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At first we thought it could be the switch, but my nephew bridged a piece of wire to the mother board to try to start the pc but would not start.
This all started after I dusted out the innards of the pc. Is it possible that I caused this? Could the air spray have done something to the motherboard?
Any suggestions? ideas? Need to avoid anything like this again.
I would so greatly appreciate any imput that anyone has to offer here.
You don't mention the age of the motherboard. Since it's old enough to collect dust, you might want to do a search on "capacitors on motherboards."
I had a motherboard that was returned for this problem. Look at your capacitors and see if they look normal.
Finally, make sure your CPU and memory are still tight. Many motherboards will include a series of lights or beeps to help you diagnose the problem.
The motherboard was only just over a year old, maybe about 1 1/2 years. Wasn't an expensive one when I purchased it to start out with.
Ok, so vaccume mother board, got it. I seriously don't wish to have to go through this again.
The rest of the things you are asking about are a bit greek to me.
My nephew built the pc for me. In fact he was a bit upset that the motherboard went and was going to try to pay for the new one.
lol, first google adsense check ever recieved went to new motherboard and cpu. I suppose that was perfect timing.
My house seems to attract an extrem amount of dust. :(
So when the fan speed would appear a bit on the high side I would hit the fan with the spray and the rest of the innards, however, I never went near the motherboard until the last time I sprayed.
Lessons we learn.
Upright towers seem quite good at self cleaning, mine collects dust in the bottom of the case and not on the board.
I get dust on the back of the tower, of which I vaccume very carefully off.
I have some tiny tools to attach to a vaccume from when I used to do crafts and wood working. I used them for cleaning saw dust from my woodworking equipment. I should bring them up and use them.
My fear is static in the case.
If you do hover your case be as non-invasive as possible and do not touch any components whilst doing this. Static can be a PC killer.
Mack.
It is interesting to see the different opinions of how people take care of the dust in their pc, or dont in some cases. ;)
Actually, that description sounds a bit on the gross side!
First off, you should carefully vacuum, not air spray the board.
Eh? I use both the vacuum and a can of compressed air on all my computers (all 6 in the farm), about twice a year. If I didn't use the compressed air, more than half the dirt would stay put (especially in the CPU heat sink area). The computer is, of course, unplugged at the time and no metal touches any part of the computer during the operation. I also stick with ASUS motherboards that have at least several month's track record (as a product) when building a new machine.
My wife, OTOH, never cleans. When her last machine died, we diagnosed memory errors. Popped the memory chips out and they were caked with dust at the connectors. Swapped in new memory, and it was back up and running. Barring evidence to the contrary, I'll assume it was dirt that fried the memory chips.
I've got ten-year old Linux boxes still running here, and I doubt they would be if I never cleaned. Where I live, our TV screen can turn a white cloth completely brown if not dusted for a month. Inside the computers, it's only worse. I hate cleaning, but I hate seeing the inside of the computer turned brown even worse.
Bang!
Cap blew spewing out all the internal gubbins, only 30 seconds before Id been leaning directly over that thing, and I guess id have lost an eye.
Go careful.
Eh? I use both the vacuum and a can of compressed air on all my computers (all 6 in the farm), about twice a year. If I didn't use the compressed air, more than half the dirt would stay put (especially in the CPU heat sink area).
Sorry, but I disagree. If you feel that you have to clean a motherboard, I'd vacuum it up, not blow it around the room.
I learned this trick when I got into detail cleaning of cars - use a brush. If I have to clean a board I use a fine brush along with the vacuum. I carefully brush a component while running a vacuum. If you do this carefully, it is very effective. Of course remember all the jumper settings - just in case.
Of course you could also spend lots of money on specialized vacuums just for this purpose.
