Sick of politics here? Fix my computers!

724, the desktop is not a Dell. I'll definitely look into taking the keyboard off. The fact that if I wiggle my power cable it freezes the computer makes me think it's a PS issue. I'll definitely look at my mobo to see if I have a blown cap. If you say it's easy to spot I should be able to see it quickly.

724, the desktop is not a Dell. I'll definitely look into taking the keyboard off. The fact that if I wiggle my power cable it freezes the computer makes me think it's a PS issue. I'll definitely look at my mobo to see if I have a blown cap. If you say it's easy to spot I should be able to see it quickly.

I have seen simple connector issues. Take the keyboard off and see if the connector to the PS is busted. It is a simple soldering fix if thats the case. The behavior of your laptop is consistent with such an issue although it is consistent with several other issues as well. Dropping laptops usually leads to bad things unfortunately.

Daseal, your desktop randomly shutting down actually sounds more like a motherboard issue. Is it also a Dell? We work on about 15,000 Dell desktops, mainly Optiplexes, and whenever one of them shuts down it's almost always the motherboard. A particular problem is a capacitor that blows, which is easy to spot.

Maybe you can take the palmrest plastics off of your laptop and have the keyboard attached but not secured to the motherboard to take a look at where the noise is coming from. This is assuming of course that your warranty is expired.

Have fun!

Just curious but did you have the capacitor problem with the 270s? We had a buttload of those and then the 280s had a random overheating issue.

And Daseal, Mario Teaches Typing is awesome. He'd kick the shit out of Mavis Beacon.

Just curious but did you have the capacitor problem with the 270s? We had a buttload of those and then the 280s had a random overheating issue.

And Daseal, Mario Teaches Typing is awesome. He'd kick the shit out of Mavis Beacon.

Yep. The super-cool thermal event problem that popped up just after warranty expired. Our 280's are doing okay but that should change soon since their warranty expired a few months ago.

gore did see the importance of the internet before most other people did, and he worked pretty hard to get it funding, so, yeah.. he helped make the internet mainstream even though he was completely uninvolved on the technical side of thing.

on the computer, parity errors can be caused by memory too... I'd say there's a chance the jolt may have loosened the heatsink from the cpu/gfx card (if it has one).. usually laptop power supplies aren't a problem because they don't make heat (they're external to the laptop), they're rated and come with a specific laptop, and laptops generally don't offer much of an upgrade path, so you can't overbook them. if it were the power supply, does the laptop have issues on batteries power? cause the batteries aren't high tech, just lithium ion types in a casing that ensures it won't work on other laptops.

If it's the motherboard, you're straight f'd... those things can be $200+ if you can't find them on ebay, and the companies will want $90 for labor costs... doing it yourself brings a high chance of killing the casing, since some laptops are put together in a way where they really don't ever want to come apart again.

on the desktop - first go to power options and make sure that's not killing it, then run thorough anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-root-kit etc tools on it (adaware, bitdefender, avg, etc). Also make sure your graphics drivers are up to date (does it shut off when you start a 3d game? if so, that's a good clue to the PS). when you check the crash log or event viewer, what does it say about the time of the crashes? bad ram can also cause random crashes, though that's typically not common these days.

what are the system specs? the power supply ratings? operating systems?

for a blown cap, all you'll see (typically) is a little bulge at the top... instead of being flat, it'll be rounded and pushed up a bit, you do need to actually look at each capacitor and not just glance at the board to see it.

For what it's worth -- it seems the new power supply is working. I stress tested a bit and did some things that crashed it before. Once exams are over Ill give it a really strong stress test. Just in case anyone was wondering.

anyone know how to fix a wireless mouse? mine only works when i hold the small receiver? thanks for any help

What is the model you have? Initial thought is something's jarred loose in the receiver. However, do you have any other USB devices you can plug into that USB port? Have you tried the receiver in another USB port?

Generally you have one of two options.

1) take the receiver apart and fix the loose connection which will most likely lead to...
2) buy a new mouse

How old are the batteries?
Has it worked before and you just started having problems? If so change the batteries out if you have extras.

If not, have you looked at the settings for the mouse in your control panel? and is it a specialized mouse, or just a standard 2 button wireless mouse?