This morning, my computer died and I lost everything (again). Thankfully, I'm getting a new computer (for free) from a person who is giving it away and I should be able to play Trainz, Trainz 2004, Trainz 2006, Trainz Driver, Trainz Classics 1,2, & 3 and Trainz 2009 WBE. And hopefully Trainz 2010 and My First Trainz Set. I have not left the trainz community, I just took a long hiatus from Trainz or time away from it for a while. Hopefully my Trainz games will work and I will be back to purchasing my payware again. Lets hope that this computer doesn't die on me.
Computer Troubles... Deja Vu
- Thread starter gp792
- Start date
Gandalf0444
FVRR member
How did it "die" on you? BSOD?
Gandalf0444
FVRR member
Blue Screen Of Death.
Wessex_Electric_Nutter
Active member
What people don't really understand is that desktops are actually quite easy to repair. I mean, they are modular and you can replace most components quite easily. The most common failure I believe is the power supply, then its the hard drive, which is usually next to go.
GP792, what exactly happened to the computer? Any symptoms? Desktop/Laptop? You may still be able to repair it and use it as another system.
No, my brother cut the wires because he hates Trainz and everyone who likes train simulators. I got it to work, but it wouldn't read trainz but it would run MSTS. I'm going to fix it again if it isn't too hard. By the way, I'm back into Trainz again, since there is a possible chance that it will accept the graphics card then I can play: Trainz, Trainz 2004, Trainz Driver, Trainz 2006, Trainz Classics 1/2/3, Trainz 2009, Trainz 2010, Rail Simulator, Sid Meier's Railroads!, & Railworks.
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Gandalf0444
FVRR member
Agreed, it takes about 10 minutes to figure out a problem with a desktop. Laptop can be a little trickier to fix if you don't know how to open it, not to mention can void any and all warranties with some companies. Although I have never seen a PSU failure or even a HD failure, people say they are common but I have yet to see it, the most common I have seen is failed RAM.
What wires did your brother cut exactly?
Wessex_Electric_Nutter
Active member
Hard drives are weird things, they fail more often in the first year, settle down for about 3-4 years then the failure rate spikes again, according to Googles research.
PSUs fail because the capacitors can be dodgy, especially in cheap ones, so if the PSU as failed, the likelyhood is that you will find a bulging capacitor.
The other failure relating to capactiors, is the motherboard, Dell have motherboards that are notorius for going BOOM. I had one fail on me, not a problem, £1.50 (about $2.50 or so) for a pack of 10 and a soldering iron (with a really thin point), plenty of flux and desoldering wick, done. I used a complete Pace rework station as I have access to one.
(That would be the dreaded capacitor plauge before you ask, a certain manufacture stole an incomplete electroyte formula, the stuff that makes caps hold their charge, which actually caused the caps to gas inside. The case can only resist the pressure for soo long.)
Sounds like the hard drive interface cable to me, very cheap fix, about £1 or $1.60c or so in your money and its plug and play. The graphics card is a seperate component that clips onto the motherboard, my example is here:
EDIT: Or the GPU power cables, he doesn't say and has not post a pic.
As you can see, on my motherboard, the graphcis card fits into an orange slot, which is a PCI-Express (16 lane) slot. Yours maybe different however, as PCI-E is pretty much a PCI slot (the white ones usually) reversed, repositioned and made slightly longer. Although, some PCI slots are also the other way round for compatiblity reasons.
What you probably are talking about, is this:
These connectors on the backplate, go to the IGP and that IGPs are not known for their power or capatibility with games. Mine is a nVidia Geforce 9300IGP chip, so it can play games and it does a good job of that, if only it could cool itself down, as it has a heatsink on the top of the chip, nothing else! You may have an Intel (not as good, but still powerful), VIA, S3 or SiS IGP which are all quite simply, crap.
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What did we ever do to him?
Why do people have to be so destructive just because they're not "down"?
What happened to the days when people respected the property of others?
your old hard drive is still live as you can use slave drive to transfer to master drive as add backup HD:clap:Gandalf0444
FVRR member
Man you really crammed that computer case up with the GPU:hehe: I believe you when you say that HDs and PSUs are likely to fail. I just have never ran into either of them with my own computer or at work with the dozens of computers I worked on getting rid of viruses etc.
If his brother did cut the IDE or SATA cables(pending the age of the computer) it is a very cheap and simple fix. If he cut the extra power cables needed for the power hungry GPU then you may need to buy and install another GPU unless your current PSU support SLI and/or crossfire since it will have more of the correct plugs.
@Wessex:
It is pretty obvious why your GPU doesn't want to cool down, look at the size of your case then compare it to the size of GPU:hehe:
If his brother did cut the IDE or SATA cables(pending the age of the computer) it is a very cheap and simple fix. If he cut the extra power cables needed for the power hungry GPU then you may need to buy and install another GPU unless your current PSU support SLI and/or crossfire since it will have more of the correct plugs.
@Wessex:
It is pretty obvious why your GPU doesn't want to cool down, look at the size of your case then compare it to the size of GPU:hehe:
Wessex_Electric_Nutter
Active member
LOL, but its not the GPU that is the problem, its the IGP which is behind the GPU. Well, its between the GPU and the CPU, which can get stupidly hot in that area, don't I know it.@Wessex:
It is pretty obvious why your GPU doesn't want to cool down, look at the size of your case then compare it to the size of GPU:hehe:
Dozens of viruses.... hmmm, does that mean that the PEBCAK?
Just a warning from an HP Pavilion owner, their "elite" series is, from my personal experience, anything but.
Was given an HP Pavilion Elite m9505f. Within 5 days of unboxing it, the video cooler's fan bearings died. Turned out this was a known problem with these cards, and that MSI (the maker of this particular card) had indeed revised their cooler design. Their tech support people shipped me a "revision 2" card, which I installed and am still happily* using.
Then, several months later, the hard-disc failed spectacularly. Turns out they had used a bad batch of Hitachi Deskstar 500GB drives in this particular production run. They kindly shipped me a new hard-drive (this time, a Western Digital 500GB drive - my brand of choice), adn it's all been running reasonably well (apart from the last point, which I cover below).
* Not really happily - I bought an ASUS-Branded, factory overclocked Geforce 9500 to replace the 9500 that shipped with my box, but the power supply in this machine is sorely lacking in "grunt" and, being a 'Baby ATX' form-factor case, I can't put a new PSU in without moving it all to a bigger case. The new video card cost me $50. Re-casing the machine and getting a new PSU will cost me $250. The machine itself cost $999. NOT satisfied.
Wessex_Electric_Nutter
Active member
Can you send us a pic? What tiny wires? Go where? Detail? Theres soo many tiny wires to talk about.
The nVidia Geforce 6150 is an IGP you know and a very old card.