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Is my computer in trouble?

18 years ago

Hi, am back with another problem. I have a HP pavilion windows XP. It was on STAND BY and when I went to use it, the pretty blue light was flicking fast and making loud buzz noice. Monitor was black, keyboard no light, and of course no working mouse. There was no way to get it to work. I unplugged every wire and put it aside to send for repair. My son came and installed again and the thing was working.

Few days and it did it again. This time I unplugged the tower wires, replugged and again it was working. Seems that a specific wire did it. Could have been the main power cord, I forgot which of the 2 big black cords it was. Anyway, it started working again. My question....is this the beginning of my PC breaking down?

Another question. I am now trying to get my pictures filed in order to put them to CD. About how many pics go in a CD-R disc. These pics are around 480x640. I want to put them to CD because I am scared to lose them. Thanks,TEN

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Comments (5)

Pooh Bear
18 years ago
I'm going to make two suggestions.
1.) Stop using standby. My personal opinion.
It rarely works like it should. Disclaimer.
2.) Buy a can of air, open the tower, and blow out the dust.

As far as the pictures, depends on the file type.
A CD holds about 700 megs. Check the file sizes.
1024 KB = 1 meg. Use that to figure how many pictures.

Pooh Bear
owbist
18 years ago
As Pooh suggests, try not using the Standby feature. Instead set you monitor and hard drive to stop after 10 or 15 minutes and see what that does. Right click on an open area of the desktop to access the pop up for changing those settings.

On the photos your 640 c 480 files will, probably be well under 500 kb So you can expect to get well over 1,000 photos on a CD. If these are in a folder trying opening Windows Explorer - right click Start then click Explore.

Now right click on the folder and click Properties. The pop up will tell you many files and the total size of the folder.
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mes444
18 years ago
The power issue could be a symptom of a failing power supply. Power supplies are easy to replace if that is the problem. Just buy the same type which is already in your computer. Unplug computer. Touch the old power supply to ground yourself. Then just follow the power lines of the old one with the new power supply wires, unplugging the old as you replace with the new. When done, remove old power box, screw in the new one and you are done. Takes about 10 minutes max.
ten3_2tex
Original Author
18 years ago
Thank you, all
I will do your suggestions, TEN
randy_ca
18 years ago
2.) Buy a can of air, open the tower, and blow out the dust.

Be sure that you do this to prevent heat related problems now and in the future.

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