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Computer seems to have died
Dec. 11th, 2009 02:02 pm(Using the Wii internet browser to post this. It's going to be a pain.)
Well, it looks like my computer might be dead, at least partially. It won't start at all. It was working fine this morning, because I used it to send an email to work around 8am, letting them know I wouldn't be coming in today due to being sick (and this situation with the computer certainly isn't helping my headache at all). However, when I woke up about an hour ago after returning to bed this morning, I saw that the computer was off for some reason.
Details: When I press the power button, nothing happens. No beeps, no flickering lights on the case, no fans, nothing. My initial guess is that the power supply has died, but I'm not sure. I'm thinking of maybe going out to buy a multimeter or perhaps an actual power supply test kit if I can find one somewhere, but that won't be happening until at least tomorrow at the very earliest, as I don't feel like going anywhere at the moment.
Here's a small bit of weirdness I've noticed, however. Looking inside the computer, there is still a green light on the motherboard (which is a P4P800-E Deluxe, at least 5 years old) that remains lit when the comp is plugged in, so there is at least some power still getting somewhere. Also, if I unplug the comp, it takes about 8 seconds after that before this green light will go away. Now, when I plug it back in after this and try the power button, things happen for an instant before it goes dead again. The lights on the case will flicker for an instant, and all of the fans will spin, or at least twitch, before stopping again. This only happens the first time after I do this, though. Trying the power button after that first time gives the same result as before: nothing at all. At least, until I unplug it for 8 seconds again, then it will do the light flicker/fan twitch again.
For reference, the parts of this comp that were in it when I originally bought it back in 2004 are the power supply, motherboard, sound card, CPU (a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4), and the case itself (and I suppose the DVD-RW drive would also count, though that wasn't bought until a few weeks later, separately). The video card, RAM, hard drive, and network card have all been replaced at some point in the years following, so I doubt the issue is with any of those, at least I hope not.
Strangely, I'm not utterly freaking out over this, as I kind of would have expected to do. It will be annoying to be without a computer for however long I end up being without it, but that prospect simply isn't as big a deal as I would have probably said it would have been if you had asked me yesterday what I'd do hypothetically if my computer just randomly died on me. Maybe it's just that my head currently hurts too much to really care much about anything else right now. *shrug*
(Note: it took well over an hour and a half to write this with the Wii browser, so I doubt that I will be making any more posts until I have a working computer again. At least not ones quite this long, anyway.)
(UPDATE)
Was messing around with it some more and found that simply holding in the power button for a few seconds then clicking it has the same sort of effect as the unplugging it for 8 seconds thing described above, except that the green light remains lit and that doing it this way causes the light flicker/fan spin to seem slightly stronger than doing it the other way. That is, the lights flicker for a fraction of a second more, and fans that only twitched before actually fully spin a time or two.
However, once and only once (so far), doing this caused the computer to actually start to power up for real. It only stayed on for about 5-10 seconds before it went dead again though. No idea what's up with that.
(/UPDATE)
Well, it looks like my computer might be dead, at least partially. It won't start at all. It was working fine this morning, because I used it to send an email to work around 8am, letting them know I wouldn't be coming in today due to being sick (and this situation with the computer certainly isn't helping my headache at all). However, when I woke up about an hour ago after returning to bed this morning, I saw that the computer was off for some reason.
Details: When I press the power button, nothing happens. No beeps, no flickering lights on the case, no fans, nothing. My initial guess is that the power supply has died, but I'm not sure. I'm thinking of maybe going out to buy a multimeter or perhaps an actual power supply test kit if I can find one somewhere, but that won't be happening until at least tomorrow at the very earliest, as I don't feel like going anywhere at the moment.
Here's a small bit of weirdness I've noticed, however. Looking inside the computer, there is still a green light on the motherboard (which is a P4P800-E Deluxe, at least 5 years old) that remains lit when the comp is plugged in, so there is at least some power still getting somewhere. Also, if I unplug the comp, it takes about 8 seconds after that before this green light will go away. Now, when I plug it back in after this and try the power button, things happen for an instant before it goes dead again. The lights on the case will flicker for an instant, and all of the fans will spin, or at least twitch, before stopping again. This only happens the first time after I do this, though. Trying the power button after that first time gives the same result as before: nothing at all. At least, until I unplug it for 8 seconds again, then it will do the light flicker/fan twitch again.
For reference, the parts of this comp that were in it when I originally bought it back in 2004 are the power supply, motherboard, sound card, CPU (a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4), and the case itself (and I suppose the DVD-RW drive would also count, though that wasn't bought until a few weeks later, separately). The video card, RAM, hard drive, and network card have all been replaced at some point in the years following, so I doubt the issue is with any of those, at least I hope not.
Strangely, I'm not utterly freaking out over this, as I kind of would have expected to do. It will be annoying to be without a computer for however long I end up being without it, but that prospect simply isn't as big a deal as I would have probably said it would have been if you had asked me yesterday what I'd do hypothetically if my computer just randomly died on me. Maybe it's just that my head currently hurts too much to really care much about anything else right now. *shrug*
(Note: it took well over an hour and a half to write this with the Wii browser, so I doubt that I will be making any more posts until I have a working computer again. At least not ones quite this long, anyway.)
(UPDATE)
Was messing around with it some more and found that simply holding in the power button for a few seconds then clicking it has the same sort of effect as the unplugging it for 8 seconds thing described above, except that the green light remains lit and that doing it this way causes the light flicker/fan spin to seem slightly stronger than doing it the other way. That is, the lights flicker for a fraction of a second more, and fans that only twitched before actually fully spin a time or two.
However, once and only once (so far), doing this caused the computer to actually start to power up for real. It only stayed on for about 5-10 seconds before it went dead again though. No idea what's up with that.
(/UPDATE)
