Well I’m trying my darnedest to not only find the problem but to somehow fix it at a reasonable cost, but J’s Acer PC is built to work only with what God gave it.
I did get the power supply tester and it shows that the power supply is working just fine. That leaves the possibility of the on/off button and connection, or the whole motherboard itself. Sounded like I should be able to transfer the innerds into another case (which have gone up considerably in cost lately) but Acer builds to Acer, and then changes design so that the new cases don’t quite work with the motherboard configuration of this PC. The connections from the on/off switch are also a bit odd–and in an all-in-one plug though I suppose I could rewire it. The other problem is that it doesn’t have a reset switch, nor a main on/off to the power supply (which is why I had to spring for the p/s tester). I also managed to get a connection adapter kit that may allow me to grab some data off of J’s nearly empty 320 gig hard drive.
So once again, as happens every two to three years, I’m at a crossroads of decision. Right now, with the price of PCs I’m looking at the long term (again, two to three years is long-term) picture. I’ve got a Dell Laptop, a 2-year old but rarely used main PC, the clunker in the shop just for internet really, the MacBook, and J’s Acer Aspire with some hefty power but a serious problem. Now the MacBook is what I use daily, almost non-stop. It’s got a warranty that expires in January (naturally!) and after 3 years, is starting to slow down and throw some curve balls now and then. It won’t, of course, die before the warranty is up, and it’s not sick enough to send in for repair. It’s the typical pain that stops hurting in the dentist’s waiting room.
What I’m thinking (looking into, researching, pricing out) as the best possible solution is to hand over the Main PC to J, backing up my own files on it and copying the most important over to the Dell Laptop as another backup. Then, perhaps getting a Mac Mini for myself that will serve as a backup should (when) the MacBook dies an irresurrectable death, then consider a small MacBook or MacBook Pro at that point. This would give us two Mac systems and two PC Windows systems that back up each other. Plus the three external hard drives and the multiple USB thumbdrives for all my creative work.
And yes, I’m probably a borderline obsessive compulsive.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology