symptoms of the death of a PC

I woke up in the morning, my computer was shut down.
I didn't remember I shut it down before going to sleep. Then I tried to power it on, the power light came on for 2 seconds, then it went dead again.

I didn't do anything to it, if I remember correctly. So quickly I assume it's hardware problem.
I powered it on several times again. It only responded and powered on for seconds if I shut off the power button on the back of the computer and turn it back on again.

Now, there could be millions of things go wrong here. Most possibly is hardware failure. But which part? It could be the motherboard, CPU processor, power supply unit. I quickly did some reasearch online and found out the symptom sounds more like a power supply faliure. But I am not sure.

I opened up the PC box and observed the action. When I pushed the power button, the CPU fan started to turn, about 3 seconds later, it shut down by itself. So I thought, it shouldn't be the motherboard, otherwise the fan probably would even not start turning at all. It wouldn't even respond. The same thing goes to the processor.

Then I boldly presumed it must be the power supply unit. Which is the huge square box sitting on the back top side of the computer with a big fan in charge of pummping air out.

It's actually quite easy to replace it. I unscrewed the unit and took it out. Studied the label on it, noted down the voltage, as detailed as I can then took the specs to the circuit city near by.

It is possilbe to 'upgrade' the PSU a bit by its wattage. My old one was 350 watt. So I guess 400 watt would be all right too. So I bought a 400 watt new PSU with all the other same specs I copied from the old one.

Before unpluging wire, try to remember which plug goes where. It will make the installing easier. If you are not familiar with this, then get a pen and a paper to write down the way it used to plug on your machine. There should be two plugs hook on to the motherborad, one each to every single hard drive, cd/dvd player and floppy drive. The plugs on the motherboard usually have a hook on the side of the plug. You need to press it down while you pull it out. The rest should be easy.

I crossed my fingers while pressed down the power button.

It worked. Thanks god. You don't want to know what happens if it doesn't.

Tags:

• symptoms
• computer
• hardware
• death