Re: weird intermittent faults
 

How old is that PC?

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

Static and PC's don't go well together :eek:

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

3 years - not for sale (just in case you were thinking of that)

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

i wasn't. It's just a shame you have discarded it when it was still fine for your needs.

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

..not discarded ....just dormant, in case , ...I don't 'shop' so depend on internet shopping to survive.

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

dormant is the same as discarded. If you are keeping it as a spare you could at least restore it to new to fix the software faults. Should you come to need it again it will still be faulty, in fact if it is a fan and it siezes up it will fail when you try to use it.

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

It was a 17" screen Maragaret.

You should get it fixed as Neil said, when you want it to work it won´t as it stands

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

I have been reading up on reformatting
I did it once under the guidance of a Dell chap, by phone
I intend to try it on my own

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

I think your Dell will have a method of restoring it to its original as you bought it state

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

Because this 3 yr old pc is not in use it gives me a chance to learn about such things without the risk of being left without internet access.
I do absolutely all my finances and shopping on the web, and so would be 'up a gum tree' without a pc that works.
If my new goes caput I get help under guarantee to sort it. So I have a year to sort this old one-----might need a year :D

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

You really shouldn’t store your tower under the desk. It becomes a dust magnet. As you shuffle your feet under the desk any dust/animal hairs on the carpet get thrown up and sucked into the tower.

The best place for a tower unit is on the desk. You have easy access to the leads, sockets at the back and the CD/DVD/Floppy drives at the front. Not that anyone uses floppies these days.

When I first set up my PC yonks ago I bought a dining room table from a second hand shop for a tenner and two 1.5 cm thick, 7 feet long by 18 inches wide white Contiboards. These straddled the table to leave an 18 inches overhang at each side.

My monitor (then a CRT screen – now an LCD screen) keyboard and tower sit over the table. The left overhang has my printer and right overhang my scanner and both are covered with a cloth so that my smoking doesn’t coat them in smoke residue.

I also have a 2 feet by 1 foot piece of plywood wedged under the tower to support my whole arm from the elbow whilst operating the mouse.

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

My tower and printer are on a wooden tea trolley beside my desk.
After I had gone to the expense of buying a new PC I rearranged my furniture layout (yet again) - the faults stopped.
I now think that they were due to a radio telephone which was sited too near.

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

What you need is an orgone thingummy ;)

My latest WeirdoWillow episode. I think someone made them in an icecube tray! :D

Re: weird intermittent faults
 

Yeah, I had this problem before, the CPU overheats because the fans RPM isn't to it's maximum, just cleaned it out and it was right as rain