Record of last Saturday night
On Saturday night, I started researching why the computer black screens and automatically restarts. The restart process is quite interesting, like a car stalling and starting again. The power light flickers twice, I hear the case fan hum, then it stalls again, the power light flickers, I hear the case fan hum again, then it stalls, and the power light flickers again, with the hard drive light staying on. At this point, it’s very likely that it can start up (the situation got complicated later). At this moment, it’s probably a power capacitor issue caused by charging and discharging, the capacitor is leaking. But I was too lazy to buy a capacitor to fix it (if it’s not a capacitor issue but a power transistor issue, that would be troublesome and hard to deal with). I have four or five of these 300-watt power supplies, and I’ve been too lazy to fix them; even if I fix them, they’re not worth much and I won’t use them. Quite useless.
Not playing games, the problem isn’t big, so I started testing the memory. I used a tool from 图吧 toolbox, which has a complete set of tools, all of which can be used by double-clicking, at most just unzipping. I randomly wrote the word memorytest; I’m not sure if I remembered it correctly. One x86 and one x64; I used the x64 version, and when the program started, I could still see the mouse moving for 3.4 seconds. Later, it just stopped moving. After more than ten minutes, I directly restarted the computer to change the testing software. I switched to the x86 version, but there was no response. I changed to another one. TestMem5 worked. I ran it once without any errors.
I used hdtune to test the hard drive; the slow scan of the hard drive didn’t check that quick option. Halfway through the scan, everything was green, waiting in the picture. I remembered the Terraria save file where my child and I teamed up, thinking that genius also has data recovery, so I tried scanning, and it was the save file from Saturday morning. I tried Magic Cube recovery and finaldata data recovery, all of them. During the process, I found that the progress bar stopped moving, and I saw that hdtune’s speed dropped from over 100M to 4.8M/s. I checked hdtune, and there were no issues with the front sectors. It was fine not to scan the back. Generally, restarting to read the boot will have more front sectors. I started focusing on data recovery. During the recovery process, I used another computer to look for solutions and found that bilibili had an update bios to solve the problem. I went to the Gigabyte motherboard official website and downloaded the latest bios. The F6 from 2021; the motherboard came with F4. The installation method requires a USB drive. The USB drive wasn’t nearby; I only had an SD card in hand. SD cards are generally not used as USB drives because they are unstable due to the instability of card readers.
I thought it was too troublesome to go out in such cold weather, and I found an app called @bios. After downloading, I found it was a compressed package that couldn’t be used directly; it needed Gigabyte app support. So, I downloaded the Gigabyte app, and then loaded this package, and upgraded the bios. I also carelessly updated the system patch. Fortunately, there was no crash or restart during the bios update; that was a stroke of luck. Otherwise, it could have been a big problem, especially when the USB drive wasn’t recognized.
When updating the Windows system patch, it prompted a percentage, warning not to lose power or restart, with a blue screen saying so. I kept my eyes on the screen, silently praying that nothing would go wrong. At 78%, suddenly, the screen went black. I gave up praying and muttered, "What the hell!" Then the flickering power light and hard drive light indicated that the computer was updating, then black screen, and then repeated, repeating four times. I silently thought I would have to reinstall the system again. But this time, I decided not to install it first. I thought if the power went out during the reinstallation process, it would loop infinitely. I decided to check for a second-hand power supply on Xianyu.
Not having money to buy things is just a waste of time; time is also money.
I first looked at the Antec power supply. The one I could use and that works well is from 2010; I replaced the fan, and everything else is fine for now. I saw a few that were around 450W for about 50 yuan, but they were all professional resellers of second-hand items. I thought I’d look for sellers who use them themselves; they might be slightly better. I looked at the clock and saw it was almost 2:00 AM. I decided to sleep first. I still had to cook tomorrow. Otherwise, if I wake up, it would be noon, and everyone would be hungry, which wouldn’t be good.
