Saturday 3 May 2014

Glitch in Power Switch on the Desktop

Question:

The power switch on my desktop has developed some glitches. On a quick examination, I found that the switch mounted on a small board fixed on to the cabinet and this cabinet is an unbranded one bought in the grey market. I have doubts if the switch can be replaced or if the small board housing the switch will be available at all in the market. Is there a work around for this?

By: Anonymous

Answer:

There is no straight answer for your question, as the switch, the board housing the switch will greatly vary from the cabinet to cabinet. For example, some cabinets are designed to have the LED cluster integrated in the same board and the physical dimension of such boards vary depending on the position and layout of the cluster. The switch can certainly be replaced, but needs a physical examination. As such, you may get hold of a next door PC repair shop, who does chip level servicing and get this serviced.

Just in case if your PC is 4 or 5 years older, and depending on your usage, you may consider upgrading your PC and in the process, change the cabinet as well. If you think, you are fine with your PC and it has much life left over to serve you, you may try the following:

Open your cabinet and locate the front panel connectors and figure out the pins that are connected to your reset switch. Now, pull out your reset switch connector and plug onto the pins marked for power switch. You may also plug the power switch connector onto the reset pins. You may need to consult your mother board manual to do this right or else, things may go wrong and you may even you may brick the mother board or the processor. With this, you may use the reset switch to power on your system and your power switch will act as reset, if to the extent it works. With modern PC mother board designs, and the operating systems, the power off is in fact soft and thus you don't need the switch for powering off. This won't work if your PC is very old and the power switch is mechanical.

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