First Repair
I like to have my desktop computers start up as soon as I turn on the power strip. That's why I rarely use the power button to turn a desktop computer on. This was not the case of a HP desktop I recently worked on. The customer indicated that the computer would not start when the power button was pushed. I took the computer to my shop and plugged it in. I saw a green light on the back of the power supply, which made me think that there must be something wrong with the power switch itself. I took off the front of the computer and tried to turn it on by pushing the actual inside switch. This did not work. Next I opened the case and attempted to use a screw driver to short the power switch pins on the motherboard. The computer would not start. Yet the green light on the power supply glowed brightly. To say the least I was puzzled. I decided to take the motherboard out of the case and put it on my test bench. I hooked up the test bench power supply, shorted the power switch pins and the computer turned on. The customer bought a new power supply. I installed it and everything worked out. Since the CPU is an early i3 processor with minimal RAM. I did recommend the customer think about a new computer. I was able to convince the customer that upgrading the mechanical hard drive to a solid state drive SSD) would increase performance. Also the SSD would be a good investment , because I can transfer it to the new computer when they decide to upgrade their system.
Second Repair
This repair was not a money making proposition because it was one of my own desktop computers that needed the repair. It had been quite a while since I personally had an Intel based computer. I finally decided to make my own i7 computer with a Gigabyte Z170 motherboard in October of 2015. About two months ago, I began having a problem with the computer as I would randomly shut down and it would be hard to restart. Finally it shut down and would not restart at all. The CPU fan would start to spin when I turned the power on but it would not boot and after a few second it just shut down. Because most repairs end up being a process of elimination, my first thought was that there was a problem with the video card so I switch to the motherboard video connection. This did not resolve the issue. My next thought was to see if there was a problem with the RAM. I tried taking one stick out and switching the memory socket. this did not solve the problem. I finally decided to switch the RAM into the previously empty memory sockets (the motherboard has 4 sockets.). I pushed the power button and the computer booted up normally after the (Windows did not shut down properly) message. So it appeared that the memory sockets on the motherboard was the problem. I checked the Gigabyte web site and discovered that my motherboard is still under warranty. I had to disconnect everything and ruin some of my cable management to get the motherboard out of the computer I got a return authorization, shipped the board for repair and the board came back within 2 weeks of the original return. Because I want to make this computer my dedicated photo editing computer, I took this opportunity to upgrade the RAM from 16 to 32 gigabytes.
If you're having problems with your computer I can help you get it running again or suggest alternative cost effective solutions.