PC Maintenance Class 7: Term 1

After perhaps, a somewhat, involved topic of home networking, this week got back to grass-roots. Some proper PC Maintenance. One of the things that tends to break in a home PC is the power supply. The replacement of the power supply, after checking the obvious, such as the fuse and that it is indeed plugged into the mains supply, is quite an easy procedure.

Depending on the case that you have depends on how complicated the task is. The demonstration computer that I am using this term, is an RM F-Series PC. It is a small desktop cased computer, which is ‘half height’ in terms of the casing. In other words standard PCI cards would not fit into it, and therefore you would have to use ‘half height PCI’ cards instead, because the lid wouldn’t fit back on.  Familiarising yourself with your PC’s chassis is quite useful.

Here you can see Bodga from our class starting to dismantle the various parts of the computer in order that the power supply can be removed.  The first thing she did was to remove the case lid. For this computer, its a simple two screws on the back of the case, and the top slides off. Next she removed the strengthening bracket that runs the length of the case, and then starts to remove some of the power connections from the various components inside the case, such as the floppy disk drive, DVD drive and harddisk.  The harddisk inside this computer is actually located under the DVD and floppy disk compartment, so for this particular computer, the front fascia panel has to come off, and the cradle holding both the DVD and flopping drive, is easier removed and access to the harddisk is then provided. It is actually easier than it sounds…I guess you had to be there.

Having successfully removed the faulty power supply, we handed over to Gordon who was going to take over and fit the replacement unit. 

This would be a test to see how well he had been paying attention. The only problem that I discovered was that when Gordon put the computer back together, was the harddisk didnt have any power to it, an easy mistake to make, but a very very good effort for both of the volunteers.

We then had a questions and answers session for the remainder of the session!