PC Cleaning

Not feeling loved.

Today I had some free time so I decided to clean out our family PC. I personally can't remember the last time I even opened the case so I figured it wasn't going to be pretty. It wasn't. So I disconnected everything and brought it down to my workshop. The patient is a trusty Gateway Essential that's about eight years old. It may not look like much but it gets the job done.

Anyway the outside of the case was in rough shape . I took some Clorox disinfecting wipes and wiped down the outside of the case. After a nice rub down she looked a lot better. That wasn't the worst of it.

Back of case.

Wow is all I can say.

I look in rear and discover that the vent holes for the power supply covered with dust. It's an overheating problem waiting to happen. I opened the case and wasn't as bad as I thought would be. So I took my can of compressed air and commenced blowing out the dust.

Inside view.

Inside view again.

I happened to notice that I was a little lacking in the ventilation department. Luckily I had an extra fan lying around. You should have heard the noise it made. At first it didn't move but with a little coxing I got it to go. Thats when the noise came. Don't think I ever heard one that bad. I immediately shut it down. I remember seeing this trick somewhere. I can't remember exactly or I'd give them credit for it.

Peal back sticker.

First you peal back the sticker on the fan. Then I removed the rubber cover over the bearing. You should see the housing inside. I squirted some WD-40 in it. I closed it back up and reconnected everything. I fired it up and it was much quieter.

Remove cover.

After putting back together I started it up again to make sure everything worked ok. It looked much better and I'm sure it was much happier now. Don't you after a shower? Anyway I was lucky that I wasn't having any overheating problems due to a clogged power supply fan. Well thats all for now. Have a great day!

My Gateway

This is an article I wrote for Helium.com about my Gateway computer. I thought I'd share it here also. To see at Helium.com click here.

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I loved the boxes that came with the cow spots.Thats how our Gateway computer came to our apartment about eight years ago. The back story on how I came to purchase it in the first place is kind of humorous too. My wife had taken a weekend a way from home. Myself left to my devices went to visit a Gateway store(remember those?). I surprisingly was approved with credit enough to purchase a new computer. I was like a kid in a candy store! At the time I knew relatively little about computers and pretty much went along with what the salesperson recommended. I bought a relatively low end model with the usual bundled software. I had to wait two weeks for delivery. At first I didn't tell my wife about it but she did find the receipt eventually and I had some explaining to do. For a long time it was a running joke between us if she left for weekend or something she'd tell me not to go buy anymore computers.

Anyway it arrived about two weeks later. I even took the day out of work to greet the UPS guy.In a matter of hours I was up and running. It was a Gateway Essential 433 with Windows 98 Second Edition, a 17" CRT monitor, scanner and printer. Over the years I have spent so many hours on this computer that my wife has gotten jealous of it and has threatened to throw it out.
Over the years I've done various upgrades to it to try and keep it somewhat current.It's been used for home office stuff, pictures,surfing the internet and even games too. The only problem I had that I had to contact Gateway about was the mouse stopped working which they sent me a new one free of charge. I've pretty much upgraded everything but the case, motherboard,network card and modem. Everything else has been replaced or upgraded.The monitor finally died away last year. It has run Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows ME, and currently runs Windows 2000 Pro.
Over the years it's been used and abused but has rarely let me down. I've learned a lot about personal computers using this Gateway. Also it served as my guinea pig as learning how to fix and repair computers. I was so impressed I bought a second used Gateway which I'm using now which has been just as dependable.

Am I done with this Gateway just yet being eight years old? Not at all.Despite it's age it's still used everyday. I still have plans to upgrade the hard drive, video card and move up to Windows XP. I suppose if the motherboard died I'd just put a new one in its place. I liken the Gateway the way some guys feel about there first car or the first girl they kissed. It's very much part of our family and I'd be saddened to see it go!

