Mo's computer problems

Salix Babylonika · 2013-07-31 21:31:05

because any and all help is so, so appreciated

here are the prior posts on this topic:

Hey.

My laptop appears to be wrecked. Giving me a "no bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" on startup, typing this from my mom's.

I may not be around for awhile, and if anyone has any advice on how to fix this i'd be much obliged.

i had this happen once,
turned out that a screw from the bottom of the lappy i had removed is
what was holding the hard drive in.

so check if it has come loose or something

^^ Yeah, that sounds about right.

Unless the hard drive itself has burned out, it should be mendable with some manual repair.

so the screws do seem to be loose, or at least near the top of what
I'm going to call the screw-well because it sounds techy and I don't
know what it's actually called. They're covered in white crust
(oxidization one assumes) and one is outright rusted, they're really
small and seem to be phillipshead. I have been looking for a philips
head screwdriver for about half an hour and have not found one.

help.

I haven't ever tinkered with my computer in any way (especially not hardware) mostly for fear of breaking it.

Obā-san · 2013-07-31 21:37:04

well, when you do find a screwdriver, open it and the hard drive should look something like this:

assuming that your hard drive did the falling-outing thing that mine did a while back you would just have to push it back into place, then close the thing back up.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-07-31 21:39:00

I :think: mine is an IDE based on what my computer says when it (fails to) boot up.

That said the back of it isn't visibly deformed in any way. So I'm not sure that's the problem.

Wish I could find a screwdriver to check tho :/

Obā-san · 2013-07-31 21:40:13

the back of what?

Salix Babylonika · 2013-07-31 21:50:56

my laptop

like, nothing looks loose or out of place. Not that I'm sure it would.

anyway, the knife thing failed. Can't tell if I'm doing it wrong or if the knife is too big.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-07-31 23:05:38

It needs to be a stabbing knife, really. Thin blade and whatnot. The knife's probably too big.

Obā-san · 2013-07-31 23:15:41

Mo' said:
like, nothing looks loose or out of place. Not that I'm sure it would.

it wouldn't.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-07-31 23:18:28

a "stabbing knife"?

Salix Babylonika · 2013-07-31 23:20:38

also, in attempting to use my steam account on this computer I have discovered that it's linked to my old email account (the one I've been locked out of for forever), so if I can't fix this laptop I might lose my steam account.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-07-31 23:25:30

Basically a knife with a really thin blade and a point that forms a sharp angle.

That probably wasn't helpful. Your best bet is generally the knife that looks the smallest and pointiest.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-07-31 23:28:16

You should be able to talk it out with Steam Support, if it comes to that.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-07-31 23:37:56

I have stupidly neglected to mention that there is a second error displayed on startup.

one "PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM", above that it says "Check cable connection!"?

further, it makes an odd scanning sound when I turn it on.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-07-31 23:53:20

I really hope y'all are right about it just being a loose screw because this sounds complicated.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-07-31 23:53:45

of course I've tried fiddling with that BIOS menu or whatever it's called but I got no results out of it.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-07-31 23:55:07

Alright, here's what Yahoo Answers gave me, and here's some other guy's work on it.

^ Oh, too late.

Obā-san · 2013-07-31 23:55:25

really you just gotta open it up, see if the hard drive is loose, and if it is slide it back in.

that is if it is in fact loose...

^ i would try what these fine folks have said first though

Salix Babylonika · 2013-07-31 23:58:44

Yarrun XIX said:
Alright, here's what Yahoo Answers gave me, and here's some other guy's work on it.

^ Oh, too late.

I've looked at both of these already, all I learned was that something I'd tried early on as a solution might have permanently fried the thing if it weren't fried already.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 00:07:16

I have a phillipshead

am I unscrewing the screws or screwing them in tighter? Dumbest possible question I know but I want to be 8000000% clear.

Aliroz · 2013-08-01 00:10:33

Lefty-loosey righty-tighty. It should work on that principle.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 00:22:59

I wasn't asking how to screw them in Aliroz. :B

anyway, my stepdad agrees with you guys and says we'll head out and get a smaller screwdriver tomorrow, hopefully one that'll work. These are seriously the tiniest screws I've ever seen.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-08-01 00:28:16

They really are.

My old laptop got really slow and overheated constantly during its last months. I tried to open it up to see if some lint had gotten caught in there (or a lot of lint), but no screwdrivers or knives were small enough.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 00:32:04

eyeglass screwdrivers apparently work well.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 16:26:39

so bad news and good news

good news: my old laptop now has a fresh Windows 8 install on it

bad news: my harddisk is fried for reasons unknown and unknowable. I am permanently locked out my steam account due to issues I prior discussed in this very thread.

Miss Miko Mayonegg · 2013-08-01 16:28:20

:(

Obā-san · 2013-08-01 16:29:07

Mo' said:
bad news: my harddisk is fried for reasons unknown and unknowable. I am permanently locked out my steam account due to issues I prior discussed in this very thread.

keep your harddisk around and procure a SATA or IDE to USB adapter (*they can be found for relatively cheap on amazon*) then try getting your stuff off of there.

