other don,

sorry to hear you are having problems. in the service biz we called that 'shotguning' the problem. if the tech replaces enough parts he/she is bound to solve the problem eventually. we independent servicers didn't have the luxury of an unlimited supply of spares in their 'boneyard' so the techs had to actually diagnose the problem before throwing the customer's loonies at it...strange concept, huh?

my wife is 68 and dell sent her a hard drive for her new laptop and told her to replace it herself under warranty. it was obviously used...the mounting holes were stripped. but she manged it but now the drive bounces around if she doesn't keep it laying flat. that is known as 'excellent customer support.' then have the audacity (where have i heard that word?) to plead for her 'perfect' satisfaction report.

Don,

Interesting concept. That's the way I used to solve automotive electrical problems 50 some years ago when I was a teenager. Between the battery, voltage regulator and generator, a mistake or 2 was still cheaper than paying a garage bill.

Don S.

"Parts replacement technician"

as opposed to:

"Mechanic"

Sign of the times and the technology.


To be fair, these days many mfr's actually mandate whole board replacement when in warranty over repair at the component level.



--Mac

Mac,

Although I build my own “puters”, I must admit that I’m at a loss when trying to figure out what has failed when the thing dies. A power supply failure is pretty easy to detect, because the thing literally “stinks” when it fails. You can smell it. (Nothin’ like the smell of fried electronics in the mornin’).

And hard drives usually start making a racket before they go out. Video cards are also pretty easy since the computer fires up and runs, but you have nothing on the screen. But what about MOBO’s, processors and memory? I’ve never had these 3 items fail, but I have had power supplies, hard drives and video cards fail.

Any tips on the others?

In my limited experience-
MOBO's failing usually start with a device failure. Something that is there and has been working suddenly appears not to be there. (IDE controller, sound or video card etc)
Device manager will show problems.
Sometimes looking in the BIOS can tell you what's wrong. (again, checking the BIOS for power supply output can give you a heads up on power supplies going bad too).

Memory can be trickier without testing it. Systems will try to run even when mem chips start going bad, just lots of errors occurring or performance suddenly lacking.

Processors? Never had one go, ever. They seem to outlast most other components, unless overclocked, underfanned or burned by the power supply.

For many device failures, the power supply should still be considered as an early option.
Hard drive acting funny? Check voltage to it. Drive may be fine, just not getting correct power. I've had more than one drive I thought went bad come back to life with a new power supply.

Good tips rharv.

Thanks

Another tip when checking voltage from suspect power supplies:
Set your meter on AC and check for "ripple" on the DC. A modern digital multi meter should show zero volts when set to low AC voltage settings whilst testing DC rails. I have seen ripples as low as 2mV cause problems. Ripple is an indication of inadequate filtering. If the supply used to be good but has developed ripple then the most likely culprits are ageing electrolytic capacitors.

<edit> Umm, small caveat here: You will always see some ripple as power supplies aren't perfect, but you should expect less than 2mV.

The 12 Volt rails are less critical than the 5V and 3.3V. The CPU will also have additional power regulation and filtering on the motherboard. As a result, power problems will be more evident in other circuitry; like cards in slots, IO devices, video cards, RAM etc..

"ageing electrolytic capacitors. " I think I resemble that symptom.

I'd ask them to exchange the fan for a larger one. A cd drive not seated properly can also make a racket. Try disconnecting the cd drive to see if that makes a difference. Do you have a graphics card with a cooling fan on it ? If so it could be THAT which is noisy ?
A larger PSU often makes a big difference too.

My two cents. I had a noisy fan once. I brought the peuter in and asked for a better quality noisless fan. They changed the fan and presto no niose.