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[sheddyian]

A few months ago, I was given some old computers for scrap/spares/tinkering.

One of them, a mini-tower, had a bit of history, thus :

PSU failed.  I advised on phone that they removed old PSU, take it to computer shop (they chose PC world) and ask for replacement.  They did, and fitted it, and all was well.

Later on some other fault appeared - uncertain what - and they take it to local computer repair shop.

He has it for some time, eventually returns it as being unable to fix it.

It is then given to me as by this time they have bought a new PC.

I thought the PSU looked a bit strange, had bent metal, so took it out the case to see what was going on.

Now, remember, this computer, on being taken TO the computer repair shop, had a months-old brand new PSU from PC world fitted to it.

The photos show what I found after the computer had been returned from the shop.  Can anyone say fire hazard?  It's basically a bodge to fit a mini-sized PSU into a standard sized (and very corroded) PSU case.  The fan had nowhere to suck air from.

Needless to say, the computer shop in question has been reported to trading standards.  One of those pieces of card actually had the address of the computer shop on it!

Ian

[burakkucat]

So it appears that the shop has stolen a nearly new component from the system and replaced it with a 'botch', then returned the system to its owner as "unrepairable". 

It seems, to me, that the proprietor of that 'repair' business should be having a day in court answering charges of theft and gross dishonesty (at the absolute minimum).   

[oldfogy]

Are you saying that the pictures of the PSU above are not of the PSU purchased from PC World and can you prove that?

[sheddyian]

Are you saying that the pictures of the PSU above are not of the PSU purchased from PC World and can you prove that?

That is what I believe, yes, but I can't prove it - wasn't my computer and I wasn't there when the PSU was bought & fitted, nor when same PC was taken along to different shop for "repair".

All I know is the above pictures show what I found when I opened up the PSU, and that I was told they'd got the replacement PSU from PC World and fitted it themselves, so I assume it wasn't the monstrosity above at the time.

Ian

[oldfogy]

Obviously these things do carry on and it would also be difficult to prove, although if the person who fitted the PSU stated that was not the same one that they fitted, then obviously I would also tend to believe what you said originally.

Although I like shopping at Currys/PC World, it is always possible that their returns procedure 'may not' be 100%, so who knows, it may have even been a previous customers return, but again all this is conjecture and I guess we will never know.

[sheddyian]

The giveaway though, is that one of the pieces of cardboard stuffed in the bodged PSU is from a parcel, sent from Hong Kong to the address of the "dodgy" computer shop that returned the computer as unrepairable!

It could be coincidence, but it doesn't look good!

Ian

[oldfogy]

There you go you see, the more one asks or queries then the more is revealed so the correct diagnosis can be achieved.

Good luck with TS, but after my last encounter with Somerset TS with regards to my printer Ink not being sent I would not be holding my breath.

[kitz]

Incredible!

As you say, although PCWorld are hardly the brightest bunch sometimes...  I think we can safely say that they would fit the correct PSU and no way would they start putting bits of cardboard to make a wrong sized one fit. 

Does the owner still have the PCW repair receipt?  It may state on there the model of the PSU they fitted.

[sheddyian]

Incredible!

As you say, although PCWorld are hardly the brightest bunch sometimes...  I think we can safely say that they would fit the correct PSU and no way would they start putting bits of cardboard to make a wrong sized one fit. 

Does the owner still have the PCW repair receipt?  It may state on there the model of the PSU they fitted.

As I understand it, the new PSU was bought from PC World but fitted by owner of the computer, as per my advice.  This is what I was told, anyway.  No idea as to the existence of a receipt.

The owner of the computer reported the subsequent shop to Trading Standards, or again, this is what I'm told.  I wasn't involved, except to discover the appalling bodge!

At least with the PC I'd found and posted photos of a few months back, the owner had done quite a good bodge at fitting a standard PSU into a smaller sized hole by bending metal and lining it up with the vents for an optional fan!

Ian

[kitz]

Sorry, from your earlier post, I thought you meant PCWorld fitted it.

If the owner fitted it, then he would know for sure that he didnt do the cardboard bodge up!

>> reported subsequent shop to Trading Standards.

Good!

[sheddyian]

Sorry, from your earlier post, I thought you meant PCWorld fitted it.

