Computer won't turn on or off....???

[AML]

Okay, this is basically what happened two nights ago:

The computer won't turn on or off. I can't explain it well since I'm not much of a computer person when it comes to this stuff. Press the power button, and all the lights and fans come on, but it doesn't seem like te CPU is on at all...? Sometimes it'll come on, but after about 5 minutes later, it shutdowns on me.

Which brings me to the next problem, whenever I try turning it off, it'll do all that "Saving settings" stuff, but at the very end, when it tries to turn off, all of a sudden the CPU (?) light on the tower and the E: drive lights will start blinking, and something inside the tower starts turning on and off and goes with the lights. The only way I've been keeping it off was unplugging it.


Now here is an explanation of things that happened tonight:

Now the computer won't even turn on. Whenever I plug the cable back in, the CPU light flashes, and something in this box makes a noise that goes with the flashing. The cooling fan does turn on. Those are the only things that turn on as much as I can see.

I also found this at the bottom inside the computer tower. I put it on a peice on lined paper for size comparisons. Any chance this may have something to do with it?

I have a lot of family photos on the computer, what are the chances of recovering them, if possible?

Please ask me questions for clarifications on things. I appreciate the help.

Computer is an eMachines T2245 desktop.

 

[Raffaz]

Cant tell exactly what that is, it looks like a screw which could be everything or nothing to do with ya problem. If it was in the bottom of ya case then its possible that it has made contact somewhere and shorted something out in ya pc. Have a look and see if ya can find where its came from, its possibly from ya mobo or one of ya drives etc. Just looking closely there, it looks like it has got copper strands round the bottom, so possibly something that needs earthed. If you find where its from, then post back and let us know.
If ya wanting ya familyphotos, then providing ya HDD isnt damaged, ya should be to connect it to another pc and get them off that way. And in the future it might pay to backup things like this mate

 

[mammikoura]

If ya wanting ya familyphotos, then providing ya HDD isnt damaged, ya should be to connect it to another pc and get them off that way. And in the future it might pay to backup things like this mate

yeah just plug the hdd into another computer and u can recover all of ur files. I'm pretty sure that there is nothing wrong with the hdd so all of ur files will be there and u can get them back.

 

[Raffaz]

Just had a close look at ya pic and it looks like the bottom left screw on ya fan is missing, i dont think its the screw in ya pic tho coz its to short, unless it has sheared off.

 

[Baller]

It's probably the motherboard.

That happened to me once before on my old computer and they just changed the motherboard and I didn't lose any files.

 

[AML]

Thanks for the help guys!! Well, my dad did some investigative work. The power supply unit was fried.

Replaced this:

with this:

It's got 4 LED lights in the corners, and I took the pic without the flash, which keeps the shutter open a little longer, that's why it looks like that.

Oh, is it okay to leave the computer in stand-by mode whenever it's not in use, instead of shutting it down? Any pros or cons of this?