Well, maybe not quite that simple to fix, but when I finally got a chance to look again at that IBM computer for the daycare center and found that it wasn’t the power supply (good thing I looked around a bit inside again, I was about to order another power supply which would have ended up in my stockpile for P.C. Frankenstein) I found something that is almost as dumbly overlooked as making sure the damn thing’s plugged in.
The Problem: It wouldn’t turn on–not even the case fan. This is what detoured me to the power supply as the cause. But upon connecting up the new one (never had before because it was too physically large for the case) from outside the case and plugging it in, I quickly found that it wasn’t the easy answer I was looking for. That’s when you just kind of stick your hand inside and first push all connections in to make sure they’re not loose, and if they weren’t loose, you pull them all out and reconnect them. This gives you an excellent excuse to make a schematic drawing with colors marked and all–it just brings out your more creative side when the technology side isn’t going well. Sort of, creative relief, I suppose.
This fiddling around deep inside the bowels of a computer usually will produce an answer eventually, and it sure did this time as well. The power on button wasn’t making a connection because, being a computer that is used by three-year olds (why do they have internet connection on this computer?) it had crumbled under continued abuse. A dab of GOOP and it was all set.
I just love it when life goes smoothly. Oh yes, and when we relearn an old lesson, such as “Don’t overlook the obvious.”
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology