Small cause – big effect!

Or the simple repair of a “hopeless” case!

By Ralph Kratzer

I usually do not repair any computer, because a) I lack the expertise, for my studies of computer science treated more the software side, and b) I just do not have time to do it!

But when a friend of mine from Germany and member of The Foreign Residents in the TRNC (TFR), who only temporarily lives in Northern Cyprus, talked about her distress with her PC a few weeks ago, I listened first of all.

She: My PC has given up the ghost, I’m desperate!
Me: What is it doing?
She: Nothing at all! When I switch it on, it makes only beep, beep, beep! And the screen remains dark!

This can be good or bad, I thought, mostly when these things do not do anything more, the cause is not too bad.

As a precaution, I asked a friend, who had often helped me with my own computer problems, and he also had the opinion: “This is typical of a memory error. It´s just cleaning the contacts of the memory modules, then it should work again! The humidity and dust in the air causes problems like that very often over here.”

So, off I went to the computer store and bought contact cleaner spray. Then on to the house of my friend, who still is in Germany at the moment, but soon arrives back here and desperately wishes to see her PC healthy again.

Her PC is a big tower, so it should not have been a big problem to reach the memory modules (with most laptops it’s even easier because these things are simply hiding under a cover in the bottom of the housing). The tower was quickly unscrewed and the side cover removed. The slots of the memory modules were placed easily accessible on the motherboard.

After pressing down the side latches at every slot I could remove the modules one by one. A clean cloth and the cleaning spray and off I went! I cleaned all contacts, also sprayed the empty slots and then inserted the modules again until they locked with an audible click.

Then, reassembling the computer, connecting all peripherals and pressing the on/off button – guess what? The thing again ran like clockwork!

Small cause – great effect! So do not despair if your “tin-comrade” does not longer want to work, often the cause is minor and to fix the damage goes quickly!

Two little tips for those who want to try a self-repair as well:

• To make sure to re-assemble the periphery cables of the PC as they were before, just take pictures of the back of the computer before you unplug them!
• The golden contacts of the memory modules or other modules such as graphics cards et cetera should never be touched with bare fingers, they don´t like this at all!