If the owner fitted it, then he would know for sure that he didnt do the cardboard bodge up!

and one of the bits of cardboard having the address of the dodgy computer shop on it, means they had at least something to do with it.

Which is incredibly shoddy bodging, if you don't want someone to find out who was behind it!

Ian

[sheddyian]

I've been tidying up a load of old computer parts, and came to this bodged computer.  Thought I'd have a quick look at it before throwing it out.

With a good PSU fitted, it wouldn't even power up.  Turned out that the PCI USB 2.0 adaptor was at fault, removing it allowed it to start ok.

So it's possible that this too was swapped around by the rogue computer repair shop, as I was told the original fault was that the computer would crash or lock up after being used for a while, ie it WOULD start up ok.

I also found, upon running a memory test, that the PC133 memory was giving errors.  Swapped out by shop as well? Or source of original problem?  Who knows.

I put different memory in it, and left it running a memory test overnight.

In the morning it was still running well, except that the CPU was incredibly hot.  It's an AMD Duron 1300, hardly high performance, and there was a reasonable heatsink fitted, which was clear of dust and the fan was spinning silently.

I put a larger heatsink and fan on, but this too got hot very quickly.

Using this very useful web site http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/ I found the fastest CPU the board could take (AMD Athlon XP 2800+) and got one off ebay for less than £5.

Set it all up, installed XP on it, all working quite well and despite having a CPU of twice the performance of the original, running a lot cooler too.  It only has 512Mb of RAM though, so ordered 1Gb of SD133 from ebay (which hasn't arrived yet).  1Gb being the maximum this board will support, in 2 x 512Mb.

Quite pleased that I'd made a handly little "spare" machine with tolerable performance - handy to loan someone, test something on or for emergency shed cam use if the laptop server machine dies

But after a few more days of leaving it burning in and occasionally logging in through Terminal Services, it's started blue screening, with the classic  irql_not_less_or_equal error.

In my experience this is usually caused by a failing PSU or faulty hardware.

I've tried a different PSU, but still have the same result.

There's no obvious damage or failure on the motherboard (ie the capacitors don't seem to be bulging or leaking) so, unless someone here has a good idea, it'll sadly go to the recycling depot (formerly "the tip") and I'll be left with a spare AMD Athlon 2800+ CPU and 1Gb PC133 Ram (if/when it arrives). 

The motherboard is a PC-Chips M810L , which from a bit of Googling reveals itself to be a bit cheap and nasty and unreliable and... prone to irql_not_less_or_equal faults when you install Windows XP!

Hey ho.

Ian

[broadstairs]

You could always try Linux on it in case the problems are XP related....

Stuart

[sheddyian]

You could always try Linux on it in case the problems are XP related....

Stuart

I was waiting for that answer 

Nah, it's a hardware problem.  There are other odd symptoms - sometimes it sits for a long time on the bios information screen when you power it up before starting to boot, other times it boots straight away. It's also very temperamental at letting you into the BIOS settings, repeated jabbing of DEL or holding the DEL key will sometimes get you in, other times it'll ignore it and just boot anyway.

And sometimes you power it up and it sits there with a blank screen and does nothing at all.

Ian

[sheddyian]

Because I can't let these things go, I was having another look at the wheezy old computer, as I'd been puzzled how, whilst I was working on it a few weeks ago, it had largely worked fine without problem, but once I'd put it all back together and set it up, it would randomly and often blue screen, usually when logging into Windows.

And I've found this :

It's a mini tower computer, so in normal use the motherboard sits upright inside the case.

When I have the computer on it's side, with one side removed for access, it all runs fine.

When I put it back together and stand it upright, it resumes it's crashing.

Obvious answer is heat, since it's happy when the side is removed.

But when it's reassembled and upright, it can crash within minutes.  Surely not enough time to overheat. And it doesn't seem to be getting that hot.

So I reckon it's a connection or a poor joint somewhere on the motherboard.  Since the CPU heatsink is heavy, and this would be pulling the cpu sideways when the motherboard is upright, but would be exerting a helpful DOWNWARD pressure when the computer is laying on it's side, I reckon it's in that area.

I'd already tried cleaning and reseating the RAM, so don't think it's that.

This is largely academic, as the computer is a bit slow for most things, I'm just curious.

Anyone have any other thoughts, or agree/disagree with my theory?

Ian