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Bamamav

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 29, 2012
Messages
6,171
Location
Berry, Alabama
My main home PC died. It has been getting harder to get it to boot up if the power was interrupted, once it finally got power it would boot fine. Sometime Friday before I got home, the power blinked out for a few minutes, now I can't get the power light on the PC to come on and it is dead. I'm thinking the power supply finally bit the dust, it's 7 years old I think, and has been on almost all that time.

Found a few replacements, just need to order one. Question is, how hard are they to swap out? Is it just a matter of unplug and plug in the new, or is their some voo doo you have to do to keep from frying everything? I REALLY want to try and save this one, I have hundreds of pics on it I'd hate to lose. I've thought about getting a portable hard drive and mirroring it for a backup just in case this happened, but never got around to doing it.

I'm somewhat computer literate, but no expert. Anybody able to walk me through this, or am I just being paranoid?
 
Yep, just swap it out and fire it up. You might find some extra leads and plugs, so be aware of what goes where and let 'er rip!

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Make sure the power supply you get will fit in your computer case (this is more crucial on smaller desktop computers). It's easy to change it out, nothing major.

If your motherboard is dead though, the power supply won't help. You never know with a power spike. If you're not running a surge protector you should be, they protect against a lot of undesired outcomes.

It's also much better for it to shut it off while not in use.
 
Thanks guys. I was hoping it was that simple. I tried putting in a dvd drive in another computer one time, that didn’t work out so good!

I do have it on a surge protector, I think age has just finally caught up with it. I leave it on all the time that way it can do automatic updates at night when I’m asleep. You know how Microsoft is on their updates sometimes!

As far as the power supply, I got the numbers off of it and did a google search. Found the same unit on several sites, so I figure it’s a common one for Dell and HP. Looking at pics, it looks identical, and the plugs on the leads look the same.
 
as snopro said make sure it is the one for your computer. little food for thought, you can go to walmart and get a new updated tower pretty cheap and be a step ahead. i got to do the same, mine works fine but it is slow and there's a few things i can't do with it.
 
I’d love to get a new tower but not in the budget right now. And I really want to try and save that hard drive because of all the pics on there.
 
Nine times out of ten the hard drives are not damaged.
Get a new power supply and plug it in.
Take a pic of the old power supply hookup before unplugging it.
 
Late to the game here, but like others have already said, it's a pretty simple process to replace a PSU. The main thing I'd add is to make sure all power is off to the system before opening it, then hit the power button once more to drain the capacitors on the main board. Then, and especially if you have a type of carpet in your office that generates static, touch the metal frame work of the case before you touch any of the circuitry, and each time after moving your feet around on the floor. (Drains off static electricity, which can be enough to fry the electronics.)
If you do decide to replace the system, or if it still won't start up after replacing the PSU, and a bad mother board is suspected, you should be able to connect your old hard disk drive to the new system (just need an extra SATA cable, which you should be able to use from the old system), and copy off all of your photos & other files.
 
I knew that about the static electricity, shouldn’t be a problem, hardwood floor and desk.

I’ve heard the term SATA before, just not sure what it looks like, I’ll google it when I get time.

I have a lot of data I really don’t want to lose. My stupidity for not already backing it up. But you know how it goes, I’ll do it later.......:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Thanks for the info
 
After more research and testing, looks as though it's the mother board gone bad. :( So I guess I'm going to find another tower and get a dock and download my hard drive to the new tower. May get one of those deals and turn the old hard drive into a external drive.

Found some refurbished off lease towers on eBay pretty cheap, may just go that route for now. This spare computer is one like that I bought a few years back, it does pretty good for surfing.
 
Most computers have space for 2 hard drives so you wouldn't need to transfer your old one to the new one & take up space!

BoB
 
Been doing some research on that too Tripper. I think I could just set up the old drive as a new drive letter, and be able to use it for storage. I used to be up on this stuff, but it’s been years since I fooled with the internals of one. The Dell lasted 7 years, pretty good since it was rarely shut down. Looking at some on da bay right now, trying to decide which I like best.
 
To prolong the life of the new one and keep it as speedy as possible, it's best to shut it down when it's not in use. My new laptop with a solid state hard drive is ready to use 10 seconds after startup, if it's an issue of not wanting to wait for startup a solid state primary hard drive is the way to go.
 
To prolong the life of the new one and keep it as speedy as possible, it's best to shut it down when it's not in use. My new laptop with a solid state hard drive is ready to use 10 seconds after startup, if it's an issue of not wanting to wait for startup a solid state primary hard drive is the way to go.

and the new type of SSD is said to be 5 - 7 times faster than the SATA type SSD. (It's called NVMe, pronounced "Envy Me" for the valid reason that it is much more expensive.) It DOES also require a mother board that has the M.2 connector on board. (That is, it mounts directly on the mother board, not via a cable connection.)

Oh, if you need to clone from an HDD to an SSD, the free program CloneZilla has come through every time for me.
 
Last edited:
Bama,
At our real estate company I had 40+ machines! Never bought a new one... *always* refurbished... always!

BoB
 
I ended up buying a used Dell off of eBay, a refurbished business model. Win 10 Pro, no extra junk on it, so far works great. Bought a case and turned the other hard drive into an external drive, still have access to all my pics and docs that way, plus I can use it as backup storage.
 

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