How-to: Install CD/DVD drive

Want to upgrade your old CD/DVD drive? Recently I picked a newer CD/DVD Writer by LiteOn. This features "Lightscribe" which perhaps I'll demo at a later time. I'd like to show you the steps on how change one of these out. It's fairly simple, so easy a cavegeek could do it. If you know which end of a Phillips screwdriver to use then you can do it. I'll go over the steps here and maybe in the future you'll be changing yours out. I'll go over the parts and tools you'll need and then the steps to install your drive. OK here we go...

Items needed:

1. CD/DVD drive
2. Phillips screwdriver
3. ESD wrist strap
4. Instruction Manual
5. Cup of fresh coffee (Ok you don't need this but I do)

The patient is my trusty workhorse Gateway low-profile PC . It may have only a Pentium III but it hasn't let me down yet.

First step: Unplug the case and remove all attachments. Remove cover. Usually it's held by some screws in the rear of the case. This where you'll need your Phillips screwdriver. Take the cover off. Some cases can be a bit tricky to open so be careful some cases have sharp edges on inside.




Second step: After the case is open locate the CD drive inside. Remove the cables from the rear of the CD drive. Be careful removing cables the can be stubborn. More than once my hands have slipped and caused me to bang my hand. Sometimes resulting in the need of a band-aid. Just try and wiggle them out a bit they should come out. On a side note be aware of ESD. Which in simple terms static. Either use a wrist ground strap or at least touch the outside steel case that before sticking your hand inside case. Some components can be destroyed be static discharges you can't even feel. So be aware!


Third step: Then remove the screws holding the drive in. Remove the drive from the bay. Most of the time it should slide out the front of the case. In this case Gateway had a nice feature that they have a quick release mechanism, but for most cases though you may need a small Phillips head screwdriver to remove the drive screws.



Handy Tip: Oh yeah I almost forgot. It's probably good idea to read over the instructions before beginning. Even though I've done this many times before it's still a good ides to at least skim through it or keep them handy. I've been guilty of just tossing them aside and jumping ahead into project only to need them halfway through a project. These instructions came in so many languages that I think they even include Romulan and Klingon.

LiteOn was even nice enough to provide a drive opener.
That was the first time I'd seen that one. came handy when I changed the faceplate.

Fourth Step: Install the new drive in reverse order, secure the drive, plug cables back in,replace computer cover and plug everything back in. Power it back up and if all went well Windows should recognize and install your drive. You may have to install additional software depending on the drive.

When it's done reach around and pat yourself on the back. Not so hard is it? Well that's enough for now. I hope you learned something today. If you have any questions feel free to contact me. Thanks for coming by today and I hope you return.

Sleeper Project

For thanksgiving my brother-in-law came over with his old computer. He had got it somehow through a friend(freebie). He said he could never get it to boot up. It's an old Gateway 200 LP Mini PEEC-166 desktop. Looks like it's seen better days that's for sure. I hooked it up and sure enough it seem to lock up on boot. The hard drive was thrashing like crazy with a very audible clicking sound. I knew that the hard drive was culprit just by that sound. By some means of luck (some skill) I did get it to boot for a short while. It has Windows 98, for hardware it has a Pentium 1 MMX, (hold tight for the startling specs!!) a 1.6 gb hard drive with a whopping 32mb of RAM! Anyway after awhile it stopped running and I wasn't able to get it to reboot. I did some diagnostics with my UBCD(Ultimate Boot CD) and it(hard drive) came up with numerous errors(big surprise). I tried the freezer method. with little luck. I put it back in the freezer again for another try. It seemed I was close a couple of times (saving data). I'll give another shot again in little while. He(brother-in-law) left disappointed but not surprised. He was mainly concerned over some stuff still on the harddrive. It belonged to a friend who had passed away and would like to pass along any photo's and such to the family. He'd actually like a laptop in the future and I told him I'd keep my ear out for him. the desktop was actually a low priority. The desktop it's self kind of grew on me. It's an oldie but could be updated with a newer equipment and work quite fine. I think of it hot rod terms of a sort of "sleeper" PC. So I guess I sort of have another project. Have a good day and talk to you later.