Six days ago my computer switched off all the sudden and couldn't be turned on. I opened the tower's case and cleaned both the CPU fan and the PSU fan. Thereafter the computer was able to work for the whole day. I let it on for at least 16 hrs without any problem. The next morning, couldn't switch on, so again I opened and vacuumed the tower more thoroughly. After the cleaning, the computer worked without any problem for the whole day. Again, I switched off at night after hrs of playing but the next morning the computer decided to go on strike. This has repeatedly happened every morning. There were times when the power was on but only a black screen with both lights appeared (the lights beside the power button) and both fans spinned. There were also times when the computer could be switched on for a few sec but before entering windows logo, it died. I have to open the tower and briefly vacuum the surface (I don't even know what to vacuum, I just turn on my vacuum cleaner and lightly pass over from end to end). The computer would magically work fine. I don't understand what's wrong with my computer? It's basically a 4 years old computer.

I'm not sure exactly what is going on either. I will tell you that using a vacuum on a computer is not recommended. Static charge from air moving thru the hose builds up a charge. That charge can discharge into sensitive components and permanently damage them. Decribe in detail exactly what does happen and what you see on the monitor when you try to boot the computer.

what i can think of here is the possbility that "something" is loose. just the sheer act of moving a vac brush across certain componants, makes that "something" work e.g. a loose power connector >>>> (if you know how) you should firstly double check all connections into everything.....all cables, all power leads. check that they are seated firmly in. RAM is firmly seated, vid card is firmly seated. remove the power lead from the wall outlet before you attempt this other than that, if you know how to get into and navigate around your BIOS at boot, search for an item called Hardware Monitor (or a name similar to that)where the temperatures of the CPU and motherboard will be shown >>>>> watch those temps for 5 minutes and note down what they are. post them here. . Central Coast NSW Aussie There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

Assume for the moment it's not the vacuuming that is fixing it. Are you disconnecting the power cord when you go through the ritual? Most power supplies now are designed to provide a small current to the PC even when off. The only way to interrupt that is to pull the power cord. That drains the charge from the applicable circuits in both the PC and PSU. Maybe that's what is 'fixing' it.

My vote is for a bad connection in one or more cards. Turn off pc and unplug. Remove cards setting them up in the order they came out. Use lung power to blow out any dust and a clean cloth to wipe contacts on cards. Make sure slots are free of dust. Where I do volunteer work refurbishing computers my claim to fame is ... "On a good day I might be able to find the power button" LOL But dust,loose connections and power supplies seem to the number one issues followed by driver issues and newly installed hard drives leaving in the old brittle ribbon cables. I would also disconnect the power to any cd roms and slave drives and try rebooting. If it boots up fine then reconnect them one at a time....shut down...unplug before reconnecting. Any failure prior to all be reconnected points to the power supply. The above is in leu of a having a power supply tester,an error card and a air compressor. Hope you are up and running soon. W.L.

Thank you very much for the replies. I went to BIOS and checked the temperature. It has always been constant for a few minutes. The PSU and CPU fans are working fine. I always unplugged the power cord before mucking around with the vacuum cleaner and my tower case. The computer would not turn on in one attempt. Once turned on it usually lasted for long hours. Lately the time span has reduced as the comp would shut down earlier. Booting comp was fine, went to windows logo then auto shut down. There were times I could log on and played until it auto shut down. I can't unplug the video card, it comes together with the mobo (maybe it's just my incompetency to spot how to unplug the card). I don't think my video card is damaged as I've never experienced the symptoms of damaged video card. Before the vacuuming ritual, I always opened the tower case and made sure all cables were properly connected. The computer to no avail could be switched on. I opted for the vacuum cleaning because it worked after I did it the first time and for no apparent reason. Resetted the CMOS by changing to a new battery and had the slot empty o/n before reseating the battery - hoping for it to reset the BIOS setting. Chose "load for optimised setting" and saved the BIOS setting. At the same time, also added an extra RAM card, from 512 mb to 1 gb. Comp could switch on but didn't last for long. Tried to run chkdsk many times using command prompt but always shut down automatically. Ran error checking but couldn't click on the "auto repair". Pressing F8 to go to safe mode didn't work. Had to wait for the safe mode option appeared due to the auto shut down (this did not always occur despite the auto shut down was regular). In safe mode comp would shut down automatically too. Finally the comp self performed chkdsk and found 2 errors during booting. Auto fixed the errors. Comp could be switched on easier w/o vacuuming ritual but shut down still occurs now and then. I'm sorry for an extremely long explanation.

It doesn't matter if the computer is plugged in or not when using a vacuum. The static charge can still damage sensitive components. You can't remove an integrated graphic chip.