On Sunday morning, I thought about going to find a friend’s power supply to disassemble and test, but then I thought better of it. The back-and-forth disassembly would cost more than 50 yuan. I still owe someone a favor. I decided to buy a second-hand power supply directly. I checked the information again. Full Han, Sea Wind, Antec; I’ve used these and they’re all pretty good. Durable. The ones that broke were the Great Water Buffalo, Hanjia Xingu (some say they’re good), and Big Windmill. I looked at a few posts about disassembling power supplies on the Digital Home Appliances Forum. Full Han has shrunk, and Antec is about the same. But I still have faith, stubbornly sticking to Full Han and Antec. There was a Full Han Blue Storm 400W for 43 yuan with free shipping, which was pretty good, but I didn’t buy it; it was from around 2018. There was an Antec VP450P; I saw the date stamp was from 2016. The seller said it was from 2018, 45 yuan with free shipping. Later, I found out it was a reseller, but I saw the fragile sticker wasn’t broken, and it hadn’t been disassembled or repaired, but there was no specific year. I didn’t prioritize it. There was a seller who bought it in October 2018 and used it for a year before replacing it with a larger one because the power wasn’t enough. She (the avatar is a cartoon girl, I really don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, but it doesn’t matter) had a 550W. I thought it was a treasure, so I asked if it was free shipping. It wasn’t free shipping, and there was a 12 yuan shipping fee. A total of 67 yuan. I thought it was good, so I placed the order directly. She said the shipping fee was to be paid on delivery. I said don’t do that; it’s expensive. Just send the cheapest express delivery; it’ll get there. She said okay. After a while, she told me that it would be 31 yuan for Shunfeng from Hubei and 16+6 for JD. I said one is the most expensive, and the other is the second most expensive; just send the ordinary ones. She said Zhongtong doesn’t send. I said there are others. After saying that, I remembered the express 100 and White Dove Hui Express mini-program. I told her. I was afraid she would find it troublesome, and I would have to pay more shipping fees, so I quickly went to the mini-program to simulate the shipping fee from Shandong to Hubei. I saw that the first order was 9.6 yuan for YTO. I took a screenshot and sent it to her. She said Yunda was 18, and I said I would place an order online; they all have good service connected to the headquarters. Later, she said she learned something and probably got a discount.
Then she found a computer technician who tested it with a short circuit method and got a 5A output, proving there was no problem. I didn’t know; I said I didn’t understand, but it should be fine.
After placing the order, I remembered something; capacitors are prone to damage when not in use. I checked the information, and it was indeed the case, as short as a few months and as long as two years. This one hadn’t been used for four years. But it had already been shipped, so I thought I’d wait until it arrived. If it doesn’t work, I’ll buy a capacitor to replace it; other electronic components should still be fine, at least they probably haven’t been used much.
Next time I buy a power supply, I’ll prioritize the year it was made and long-term use. Previously, when I fixed power supplies for others, whether new or second-hand, I didn’t think so much; as long as it worked, that was fine. I saved money for myself, and when I cared, I thought more about it. In fact, whether it’s a brand or not, all the processes mentioned earlier are not that useful. I have a brandless motherboard network card that is still 100M, a brandless power supply, and brandless memory that have all been used for many years. No problem. It also relies on a bit of luck.
I didn’t sell the old broken computer; now that laptop, I’ll let the child watch bilibili first to relax.
Update: The second-hand Full Han 550 Blue Storm classic power supply I bought yesterday arrived; it’s not heavy. Looking inside the power supply, the components all look new. The power supply fan has a bit of dust, but I’m too lazy to clean it; if it doesn’t work, I’ll have to disassemble it to fix it, and I’ll clean it then. I originally planned to unplug all the power cables from the motherboard and test this power supply without installing it, but I found the table was too small, and the operating space was limited. If the power supply accidentally fell from the edge of the case and hit other components on the motherboard, that would be a big loss. So, I decided to directly remove the old power supply and install this second-hand power supply for testing.
After a series of operations, it lit up on the first try, started normally, and during the self-check, the CPU fan stopped for a few seconds. I was a bit nervous. Fortunately, everything went smoothly; the computer patch progress rolled back and updated the patch again. Entering the system, there were no abnormalities.
I tested the computer by playing a game of Warcraft III on the Lost Temple map. I forgot to block this map, which generally takes a lot of time. The opponent said he was a newbie. I said I was too. I randomly got the Undead faction. He was Night Elf. At the start, the opponent’s Moon Priestess used the Searing Arrow skill to harass my Acolyte. My Death Knight generally uses Death Coil to heal the Acolyte while directing the Ghouls to move. In the end, I surrounded the Moon Priestess. Just as she was about to run out of health, she used a Town Portal scroll, which clearly showed she wasn’t a newbie; harassment is a fundamental skill for experts. Later, it was indeed painful; the opponent used Huntresses to open expansion mines at 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock, 6 o’clock, and 7 o’clock on the map. Some of the expansion mines were destroyed by me three times. I was using a Spider build, and my heroes were Death Knight, Lich, and Crypt Lord. The opponent had a Moon Priestess, Fire Lord, and Naga. The opponent’s strategy was to take out my Death Knight. Several times, I barely escaped with single-digit health. After more than half an hour, after I destroyed his expansion mines, I established my own expansion mine. I opened three expansion mines. Feeling that the situation was looking good, suddenly I lost connection; the network was disconnected. I looked up at the three parrots standing on the monitor and understood. They were pecking at the network cable, power cable, and fiber optic line of the router placed beside the case. I didn’t know which connection was loose. The last time the internet was disconnected was also because of them.
I continued to observe the computer for about two hours, and everything was stable and normal. This morning, I continued to boot up and test for a while, and there were no problems. It can be considered repaired. Fortunately, it wasn’t a motherboard issue.