Well I have a desktop, I purchased years ago. I saved tons of pictures from all my travels in that PC. Soon I bought my MAC and my Dell, and after a year of not using my older desktop I turned it on to a loud noise. It sounded like the fan, soon the computer would get hot and turn off. Anyone know what the problem could be? Also a way to fix it perhaps? I just want to get the pictures out and get rid of it, its just taking up room. Also after repeatedly turning it on it started to smell like smoke, hopefully I didnt damage anything :nope:
...Hopefully its not like my old computer. My graphics card cooling fan went, causing my graphics card to overheat which caused one of the capacitors to blow, destroying my motherboard too. Why sort of a noise was it? Can you describe it? Open the case and check your fans.. Ensure they spin freely and are not blocked with lots of dust / dirt. Depending on the hard drive you have, you can search on ebay or something for a attachment. Basically you take your harddrive out the computer, put it in this holder which plugs into a USB port on another computer. Allows i to work like a portable hard drive / usb drive. They're awesome.
Neopia - The noise is probably from the fan. The desktop probably has cooling problems. Fans tend to die easily or become inefficient, hence, causing the overheat and the automatic shut down. It is a fail-safe measure. You could change the fan. It is pretty cheap.
I just opened the computer up, the fans (it has 2) are very dusty, I cleaned them, and only 1 moves (the smaller one), Im gonna try to find a repair guy and/r that USB connection port thing. Are all motherboards alike? Would they all fit the pc?
your motherboard is probably of a old version. It may be more wise to take out the hard drive and ask the guy to help you retrieve the photos. Repairing it may be too much a hassle. But do seek the repair man's advice. Hope everything works for you. =)