I’m a retired computer repair technician from Salisbury and used to run a small business from a spare bedroom at my home. I used to deal with many of the common, and not so common, PC problems that people had.
The main ones were usually a computer not starting (booting up), running slowly or over heating.. These were often software issues but hardware problems were also responsible.
The business started back in 2007 when Microsoft Windows XP was the most popular operating system.
MS Vista came along that year but I heard quite a few negative reports about if from customers so never tried it.
We then had Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and then onto 10.
Version 11 has been out for a while now but I’ve not installed that on my desktop computer yet.
In fact, I don’t think my machine is compatible with that particular operating system.
Retired Computer Repair Technician Salisbury : Common PC Problems
I used to deal with a whole range of common PC problems, some of which were easy to deal with while some could be a bit of a headache.
Broken laptop Screens
It’s fairly easy to replace but they can be quite fiddly. The other problem is getting hold of a replacement laptop screen that will fit as they come in many sizes and fitments.
Touchscreens and digitizers are more awkward as they tend to need a hot air gun to take them apart. The screens are held together with a glue and this needs to be warmed up.
Overheating PCs
Overheating can be a problem in older computers and laptops. It’s due to the dust and fluff build-up in the CPU heat sink and it restricts the flow of air needed to cool it down. Smoking is also a problem as the nicotine also gets drawn in by the cooling fan.
The photos below shows how clogged a CPU processor heatsink can get. It gets to a point that the heatsink can no longer do it’s job so the fan will run flat out trying to compensate. In time, the computer will over heat and cut out.
In this instance, I removed the heat sink and cleaned it with an old tooth brush. I did the same with the fan and re-assembled it with some fresh thermal CPU paste.
Failed hard drives
Hard drives do fail and sometimes you know that they’re heading that way because they’re making a clicking sound.
If you’re lucky, you can recover the important data (photos, documents etc) from them by taking the drive out of the computer or laptop and putting it into a hard drive caddy.
If you can recover the data and transfer it to another hard drive or memory stick then the customer is likely to be happy. I’ve been very fortunate in the past but it’s not always easy.
If you own a computer or laptop, please make sure you backup your documents and photos on a regular basis. You might be very thankful one day.
Software Problems
Quite a few of the problems with computers relate to the software. Sometimes if needs a good clear out of temporary files and cookies.. Sometimes a file has become corrupt.
There are so many reasons why a computer won’t start and far more that I have time to write about 🙂
If you can discover the reason then that’s great. Sometimes it’s easier to reinstall.
Many thanks for reading, I hope it was of interest.. I enjoyed being a computer repair technician but I now keep myself occupied with my early retirement hobbies, blog writing and amateur radio.
Andy – Retired Computer Repair Technician from Salisbury