The Glade 4.0

How do professional computer repair folks diagnose hardware issues? Do they just swap out parts with ones they know are good until the computer starts working again?

Depends on the symptoms. If you have no sound or staticy sound, you aren't going to change out the video card, for example. For problems with bootup, you can check for error messages during POST or beep codes. The beep codes will tell you if the CPU is fried, or the memory is bad, or the video card didn't initialize, or other low level things like that. If you're not getting to the beep codes, it's probably the PSU or the motherboard.

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The default answer is the one that results in the highest profit margin for the shop.

Gotcha. Yeah, in my case, the computer would start powering up, get part of the way into the boot sequence, then turn off and start powering up again, rinse, repeat....and so on. I bought a POST card and tried using that to figure out what was going on, but it never registered any error codes - just said "00" the whole time, which isn't one of the codes for my mobo. I then bought a PSU tester and checked that, and it did show a problem, so I bought a new PSU. Unfortunately, the tester showed the same damn problem with my new PSU, so either I was using the tester wrong or it's as useless as the POST card.

So, I just hooked up the new PSU anyway, and the computer started working normally again (other than a Windows 7 SP 1 issue I can't figure out, but that's another story). In short, the two diagnostic tools I tried to use ended up being useless to me, and I just had to swap the part out and see what happened. Figured there must be a better way, but it sounds like I followed the right steps. Not sure why the diagnostics weren't working though.

There's only about 7 functional blocks that can go bad...

psu
mobo
ram
cpu
video
storage
i/o

The psu (power supply unit) is the hardest to troubleshoot 'cause it can present as problems in some or all of the others.

Which is why it's always the first thing I start with if I'm unsure.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Sounds par for the course friend. It's like any other discipline, you just get a feel for it after a while. Explaining it all is probably like me asking you how do you get verdicts for your clients. You know the rules and you try to read the situation, but at the end of the day every one is different and some times you just gonna feel your way though it. I've had loose hard drives brick systems and there isn't a great technical explanation for that. I don't mean that to put down your efforts at self-help or your profession, but it is what it is.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Well ****. I finally got the computer working again after changing out the PSU, but I couldn't get Windows 7 SP1 to install. Spent hours on the phone with Microsoft tech support only to eventually be told I needed to update the chipset drivers and flash the BIOS, which MS couldn't assist me with.

I updated the chipset drivers first, since that's the safer of the two procedures, but that didn't fix the issue. So, then I flashed the BIOS...aaaaannnndddd...the damn computer is back to cycling on and off when I boot it. *sigh*

Why don't you just send the computer back with a warranty to fix it? I guess if you don't have a warranty, you are now laboring to make up for it. If you count the hours you work and your wage then you've probably wasted a lot of money.

It's a home-built system, so no warranty. It's not about the money though (whole thing only cost about $600 anyway); I'm just being stubborn about fixing it myself. Figure the only way to learn is by doing, you know?

You have an ASUS motherboard don't you?

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Gigabyte, actually. It's the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L. In case it's relevant, the processor is the Intel Pentium e5200 2.5 GHz.

Hmmmms ...

I'd say just get a new motherboard and CPU.

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Yeah, probably what I'll do at this point. Any recommendations in the under $200 range?