My computer died for no reason. I'm using my SO's computer now.

About 30+ minutes ago, my computer just suddenly turned off and won't turn back on again. I had all my important contact info on there and some pictures that I don't have saved anywhere. I can't even remember what was there without seeing it. I don't know much about computers, but is there a way I can take out the hard drive and put it in this other computer? Both computers are exactly the same.

And unfortunately I don't have much time to talk about it tonight, since it's getting close to midnight and I have work in the morning.

I'd appreciate any help I can get.

Run to Best Buy and get that hard drive thing. Screw out your hard drive. Transfer everything over to a new computer. Return hard drive thing

You would need to troubleshoot to find out what's wrong, but initial thoughts would be the power supply going bad. As for transferring hard drives, yes you can do that.

Did you try the basics like just unplugging it for at least a few moments?
Reseat basically everything if that doesn't work.
Swap the power cord with your so's

FolkenRawr posted...

Did you try the basics like just unplugging it for at least a few moments?
Reseat basically everything if that doesn't work.
Swap the power cord with your so's

I tried several times of unplugging and replugging. I pressed the power button and it would only light up for a second then turn off. The fans would spin for the duration that the light turned on then stop spinning again.

Prior to this happening, one of my cats stepped on the power button of the surge protector and turned everything off. When I restarted my computer then, it started up normally and got to the screen where I have to enter my password, then that's when it suddenly turned off and wouldn't come back on again.

For some reason, youtube isn't loading at all. I opened a new tab for it to bring up my home page and it's just been loading for the past 10+ minutes, not doing any progressing.

Is it plugged in?

I tried several times of unplugging and replugging. I pressed the power button and it would only light up for a second then turn off. The fans would spin for the duration that the light turned on then stop spinning again.

there's a good chance that something is just loose. does it usually beep when you turn it on?

if you're comfortable at all with opening it up and poking around, you might only have to just re-seat some things.

if you're getting fan and lights -- if it's possible to look at the motherboard while it boots, there might be test lights. they'll be labeled with something like 'cpu' or 'vram' and they'll flash or they won't.

Sounds like your motherboard has fried. That happened to me years ago.

Fluttershy posted...

I tried several times of unplugging and replugging. I pressed the power button and it would only light up for a second then turn off. The fans would spin for the duration that the light turned on then stop spinning again.

there's a good chance that something is just loose. does it usually beep when you turn it on?

if you're comfortable at all with opening it up and poking around, you might only have to just re-seat some things.

I opened it up before and vacuumed out some dust (nothing that would have damaged anything). I could open it up again and take some pictures but that wouldn't be until tomorrow afternoon. As much as I'd like to stay home to take care of this problem asap, I don't want to use up a sick day for this.

As for youtube, it finally loaded but it's stuck on my SO's account. I can't get my account to load even though I've signed in properly.

well, try not to assume the worst. the first thing to rule out is loose hardware. if you know/can find the model of your motherboard that would help too.

your power supply died. it's very common. get a new one, return it to best buy if it doesn't fix the problem.

you mention that cat tripping the surge protector so I'm going to say about 95% sure the power supply is dead (I typically blame the PSU 75% of the time even if there wasn't a clue, because that's what stuff like this tends to be)

Robot2600 posted...

your power supply died. it's very common. get a new one, return it to best buy if it doesn't fix the problem.

Shinnokxz posted...

you mention that cat tripping the surge protector so I'm going to say about 95% sure the power supply is dead (I typically blame the PSU 75% of the time even if there wasn't a clue, because that's what stuff like this tends to be)

I bought my computer in 2020 from a Walmart. If the power supply is dead, how do I go about getting a new one, and how much do they typically cost? I can post the stats of the computer in a bit. I just got home and need to have a snack to stabilize.

My cats have accidentally tripped the surge protector a couple times in the past couple years as well. I do have it in a spot they can't easily reach, but rarely while they're playing with their toys does a toy get to where the surge protector is.

I got youtube to work on Firefox, so I can at least watch things from my recommended section again. I took a few interior pics of the computer that I'll post in a bit, but haven't tried starting it back up yet. I don't know how to screw around with computer stuff and am afraid of damaging parts, but will I be able to take the RAM from my computer and put it in my SO's computer if there's a slot available? And moving my hard drive over as well but make it the main drive?

GeminiDeus posted...

About 30+ minutes ago, my computer just suddenly turned off and won't turn back on again. I had all my important contact info on there and some pictures that I don't have saved anywhere. I can't even remember what was there without seeing it. I don't know much about computers, but is there a way I can take out the hard drive and put it in this other computer? Both computers are exactly the same.

And unfortunately I don't have much time to talk about it tonight, since it's getting close to midnight and I have work in the morning.

I'd appreciate any help I can get.

Yes, but you need to troubleshoot to figure out whats wrong with it unless you want to just get a whole new computer.

