graphics card to the CPU to the internal temperature.  It even has icons to indicate if the temperature is too high.  A fire icon means that it is over heating.  Up arrows, means increasing temps and a tick means that the temp is correct.

On easy way to rectify a rig that is over heating is to remove the casing and operate it with a household desk fan to blow at it.  Check the speedfan specs again to see if the temperatures did go down.  If it does not, it could mean a more severe issue of a faulty hardware.  When you see any of the hardware having the “fire“ icon, it means check it now.  For CPU, it would be listed as “core”, and that would mean cleaning the heat sink or re-applying thermal paste.  For graphic card, it would mean cleaning and dusting the fan of the card.  If any of these remedies seem to be scary.  Check out some of the youtube videos for a video demonstration of any of those checks.