Should I beat this computer to death with a hammer, or fix it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a Dell “all in one” type computer, which I bought new a little less than 3 years ago. Intel I5-333os 2.7GH, 6GB, Windows 8.1. It is driving me crazy. It seems like there is always some little shit going wrong with it. Currently:

There is a VERY LOUD fan that starts within a few minutes of starting the machine. I barely do anything with this computer, it’s almost all word processing, a little web browsing. It never turns off after it starts. The computer is not dusty.

If I forget to shut it down for the night completely, it wakes up in the middle of the night and never goes back to sleep, running its fan loudly although no programs are running.

Today, I file I’ve been working on for months and was saved normally decided it was “read only.” Took me an hour to figure out how to fix it, and I have no idea why it suddenly changed. (Yes, I’m backing my work up.)

My Sketchup program slowed to a crawl a few months ago. I suspect this is a driver issue of some kind, but it was fine before that, and I didn’t update anything.

The CD drive stopped working consistently about a year ago.

There are various other eccentricities (sometimes text doesn’t render well, etc.) I don’t know, this thing is just bugging me. I had my old XP machine for about 8 years with fewer problems. It annoys me that I spent quite a bit on this computer expecting it to last at least 5 years, and it’s been driving me crazy almost since I bought it.

I absolutely hate 8.1, but I’m also terrified to try to update this thing because what if I break it further?

Should I give up and buy a new widows 10 machine? Or suffer for a few months until they get the kinks worked out of win10 and then buy one? I never play games, not even solitare, but but I do need it to run Scrivener, so a chromebook won’t work. I am not a fan of Apple’s “walled garden.” I will say that this thing typically runs very fast (well, except for this new Sketchup issue), it just fucks up all the time.

Should I ditch it? Pay someone who knows what they’re doing to fiddle with it and update it? Or is that money better spent on getting a new laptop? (This is a desktop, but I’d get a laptop if I switch, and that’s worth a couple hundred to me.)

Thanks in advance.

2

Short answer - hammer.

Long answer - get a laptop. Go ahead and get it now, as they fix the bugs in Windows 10 you can update.

I have a Dell, and it has issues. If you look online, lots of people are complaining about Dells. Mine will decide to “turboboost” for no apparent reason, and the fan will start running. Sometimes turboboost will crash for no apparent reason.

The main thing is, your computer is making you unhappy. If you can afford to remove this unhappiness, do it.

3

If the CD drive were still working, I was going to suggest that you torture it a bit before its execution by forcing it to play some Adam Sandler movies. Ah, well.

4

What’s stopping you replacing the fan? If this is the CPU fan, it may also be worth replacing the thermal compound.

5

Nitpick: A desktop/laptop Mac isn’t restricted to a walled garden. The walled garden is Apple’s iOS that runs iPhones and iPads.

6

The amount of memory and the processor look quite good so it might be worth getting the computer sorted out, including the upgrade to Windows 10. Perhaps get a couple quotes on the complete job and then weigh up if you would rather get a new computer or not.

7

I think the biggest question is how comfortable do you feel fixing it? Are you willing to replace the fans, for instance? I’d start by downloading a temperature monitor and see what’s happening in there to make the fan go berserk. It could be that the CPU cooler has gotten loose or separated in some way so the CPU heats up and triggers the fan to go full blast. Reseating the cooler and/or switching out the fans with higher flow, less noise types might help. I haven’t played with an All-in-One style system to know what’s involved.

The other issues (aside from the busted CD ROM) sound like a collection of software issues, possibly all unrelated to one another. A wipe and reinstall might be the easiest solution if you have a collection of different software side issues bothering you.

You could pay someone to check out the fan issues – I have no idea what a computer repair guy costs and whether or not the money would be better applied towards a new system.

8

If it screws up all the time and you’re considering hammering it to death, you can’t do worse by installing Windows 10. This has always been my mentality: if you’re at the point where you think it’s unsalvageable, you really can’t do anything worse to it by trying the thing you’re unsure about.

It sounds like there’s something wrong with either your hardware or your drivers. I once had a machine as a teen that screwed up quite soon after getting it and I suffered for years with it because I thought that’s just how it was with the hardware I bought. I eventually went and reinstalled windows on it, and lo and behold - it worked perfectly after that. It was a bad windows installation from the start. So I would definitely try and install windows 10 or reinstall what you have before doing anything more drastic.

