My computer doesn't work.
What do I do?
Hi, everyone. Leo Notenboom here for AskLeo.com
this is another one of those really common
questions that comes up in so many different guises.
Here's one example.
My son has a computer that is not working.
It only has a blank screen.
Also, the light to the hard drive is not on.
Is the hard drive broken?
Can I get the computer repaired, or do I need to buy another one?
Unfortunately, questions like that have nowhere near enough information for me
to give any accurate diagnosis or even point in a general direction.
What I do have for you is essentially a checklist.
Now, I want to be clear.
Not everything on this list is something
that you can fix yourself, depending, of course, on your own level of expertise.
But it should give you some ideas of the kinds of things that can go wrong,
the kinds of things that can cause this failure.
And like I said, some of them actually are things you can address.
The first one, I'm sorry, I have to put this first.
It seems so obvious and so silly until it happens to you.
Based on the description, of this question, no lights, no nothing.
Is the computer plugged in?
Seriously, is it plugged in?
It's happened to me.
You're wondering why nothing's happening?
It's because it hasn't been plugged in.
That's obviously the first thing, and it's wonderfully easy to fix.
Number two, the power supply.
When we talk about the power supply for a desktop computer,
what we're talking about is a box inside that takes your line voltage,
your 120 or 240 AC, and turns it into the voltages that are
needed inside of your computer, the 12 volts and the 5 volts DC.
However, same is true for a laptop.
It just looks different.
And in many cases, the charger does some
amount of that voltage conversion to begin with.
But the bottom line here is that the power supply, however it's getting into your
computer, can be root cause of a really dead computer.
If the power supply isn't working, it acts like it's not plugged in because
essentially, the computer is not getting power.
One thing to think about for desktop computers is sometimes there's
an additional power switch behind the plug or near the plug.
Make sure that that too is turned on.
The Motherboard.
All of your primary computer components
are on a Motherboard, a circuit board that has all of those.
Those can sometimes die.
The Motherboard absolutely has components,
including the CPU itself, that are vital to a computer's operation.
Similarly, the computer's RAM could fail.
Typically, you'll end up with some lights
and some activity as the machine tries to boot up.
But if the RAM has failed for some reason, that can cause complete inactivity.
Normally, you'll at least get to the Bios.
But again, depending on the failure mode,
it can cause the machine to completecompletely not do anything.
A hard disk could have failed. Same thing.
Generally, you'll probably see the bios
at least come up, and you'll get some error messages about not booting.
But once again, depending on the failure
and depending on the hard disk and how it's connected to your system,
yeah, it can break in ways that would render the entire system inoperable.
Same thing is absolutely true for expansion cards,
and especially for expansion cards, because you're relying on a third party.
You're relying on somebody else to have designed their cards properly.
If those cards are improperly designed
and they fail once again, they can bring your entire computer to a halt.
Interestingly enough,
perhaps the most common scenario that I run into,
after not having the computer plugged in, is that the display doesn't work.
The computer is doing whatever it's doing.
Yes, in a case like this,
it'll have some lights and some activity, and you'll hear it working.
But if the display doesn't work, well, it looks like it's not working.
If it's a desktop computer, that's an easy thing to check and get
a different display or make sure that it's plugged in properly.
If it's a laptop computer, you might need to try and see if you can
come with an external display to attach to it and see if you can get that to work.
But a display that doesn't work for any reason, including not being plugged in,
is one of the common reasons that a computer can look like it's not working.
The video cable is actually worth its own mention.
I have seen the video cable unplugged
from both the monitor or the computer you've got it connected to.
Again, if it's not connected,
it will look like the computer is not working, even though it is.
Hopefully, by now you get the idea.
These are complicated beasties,
and they can fail hard in a number of different ways.
Typically, if there's going to be a hardware failure like this,
unless you are youryourself a technician, in which case you probably didn't need
this video, you probably will need to take it
to someone for some hands-on care and diagnosis.
Before you do that,
I would strongly recommend you take a look at an article that I have called
What Information Should I Provide When Asking For Help?
Much of it assumes software kinds
of issues, but the same is very true for hardware.
Be as complete and accurate as you can with whatever symptoms you're seeing.
And also include the things you've already checked.
Yes, you did check to make sure it was plugged in.
But the bottom line here is that, yeah, a lot of things can fail.
A lot of things you might be able to deal with on your own.
A lot of things are just information
gathering for whoever can finally fix your computer.
For updates, for comments,
for links related to this topic and more, visit
askleo.com/3055.
I'm Leo Notenboom, and this is askleo.com.
Thanks for watching.