Unless you have a branded PC, it’s most likely that your desktop computer has been assembled by a technician. Many of the desktops you buy in Nepal are usually constructed by individuals and thus could require regular maintenance. If you have a branded computer, you can easily call up the company and have their technicians look at it but if you have a homegrown computer, this might not be applicable. The technician might have moved on or he might even charge you quite a bit for fixing simple problems that you could have taken care of yourself.

So, if you own a desktop, you might want to learn a few tricks on how to keep your computer up and running. And even if your computer starts acting up, you might need a little bit of familiarity with the hardware inside your computer to actually figure out the problem and fix it on your own. This method could end up saving you time and money that you might have spent travelling to your dealer and paying him for his time. Here, we take a look at some of the most common problems that might plague your homegrown computer and how you might go about fixing it.

Computer randomly restarting

Your computer will restart quite a lot if the heat-management inside your case is not adequate enough to keep the system components cool. Modern day computers come with a built-in safety mechanism that will shut-off the computer as soon as the temperature reaches a certain heat level. So, this problem could arise when you’re working on heavy programmes or gaming when your computer is under stress. This is usually caused by a build-up of dust around the CPU and GPU heatsinks and since Kathmandu is so dusty, dust build-up is most often the problem. To solve this issue, buy a thick painting brush and use it to clear out the recesses of the heatsink. Make sure to clear out dust from each and every corner so that heat dissemination is not hampered. Also, if you are comfortable with working with computer hardware, the best way would be to take out the heatsinks, for both your CPU and GPU, and apply a new layer of coolant to help the processors cool down. You can get a tube of coolant everywhere from computer stores are New Road to Putalisadak.

Static electricity buildup

Let’s face it, the electricity that NEA provides us with is not great (with its sometimes low while sometimes high-voltage fluctuations) and with load-shedding constantly shutting down your PC abruptly, there can be quite a lot of static build-up inside your computer. The symptoms of static electricity build up would be random restarts, computer freezing or even strange behaviour such as keyboard not working or mouse not working. When this happens, you will need to open up your computer and disconnect everything. Unplug your power-supply from the motherboard and the other components inside. Take out everything connected to the motherboard, the graphics cards, RAM sticks and hard drives. Leave the computer bare for a couple of minutes and gently run a soft piece of cloth along the connectors of your components. Also see if there is any dust-build up inside the connection ports and clean them if there are. After leaving everything out for a bit, reconnect everything and boot it up. If Windows does not boot up, don’t panic; certain components don’t show up after a clean-up. If the display does not come on, take out the RAM and plug it back in. Go into your BIOS and see if all your components are detected by your system, if not, re-plug them. This should get rid of all static electricity problems within your computer.

Software issues

There is no saving yourself from malicious applications if you’re a gamer since most of the pirated games you find in Mahaboudha or New Road are riddled with viruses. If you’ve installed games, more likely than not, your Windows is already infected. There are some good rippers like RG Mechanics and BlackBox that have clean rips but that too you can never be too sure. So, sometimes the main culprit for the problems of your computer is on the software side. So, I would suggest you have a good Anti-virus application installed and you clean your computer with CCleaner quite a lot. Also, if nothing helps you in this regard, a clean install of Windows will always help.

These are just some of the common problems you might come across while working on your desktop computers. Laptops don’t suffer from these issues since they have a dedicated power brick attached to the power connector (also because they use very low electricity compared to heavy-desktop components). But if you have specific problem that’s bothering you, you can always drop in a question and we’ll try our best to provide an adequate answer.

If your technological devices are giving you a hard time or if you’re just curious about certain technological questions, please drop us an email at [email protected] and we’ll try to answer your questions as best as we can.