Calling any PC Technicians / Nerds

[dew1911]

Ok, long shot I know but is there anyone on here who is/was a PC Technician, or who knows more than PC World? Because I just got off the phone with them and to say the least I'm unimpressed.

You may remember this thread, in which I dietaled how the only way to get my PC Working correctly was to place a Desk fan aiming into it. Now with the temperature as it is now you can imagine how tiring it gets.

Well, to cut a long story a bit I phoned PC World (Bought it off them, big mistake I feel) and started talking to the tehnician. Told him what the problems were and he started asking questions eventually boiling down to "Is the PC in direct sunlight?"

Now IMO what a load of balls!!! Why would sunlight make any difference at all to a PC? To give you an idea when it's 15 degrees outside my PC is in the mid 50s! Now even for an AMD Athlon I call that extreme! As you can imagine when it's 30 outside and the temperature cut off is 70 I'm in Barney Rubble.

I guess what I'm aiming at here is if I have any way to get back at them? We know the problem as it's not Software, it's done it after more than 10 formats! but now they are trying to blame "The Enivronment". Looks like I'm sueing god for a new PC then.

[paul_humphreys]

Take it back to them as the warrenty is with them and tell them to run a burnin test on it. If it locks up or ramdom restarts tell them you want it fixing before you leave.

Paul

[Colin 009]

"The sale of goods act" states that good must be fit for the purpose they were bought for,

      if after all the so called fixes have failed, contact your local trading standards, who can advise you on the exact bit of the act to wave infront of PC Worlds face as you reject the pc dont take anything other than your money back, then go buy a Dell, Mesh or Evesham PC.

Also mention the small claims court for some sort of compensation.

Hope this helps.

[dew1911]

I've got a technician coming out on thursday so I'm going to run a couple of "Heavy" programs I have after he's done what hes going to do and I bet my 110 it'll do it again. May I add that in March this year a techican came out and fitted a new heatsink, but it was the wrong one and boiled instantly, so he left basically having done nothing but wrecked a Heatsink.

Colin, if I do it again I'm building my own, only way I can truley trust what's inside it...

[Elmo]

There's no way heat is the culprit directly, although indirectly it may be.
I have nearly 30 computers running here, and today (between Shrewsbury and Welshpool) it is as hot as hell (ambient as I type is about 36 in this room). None of my systems including well known heat monsters like dual CPU rigs and Intel processors are playing up.

Unless your ambient temperature is somewhere in the 40s (which I doubt) the PC should be able to keep itself cool enough to run. It wont be able to if:

Inlet fans are clogged/inoperable
CPU or northbridge fans are clogged/inoperable
Dry joint somewhere is opening under heat
CPU cooler badly seated
Insufficient or excess CPU thermal paste between CPU and cooler.......

The list is near endless. If you have a warranty use it - take it back to PC World, throw it over the counter and tell them you don't want to see it until it can run for 12 hours or more on burn-in or memtest.

Because of the number of possible causes, this is easily your best course of action.

[dew1911]

The problem isn't the heat, the Problem as far as I can tell (Small time Nerd) is the PCs ability to deal with heat.

Elmo
Inlet fans are clogged/inoperable - 1 of 1 is working fine
CPU or northbridge fans are clogged/inoperable - 1 of 1 is working fine
Dry joint somewhere is opening under heat - No Idea
CPU cooler badly seated - Seems fine to me
Insufficient or excess CPU thermal paste between CPU and cooler....... No paste on it, and apparently "that's normal" ([bollards] it is, and I'm not spend money to fix their problem!)

[Elmo]

Inlet fans are clogged/inoperable - 1 of 1 is working fine
CPU or northbridge fans are clogged/inoperable - 1 of 1 is working fine
Dry joint somewhere is opening under heat - No Idea

You'd be lucky to find this anyway unless you have a stack of swap-in components to try

CPU cooler badly seated - Seems fine to me

And so they can. But it doesn't mean that it is. Often a simple reseat can cure this type of problem

Insufficient or excess CPU thermal paste between CPU and cooler....... No paste on it, and apparently "that's normal" (bollards it is, and I'm not spend money to fix their problem!)

If you were told that, its nonsense. All AMD Athlon processors require an approved cooling solution to meet the demands of AMD's own OEM programme and I have never seen one which does not have either thermal grease or a thermal pad supplied iwth it. No grease or pad = potential for lack of contact with processor core due to irregularities in the heatsink surface. The best heatsink in the world can't cool if it is not in contact with the processor.

[rangerider]

My last video processing machine ended up with 11 fans in, and still had to sit there with the case  top off and a desk fan pointing right into it for 3-4 months a year as the ambient climbed up. Sounded like a 747 spooling up for take off.


(before anyone asks....

2 10k rpm drives with heatsinks & 2 fans each [4]
2 processors, 1 fan each [6]
PSU fan [7]
Graphics card fan [8]
3 case fans to just keep pulling air through [11] )

There is a phenomenon known as "chip creep" where as a component heats & cools the expansion & contraction can cause it to creep into a postion where contact is unreliable.

My current laptop has extreme heat issues too so I sympthise with you entirely.

[dew1911]

I know this Elmo, I said to him that I would NEVER build a PC without it, but as I said, I'm not willing to spend money to sort their problems.

