PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS, I DONT KNOW WHERE TO START, I NEED YOUR HELP!! Today I got enthusiastic about cleaning my room, and i started dusting my desk around my tower. I opened it up and while cleaning out a lot of dust inside all over the motherboard, graphics card etc I poked my finger in kinda underneath the CPU fan to wipe a thick looking patch of dust. The problem was that I did this while my computer was running, I had music playing and downloads going. When I wiped the dust off around the fan base the computer suddenly froze and my music stopped playing and all I could hear was that sound you get when it freezes, like a continuous noise. I couldnt move the cursor or do anything at all so I turned it off. When I turned it on the computer ran seemingly normally but when I turn the monitor on it says no signal then stays in standby. I tried removing the little flat battery and putting it back in and making sure nothing was touching anything inside and made sure all the connections but that didnt help. Now when I turn it on, after about 30 seconds a terribly noise starts up and I think its the CPU fan. It sounds like its speeding up heaps and the noise does not sound healthy at all. Im pretty sure I shortcircuited the m/board by touching the little tiny electronic parts that are all over hte board, but specifically the ones right next to the right of the fan. Can anyone help me? I really need to get that computer to work for several reasons, im really desperate but I dont know what to do, I dont know where to start!
There is a chance that you have given an ESD charge to the CPU or motherboard Mr_White. Most chips run on 5volts, a normal static charge that we can feel is over 3000volts. So you can see the damage a static discharge from our body can easily kill a chip, you do not even have to touch the chip. Best way to clean is with can of compressed air, in that way you are not coming in close proximity. Dont panic yet. Firstly when you go inside your comp, if you do not have a ESD wrist strap (google this), you need to first ground yourself with the computer, the best way is to touch the power supply for around ten secs or so, keep doing this periodically as you work with power unplugged. Hopefuly you have dislodged something. To start remove the memory module\s, all pci cards and video card if it is not integrated on the board, following good practice above with power unplugged completely. Try not to touch gold contacts. Blow any dust from them etc. Recheck all connections like hard drive cables and power plugs, Tower connections, CPU power cable etc, also remove any external devices like printer, network cables etc. Put the video card back in and one stick of memory to start with, thats all the cards you need. Then try system again. No point in putting any of the additional cards back in system if you have any (sound, LAN, modem etc) until system is working or not as the case may be. If you do get it working, put back in one at a time, checking system after each one. If that does not work and you know how to remove the CPU and reseat, do that. You will neeed some thermal paste though before thinking about that.
Thank you so much jodav, that sounds very logical I will get on to it soon. If anyone else has any other suggestions please keep posting
No problem Mr-White, hope you get system up and running again. Post if you have any probs or unsure about anything. Plenty of people on here can help\advise.
Well I have progressed: Thanks jodov, I did basically what you told me to, and now I have a different problem, or the problem isnt really as bad as I thought it was. Long story short, the system now runs fine it seems, except for one major thing. The terrible noise is still there after a while, and I cant work out what triggers it. Im pretty sure the noise is coming from the PSU (Which is a shitty cheap one btw) and It either comes on about 2 minutes in to the tower being turned on, or when I move the tower and it shakes and jiggles a bit... I think... Basically, theres something wrong with the power supply, but its gonna be really annoying to have to replace it. Is there something I can do? I cant see how Ive gone from touching a tiny silver dot on the motherboard, to that somehow affecting my PSU. Im kinda confused, im fairly sure the noise isnt coming from the fan of the PSU, its very loud but hard to describe, im sure you can imagine it. But I get scared its about to explode or something as it seems to sort of whine more and more like something is speeding up, although its a deep sound not high pitched. I hope that is detailed enough information, whats going on?
Firstly glad to hear that your motherboard, CPU etc are fine as thats were the money is, you have not give any ESD to the system. As far as the noise goes, pending it is the power supply and not the CPU fan, it may be that there is a wire or something inside the PSU slightly touching the fan inside which gets worse the more the fan speeds up. I am a fairly experienced technician but two things i would never go inside are a monitor and a PSU, both can hold vast amounts of voltages for days even after power is switched off. If a power supply is faulty, i replace it, simple as. Now for the unproffesional advice, if it is something that may be touching the fan, give it a few hefty whacks, they may just move whatever it is. You may have just disturbed something when cleaning. If you have ongoing problems i do suggest replacement, simple to remove 4 screws, and disconnect from motherboard and drives, and not as expensive as some things in your system. lets hope a few whacks does the trick lol. Good luck Mr_white.
In the long term you should replace that cheap psu with a dearer psu,such as Antec,Corsair and Thermaltake just to name a few.
Thanks again guys for your input, especially jodov. I guess I might have to get another psu, and ill make sure its quality this time! I actually built this computer myself, buying each part myself, very much on a small budget, so I pretty much got one of the cheapest power supplies they had. What I dont understand is how this could have happened? Even though this has all happened really unexpectedly and really ruined my plans for the afternoon, I distincly remember the computer stuffing up when I touched the motherboard. And now it seems to boot up like normal, except theres this awful/loud/scary buzzing noise drilling away in the PSU. Click it to see where I touched the motherboard. I guess my main lesson is to not be so careless and poking my fingers in around the pc with power surging through it, and not even earthing myself. But does anyone know what actually could have happened?
I will eat hay with a donkey if the PSU problem has anything at all to do with you touching the motherbord. More likely you have knocked\disturbed, or something has fell\blew into it whilst you were working in the system. For some reason i got the impression you did not know much about the insides of a system Mr_White, so i am sorry if i rattled on about things you were completely aware of bud. I agree with Docsworld and yourself, time for a new one, they are like toothache, problem might go away for a while but come back twice as bad.
Thanks again, ill probably end up replacing it one day soon Who knows exactly what happend, but I have to go to bed now, g'night!
i hope after all this you learned that perhaps poking and prodding fingers around the mobo and other components isn't the smartest idea when the computer is ON? if all you need is to replace your PSU well then consider yourself lucky...i hope you learned a valuable lesson from this. computer electronics are very fragile and delicate components.