Yarrun XIX · 2013-08-01 16:42:43

There's still Steam Support.

Yeah, it might be a bit difficult without all the information, but I'm sure someone's had this problem before and they probably have a contingency for it.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 16:43:25

Hopefully having consistent billing information is enough.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 16:55:30

apparently these are submitted on some forum thing.

in any case I really hope this works. I look for all the world like a scammer and there's no way for me to prove that I'm actually me, really. Unless I was smart enough to set up a contingent account on my steam account itself (doubtful).

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 17:12:46

I'm on the big one now, it works but literally all of my data is gone. That's my Steam account, every game I had on it, a ton of games I got for free, FL Studio, all of my albums including one that was in progress, and god knows how much music.

At this point I don't even want to download anything. I'm going to the college store tomorrow and am probably going to just get a new computer there.

Also, my stepdad gave me his USB keyboard, so I guess that's one problem solved if nothing else.

Princess Alice · 2013-08-01 17:24:58

Bleh. How I envy those whose solution to a computer breaking can be "I'll just get a new one tomorrow."

Yarrun XIX · 2013-08-01 17:27:35

Man, sorry about the wipe-out

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 17:35:34

Central Avenue said:
Bleh. How I envy those whose solution to a computer breaking can be "I'll just get a new one tomorrow."

If it were my own money I wouldn't be able to do that, I was lucky enough to get a pretty sizable college grant for a couple reasons (we're basically poor and also I'm going for something that not a lot of people in this state go for), so I should be able to get a replacement. Hopefully.

Princess Alice · 2013-08-01 17:49:21

Ah, so basically the same thing I did when my old laptop started going south a couple months ago.

I understand.

Apologies for the bitterness. >_<

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 17:51:29

yeah I have two dollars in actual money in my bank account. This is gov'mint money.

Bunny · 2013-08-01 19:49:43

Mo' said:
also, in attempting to use my steam account on this computer I have discovered that it's linked to my old email account (the one I've been locked out of for forever), so if I can't fix this laptop I might lose my steam account.

Wait a second

Is the steam password the same as your email password

because if they're different ones you still have a shot

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 22:28:23

I think they're different, but off the top of my head I'm not sure.

also i sent them a message six hours ago and they've not gotten back to me yet

I'd really like to be playing BOI right now.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 23:09:43

so my stepdad has made himself the administrator on this laptop

things continue to get shittier.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-01 23:12:59

lastly, the college seems to be out of computers that aren't either netbooks or absurdly expensive (in the $1,000-$2,000 range)

sigh

Tre · 2013-08-02 01:18:54

:/

Sorry about all that, Mo.

Princess Alice · 2013-08-02 11:10:29

Mo' said:
lastly, the college seems to be out of computers that aren't either netbooks or absurdly expensive (in the $1,000-$2,000 range)

sigh

Are you able to shop anywhere else? I know my college locks you in to their own store at first, but after the first two or weeks of the semester, they refund the rest...

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-02 13:10:10

oh my god I got into my old Yahoo account

I might be able to get my steam games back

Obā-san · 2013-08-02 13:16:38

well there's only really one response to that

YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

lee4hmz · 2013-08-02 19:38:23

well there's only really one response to that

YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-19 13:26:08

so hey, guess what's broken again?

this time, Windows 8 decided to install some update or another and now whenever I turn on the computer, it signs me in to my user profile, and signs me immediately back out.

restarting, removing the battery, and a fucking system restore have not fixed this problem. as usual, google is useless.

Salix Babylonika · 2014-05-15 02:53:42

so hey, the monitor on my laptop just randomly died. The computer itself....seems to still be working, since it turns on when I boot it up, but all I'm getting visually is a black screen.

anyone have any ideas?

Füschlatz · 2014-05-15 08:19:57

What make and model number is it? Might help us identify where exactly you'd need to look for the problem.

Salix Babylonika · 2014-05-15 10:35:13

it's a Dell Inspiron 5.

oddly enough though, the only suggested fix I could find (beyond "get a new computer, you fuckwad"), which was just "turn it off, plug it in, and let it sit for a few hours" seems to have worked, as I'm typing this from it.

All's well that ends well I guess, but I'm wary.

Salix Babylonika · 2014-05-15 10:40:07

and now it's startin' to flicker again....

Salix Babylonika · 2014-05-15 11:45:16

and now my mom's computer is busted

when it rains it pours

Salix Babylonika · 2014-06-20 21:16:44

So, now this thing's battery is going. Or it's the charger, not sure which.

Basically it's no longer charging when plugged in (it doesn't lose charge, and it stays on, but it doesn't gain any charge either, it's been at 33% for days). It also gives me an error message any time I plug the charger in, something about not being able to determine the wattage.

What do I need to replace here? (Please don't tell me "the whole laptop")

Anonus · 2014-06-20 21:18:00

The battery, maybe?

Mo's computer problems

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