I'm trying to fix this PC for a neighbor and originally the complaint was it randomly shuts off and/or turns itself back on.
First I suspected it was overheating as the CPU fan would get noticeably louder during processing. So cleaned any dust out (which was hardly any) and replaced original thermal compound from to CPU to heatsink.
That seemed to help by 50% as the fan didn't get as loud but it'd still ramp up to annoying quick levels during installations or virus scanning.
Had it running for a bit and didn't turn off. Wake up and it had tried to do a Windows update and was stuck on a screen saying repairs couldn't be made and to restore to a well known part.
All the while in between these issues it'd randomly give a cmos battery failure followed by checksum failure error during boot. Battery was tested 3.08v but replaced anyway to see a change, none same messages.
However it wouldn't be a consistent issue. I tried resetting all bios settings which seemed to have worked but when the PC was unplugged for literally a minute the same CMOS errors came back.
Not sure if all the issues are related. No visible bulged caps on the board.
Imo the PC isn't even worth all this trouble but she needs it and I'm trying to help so any input would be appreciated. Thanks!
First I suspected it was overheating as the CPU fan would get noticeably louder during processing. So cleaned any dust out (which was hardly any) and replaced original thermal compound from to CPU to heatsink.
That seemed to help by 50% as the fan didn't get as loud but it'd still ramp up to annoying quick levels during installations or virus scanning.
Had it running for a bit and didn't turn off. Wake up and it had tried to do a Windows update and was stuck on a screen saying repairs couldn't be made and to restore to a well known part.
All the while in between these issues it'd randomly give a cmos battery failure followed by checksum failure error during boot. Battery was tested 3.08v but replaced anyway to see a change, none same messages.
However it wouldn't be a consistent issue. I tried resetting all bios settings which seemed to have worked but when the PC was unplugged for literally a minute the same CMOS errors came back.
Not sure if all the issues are related. No visible bulged caps on the board.
Imo the PC isn't even worth all this trouble but she needs it and I'm trying to help so any input would be appreciated. Thanks!
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