Any Advice? Poorly Computer...

[zipadeedodah]

On Wednesday afternoon the computer just cut out. It would not switch on at all. About 4 hours later I tried again, thinking perhaps it was overheating, but still no luck. I fiddled around with some plugs, just for something to try, and after a couple of attempts it actually turned on - but after about 10-15 seconds it cut out, and once again I was unable to switch it on at all - it just did absolutely nothing. I tried taking the side off and gently blowing what dust there was off, but made no difference. I also tried a different power lead to see if that was the problem, but it still didn't work.

On Thursday morning it worked first go I think, but when I moved the unit back to the office (I had taken it into a different room to look at it) it would not work first go, but after a few attempts. It was fine all day Thursday and today (Friday) up until about 6pm when the computer got really slow and I pressed the restart button on the front - within a few seconds it cut out. After some fiddling and attempts at switching it back on it worked - and is still working as I am typing this....

Does anyone who knows about computers have any ideas what it might be? A friend suggests overheating, but I'd have thought it would work after several hours of cooling down. Also the fact that it cut out as soon as I pressed restart earlier suggests to me its a problem/fault inside, not overheating.

Sorry it's a long question!

zip x

[qapmoc]

Maybe it is a loose connection on the motherboard or something, open the PC casing (disconnect first) , the power supply is the metal box where the mains power plug is on the outside and on the inside it will have multicoloured wires with small plugs on the end going to the motherboard and various drives etc... check that all the plugs are well connected to the sockets and not loose in any way.

While you have it open look at the processor on the motherboard, you should see a black (usually but could be bare aluminium) heatsink with fins on it and a small fan attached, look to see if the fan and the heatsink fins are clogged up with dust etc... it should look like something like THIS . If it is very dirty then use a small brush and a blower of some kind to clean it.

[zipadeedodah]

Thank you qapmoc for your answer. It was OK for a few days, and then it went off once more on it's own. I took the opportunity to look inside, and carefully removed more dust - especially from the heatsink - which was quite clogged up. I also noticed that there were two wires connected to the motherboard (a black and a red wire twisted round each other) that looked like it was coming from the front of the casing near the 'on' button on the front - the wire looked like it wasn't connected as well as it could have been to the motherboard.