It goes without saying that you should back up again.

9

ObNitpick: it’s not alive, so no amount of hammering will render it dead.

:smiley:

If it’s just a cooling fan being noisy, it might be dusty in critical places you can’t easily see, so the argument “it’s not dusty” may not be valid.

In particular, I’ve seen CPU coolers (the actual metal heatsink under the CPU fan) caked solid with a thick insulating mat of air-packed dust and lint. And that kind of dust problem is nearly impossible to see without carefully looking past the CPU fan and closely inspecting the heatsink. And would cause the “fan always running” problem.

I have a hard time believing the optical drive issue would justify replacing a computer. I haven’t used a CD or Blue-ray drive on a computer in literally years, other than for ripping CDs to files. And I just use a USB portable optical drive for that.

Slowdowns might be related to overheating. Files becoming temporarily read-only happens randomly with no apparent cause, especially for Microsoft Office.

Still, a new laptop would be portable, new, and shiny, and hopefully more reliable. You just have to hope that your applications will be compatible with Win 10, and that you can live with the various and sundry privacy invasions built in, or that you’re willing to disable as many of those as you can and live with the rest.

10

My personal thought is that Dell computers should be factory-smashed. I’ve always had bad experiences with them, whether home or office.

11

If you have to ask, smash.

12

Thanks, everyone, for the replies. I’ve been thinking about it all day. Leaning toward getting this fixed, and also getting a laptop. I’ve had good luck with Dells in the past, which is why I got this one, but apparently my luck has run out.

I downloaded the Coretemp thing (thanks), and the Tj Max is 103, with the current temps all being right around 50 (the computer has been on a while.) The back of the screen isn’t even slightly warm to the touch, and never has been to my knowledge, so I don’t think it’s actually getting hot.

I’m not exactly afraid to try to do the repairs myself, I just don’t have a clue where to start. I don’t even know how to get inside of this thing, there are no obvious screws or tabs. I really know nothing about building computers, and I kind of have a lot of things going on right now and don’t want to take on another “hobby.” So I think I’ll look around the area for recommendations on someone to take this to to fix it up, and hope for the best.

13

50C isn’t especially warm for a CPU, especially since you just have a stock cooler on it. It’s not warm enough that the fan should be running at a roar, anyway.

If it was a standard desktop tower I’d say to open 'er up and see what’s inside but, again, I don’t have any experience with all-in-one style setups and you don’t have any experience period so, if I were you, I’d call a few local shops and see what they’d charge you.

Since you say you don’t know how to get inside it, I’m guessing you didn’t physically open it to look for dust in the vents/fans? If so, that could still be the culprit. Or it could just be a cheap fan going bad. An easy fix if you know what you’re doing but, much like changing the oil, sometimes you just want to hand someone a few bucks and let them worry about it.

14

I’m taking it to a local guy someone recommended. I just don’t want to deal with it right now. The other issue is we live where the only option is sketchy satellite Internet, which frequently cuts out and also has a data cap of 10gb. I think trying to update to windows 10 on this connection is likely to be a problem. So off it goes. I think I’m also going to get a laptop, though.

15

I took the machine in, and the guy fixed the fan issue (basically by cleaning it, I really should have just opened the machine up.) He said when he tried to update to 10, they said it wasn’t recommended for this computer yet. So, OK.

He said he didn’t know anything about Sketchup, but he opened it and drew a line, and it worked for him. But it doesn’t work for me. I have major lag problems, up to a minute between telling the program to do some simple thing and it actually performing the function. It’s unusable, and I really need this program to work.

I suspect a problem with the graphics card, because I tried rolling back the graphics driver and that seemed to fix the problem for about a minute. I’m not having trouble with any other programs, so I’m not sure. The computer says the card is working. Re-installing the updated driver didn’t help. Is it possible that the graphics card has gone bad? If so, what then?

I’m holding off on getting a laptop for now, I want to wait until windows 10 has been out for a bit.

16

Nevermind. I fixed it by screwing with the settings on Sketchup.

Thanks again to all who commented.