Faulty power button
I’m told that a PC power button has stopped working.
The PC owner has a young (maybe 2 year old) daughter, who likes to push buttons and often has sticky fingers, so I’m not surprised.
The last time I visited, the button would often stick when pressed, and wouldn’t easily spring back out.
Given that this PC also has a reset button, then the easiest thing to do is to unplug the power button wires from the motherboard, and plug the reset wires into the power header.
So, the reset button becomes the power button, and the old power button becomes a toy for the toddler.
But the PC refuses to start. Sometimes the fans will spin, other times it will beep (indicating a hardware error).
Eventually, it starts to look like a power supply problem. I explain this to the owner as I’m going to the car to get a new power supply. His wife overhears, and says: “oh yeah, something happened with the power the other day… sparks were flying and everything…”. 😐
OK, plug in the power supply, and everything works fine.
Regarding the faulty power button: have you fixed a faulty computer component in an unusual way?
Always carry with you; a piece of string.
At a customer’s site, I ran into an HP desktop PC that was shutting down after a minute or so of being powered on.
I found the the plastic bracket which holds the CPU heat sink had cracked on one side. I informed the customer that I could hunt down a matching used bracket, or find a new heat sink / fan combo with a bracket, but it would take a couple of days.
I offered a temporary fix.
I happened to have a few feet of cord from venetian blinds and a bottle of cyanoacrylate adhesive in the car. (I also fix printers on occasion, so very strong, thin cord & superglue are never far from me) I offered to temporarily fix the problem by tying the heatsink to the bracket on the bad side, and glued the knot so things wouldn’t work loose.
That was 1.5 years ago, and the PC is still working fine with the string holding the heat sink down.
That’s funny that she was just then mentioning it.
Thanks for being one of my top droppers.
It’s really funny how people treat there belongings. I follow a strict don’t touch rule with my Machines. The kids know it’s not a toy….. Yet anyway 🙂