Hi everyone and thanks in advance for any help or advice you can offer.
I've got a piece of junk computer (built on an old 133Mhz Acer chassis) that has developed some really really irritating problems. Before you say "buy a real computer", money is tight and I'm trying to make every dime count, okay? No flames please.
Here's the history: last week I had a power drop (my fault - hit the wrong button on the surge strip; I meant to pull power to my soldering station on the same strip at the end of a late night soldering session) and from the next day onward it's been giving me trouble. Coincidence?
At first it claimed there's more memory than is on the board and would lock up. Then I'd power down. Then power back up - memory check comes in okay, Windows 95 starts up okay - but there's no "pointer installed" (i.e. the mouse isn't recognised). CTRL/ALT/DEL and reboot. When it comes up, "hooray!" there's my mouse.
Now, I dug around in Windows System status using the keyboard and I found a "code 24" error (no mouse installed) during the 'no mouse' periods. Further, it looks like it's having trouble finding the ports. Even when I get it working, there's only one port open - the others are 'crossed out'.
Four nights ago I cleaned out the machine cursorily and it seemed to cure things completely. It started acting up again yesterday.
Tonight I took the whole thing down and cleaned the living heck out of it. Frankly there weren't dust bunnies in there. There were dust dinosaurs (both in age and size....). Put it back together, and - no "excessive memory" but the 'no mouse' problem persists.
Okay. Loose connection? Dust causing intermittent shorts? Electrolytic cap on the board that's failing during power up and self healing after voltage has been applied for a while? Where do I go from here? If it's a SMT cap (and if I can find which one is bad) I can replace it. If it's a VLSI chip like a device adaptor I think I'm out of luck since I doubt I can locate a replacement chip for something this old.
HELP!! Please, no flames. I feel like an idiot posting this when the obvious solution is 'build a new computer', but maybe there's a way for me to fix things without going that far.
Thanks again for any thoughts or help you can offer. It is very much appreciated.
All the best,
Morse
I've got a piece of junk computer (built on an old 133Mhz Acer chassis) that has developed some really really irritating problems. Before you say "buy a real computer", money is tight and I'm trying to make every dime count, okay? No flames please.
Here's the history: last week I had a power drop (my fault - hit the wrong button on the surge strip; I meant to pull power to my soldering station on the same strip at the end of a late night soldering session) and from the next day onward it's been giving me trouble. Coincidence?
At first it claimed there's more memory than is on the board and would lock up. Then I'd power down. Then power back up - memory check comes in okay, Windows 95 starts up okay - but there's no "pointer installed" (i.e. the mouse isn't recognised). CTRL/ALT/DEL and reboot. When it comes up, "hooray!" there's my mouse.
Now, I dug around in Windows System status using the keyboard and I found a "code 24" error (no mouse installed) during the 'no mouse' periods. Further, it looks like it's having trouble finding the ports. Even when I get it working, there's only one port open - the others are 'crossed out'.
Four nights ago I cleaned out the machine cursorily and it seemed to cure things completely. It started acting up again yesterday.
Tonight I took the whole thing down and cleaned the living heck out of it. Frankly there weren't dust bunnies in there. There were dust dinosaurs (both in age and size....). Put it back together, and - no "excessive memory" but the 'no mouse' problem persists.
Okay. Loose connection? Dust causing intermittent shorts? Electrolytic cap on the board that's failing during power up and self healing after voltage has been applied for a while? Where do I go from here? If it's a SMT cap (and if I can find which one is bad) I can replace it. If it's a VLSI chip like a device adaptor I think I'm out of luck since I doubt I can locate a replacement chip for something this old.
HELP!! Please, no flames. I feel like an idiot posting this when the obvious solution is 'build a new computer', but maybe there's a way for me to fix things without going that far.
Thanks again for any thoughts or help you can offer. It is very much appreciated.
All the best,
Morse