I chose an AMD Based PC for their cooler running and better power, I'm starting think it's really just a P4 in disguise.

The specs are:
AMD Althlon XP 3000+ (Socket A, 2.17ghz)
512mb SD Ram (1 Stick)
ASUS A7X mobo.
Plently of free room in a on first viewing very good case.

[Manicminer]

My AMD has a ducting(like a pipe)  to take the heat away from the CPU to the exit vent. Yours could be blowing out into the middle of the case and then sucking the heat back in

[Elmo]

Sounds to me like you already have the cause of your problems, I used to have several XP3000 and XP3200 chips and they did run hot but NONE ran without paste - I bet your motherboard or heatsink manual/instructions specify the use of such.

As you say, why should you shell out cash to fix it if it is under warranty?

[Evilgoat]

Elmo is right. That paste or a heatsink pad is essential. AMD are very particular about this being required. If they have the AMD tech buletins it will be in there.

It may be worth cutting your losses and taking it to a reputable repair shop and having them sort it out. Its never going to be right I'm afraid, they are awful.

At Novatech we used to spend a lot of time putting machines from them and a few other well known brands right. Defects usedto range from cables not connected to damaged or incorrectly installed components. We averaged about 30 PCs a week and in total over half were 'fix its' from this crowd.

My XP3200 is running with a 'silent' heatsink and fan from ThermalTake. The fan has a home-made card ducct bringing air from the rear case fan to the base of the heatsink and gfx card. and another from the top of both to the outside world. Whole thing sits at 37C

If you want me to look over it, PM me and I'll bring my tools etc with me to Billing and we'll sort it for you once and for all.

[dew1911]

Thanks EG, That's a great offer and we'll get back to you on that one, I'm just worried about what it'll do to my warrenty.

Basically I've had 2 years of this PC and I've had enough, if it wasn't for the facts I'm skint and I have a Land Rover I'd have got rid of it and built my own by now.

Basically the techie is coming on the 27th to "sort it" (that'll be the daewoo)!

[Evilgoat]

Thanks EG, That's a great offer and we'll get back to you on that one, I'm just worried about what it'll do to my warrenty.

Basically I've had 2 years of this PC and I've had enough, if it wasn't for the facts I'm skint and I have a Land Rover I'd have got rid of it and built my own by now.

Basically the techie is coming on the 27th to "sort it" (that'll be the daewoo)!

2 years limits you a bit, most of the above mentioned acts only cover you a year, and TBH a PC can die after 18 months no matter how well its built.

The clincher will be how long its been nadgered and how many times its been fixed, if it initally died withing 12 months youhave them.

Also you'll be well within your rights to get a second opinion from another business. I can issue you with a written report but It'll need posting on headed paper etc as I run my own business.

See how it goes

[dew1911]

It's been "nadgered" since we bought it, they have us on file as a pest I think, any CS Person we call has to scroll through our history file it's like the complete works of shakespear.

I'm almost at the stage of saying stuff it and dropping PC World altogether, but after we have payed for the Healthcare we expect them to be able to fix it!!!

[Colin 009]

It's been "nadgered" since we bought it,

see my post above.

[dew1911]

We're going to let this Teccie have a go, if he can't do it it's going in, and if that doesn't work it's going into a local specalists and PC World can collect the bill.

They've picked the wrong person to screw over...

[zippy]

alot of athlon motherboards come with overclocking settings, make sure in your bios you ain't got they set to normal :)

[dew1911]

The Bios is locked down to the extreme it being a prebuild - I can't edit anything.

[Horness]

My servers are all running smoothly right now - in the loft.  :shock:   You can imagine the heat up there.  Admittedly they are all P4 3.2's, but it's damn hot up there nonetheless.

Daft as it may sound - are you sure it's not the graphics card or motherboard over heating?  I've seen both before with badly fitted (fallen off in 1 case) heat sinks, and the chipset was overheating.

AMD processors do run hotter than Intel anyway (I'll check the Athlon 64 3200 we have on the bench at work and edit this tomorrow) - but the fault may be somewhere else.

EDIT: Athlon 64 3200 sat on a work bench in a room which is 31 degrees is running at 38 degrees, CPU fan speed is 4440 RPM.

AMD's cooling guide PDF

[spy]

We had a problem with the PC in work, kept locking up and or shutting itself down.  

Turned out to be a faulty PSU.  I fixed a fair few PC's in my time but know naff all about electronics, maybe someone on here does.  I have also seen PC's that wont boot up when too cold.  A hairdryer in the PSU will allow them to boot, again a faulty PSU.  Something about capacitor effect or something springs to mind but that may be something else.

Yours probably isnt a PSU but if you can borrow one its gotta be worth a go, not exactly rocket science to fit!  

I would start with that, some CPU paste and a new heatsink and fan.  Should be able to replace all them for £20 but buy some heat paste if the fan doesnt come with it!

[bezzabsa]

is it something like a bad seting in the bios? I have blocked the shutdown temp on mine as it was set at something like 40c.

[dew1911]

Sorry for thread revival but I think it's Fixed :D :D :D :D :D :D

He's added some thermal paste and reseated the heatsink (It was badly crooked) and it's been playing videos, and music, without hassle :D

I'm happy :D :D :D :D