Based on your description, Im guessing its power related, so one of:

1. The EPS cable that powers the CPU (top left of the motherboard) has come unplugged or isnt fully seated.
2. The power supply has gone bad,
3. One of the power connectors on a component has gone bad, and the overcurrent / safety features of the power supply are keeping it from powering on to avoid damaging anything else. This happened with the third power connector on my 3080 a year or two ago.

You can definitely remove the hard drives and save whats on them.

I'm having issues with the pictures now.

I'm not sure how anything could have gotten disconnected since the tower wasn't even touched at all except for me pressing the power button after my cat hit the surge protector and it booted up far enough to get to just before the home screen.

I'd really like to not have to get a new computer for numerous reasons, such as having just recently spent $8500 for a car in October and another $400 for tooth surgery last month (which I still need another $2000 for more), and that there are a few things on my current computer that I would like to recover, such as some pictures of my cats, and all the things I've got saved in my own browser so that I can pay bills.

I don't know enough about how to fix issues that I have and I don't think anyone I know anymore knows has any great computer knowledge. I think I'd be satisfied if I could safely transfer over my hard drive and the RAM to my SO's computer until I am more financially comfortable with getting another computer.

If you bought it from Walmart, hopefully it wasn't an HP. I don't know if they still do this, but I remember back in the late 2000s, I found out that HP does proprietary power supplies making it not easy to replace. Although even if that's the case, I'm sure it's much easier to get an after market power supply for that than it was back then. But I don't even know if they still do that.

GeminiDeus posted...

I'm having issues with the pictures now.

I'm not sure how anything could have gotten disconnected since the tower wasn't even touched at all except for me pressing the power button after my cat hit the surge protector and it booted up far enough to get to just before the home screen.

I'd really like to not have to get a new computer for numerous reasons, such as having just recently spent $8500 for a car in October and another $400 for tooth surgery last month (which I still need another $2000 for more), and that there are a few things on my current computer that I would like to recover, such as some pictures of my cats, and all the things I've got saved in my own browser so that I can pay bills.

I don't know enough about how to fix issues that I have and I don't think anyone I know anymore knows has any great computer knowledge. I think I'd be satisfied if I could safely transfer over my hard drive and the RAM to my SO's computer until I am more financially comfortable with getting another computer.

The process is pretty simple, but its basically the Amazon shuffle.

You buy another power supply, hook that up in your computer, and if that fixes it, your power supply died, keep the new one. If not, return the new power supply for a full refund. Then you buy a motherboard, transfer your build to that, same process. You can order the parts up front if you have the money, but in the end it should only cost you however much it costs to replace the failed component.

You can probably find a repair shop that will do this for you for $100 or so if you live in a major metro area. The shop we had here was useless and I had to do the troubleshooting myself anyway.

As for transferring the data, just put the drive in the other computer and get your data off of it. You can also get USB SATA docks if she has a laptop.

In the future, Id advise investing in a NAS and setting up a service like Nextcloud to serve as centralized storage for your important stuff. If my computer dies, all my important files are already on my NAS anyway.

Jupiter posted...

If you bought it from Walmart, hopefully it wasn't an HP. I don't know if they still do this, but I remember back in the late 2000s, I found out that HP does proprietary power supplies making it not easy to replace. Although even if that's the case, I'm sure it's much easier to get an after market power supply for that than it was back then. But I don't even know if they still do that.

The computers are HP. I bought one in 2019 for my SO after her laptop died, then bought another of the same for myself in 2020 after we got stimulus checks. They were only $600 each but met the minimum requirements we were looking for. Her laptop had also been an HP and only lasted a couple years.

External hard drive

Not that I think this is what happened, but it's better to blow dust out with a can of compressed air as opposed to vacuuming (while keeping any fans from spinning). Plastic hoses/attachments can build up static and potentially damage components. It's the sort of thing that everybody swears isn't a problem, until it is.

Anyway, I don't think the surge protector switching on or off was the culprit either. The big issue with sudden power outages has more to do with writing/saving data and this doesn't sound like an issue with an update gone bad or anything.

From the sound of it you got a pre-built and those tend to cheap out on the power supply. A good replacement will cost about $70. If it's the mobo that's a bit trickier but in my experience you wouldn't be seeing any activity if that were the case so I'd start with the power. As mentioned earlier, if you're not comfortable doing this yourself it might be better to let a repair shop handle it.

As for your hard drive, that's almost assuredly safe. You can add it to your other PC but I wouldn't recommend using it as your main drive. You can try, but it might throw up a ton of driver errors because it's not the same PC. Instead, you'll most likely want to use it as a secondary drive and browse the files that way. You can either slot it into the PC or buy an external case but make sure it's fastened securely - if it's an HDD and not an SSD moving it while it's in use can be disastrous.

As for the RAM, that depends on the specs of the PC you want to add it to and the RAM itself.

Bumping so this doesn't purge. Haven't had time to do anything yet. I have a neighbor I'm going to try asking to see if he can help.