I recently had an in person computer repair customer. They wanted me to diagnose an intermittent power issue with their video gaming computer. They brought in a rather large gaming desktop computer.
They had recently moved this computer from home to home and even room to room. This Microsoft Windows ten operating system based computer would not power on. Intermittent power issues can be caused by many different reasons.
One being potential electric static discharge. Electrons, especially computers build up electric static. This can cause a desktop or laptop computer to not power on.
You will want to disconnect the power cable from both the wall outlet and computer. Then you can press and hold the power button for at least 30 seconds. Now, plug in the computer and now try powering it on.
I have noticed with my own personal experiences, that when I just move a computer from room to room they will not power on, but discharging any electric static discharge works. This video gaming computer had two obvious problems. The first problem was a broken central processing unit heat sink.
This customer could not afford a new one. Apparently, since he had installed a liquid cooling system, this required a more expensive heat sink upwards of 60 dollars. The second obvious problem, was caked on dust covering the radiator for the liquid cooling system.
You never want caked on dust on computer heat sinks and radiators. This can and will cause your computer to over heat which in turn will cause it to not power on or shutdown while in use. Heat sinks and radiators need airflow.
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They are designed to have gaps of space between the metal. When too much dust builds up in those gaps then air flow stops. These two apparent problems could be causing this video gaming machine to have intermittent power issues.
Also, I noticed when powering on the computer that if I moved this video gaming computer case, it would cause power to become cut off. Then power would resume and then this computer would try to boot up. This could be caused by overheating and or a broken heat sink.
The heat sink had a crack on the upper left arm. You will want a heat sink to make flush contact with the microprocessor. A broken arm could cause a misaligned heat sink.
Finally, I did not actually fix this customers computer. He just wanted me to troubleshoot for him. Yes, I charge a fee of $40 dollars to diagnose computer problems.
Cleaning out a dusty radiator and or heat sink is quite easy actually. Since this individual had built himself a nice video gaming system, then replacing the broken heat sink is quite easy as well. Definitely, cleaning out the caked on dust will improve this overall system performance.
This liquid based cooling computer system had two fans on each side of the radiator. Obviously, it was not receiving proper air ventilation. Removing this dust from the heatsink and radiators could potentially keep this computer from overheating.