A client asked if I could look at his home PC which I've done work on in the past, including upgrading the drives, replacing ram and reinstalling XP.
He said the system had just suddenly shut down whilst he was using it, and when restarted it only stayed running for another 10 minutes before it then shut down and wouldn't start up again.
I plugged it in and it powered up to the desktop without a problem so I thought it might have just been one of those odd things that sometimes happens. But I then noticed the back of the case was getting very hot so opened it up to discover the graphics card fan wasn't spinning due to dust build up.
I cleaned the dust from the case and graphics card fan and the fan then started spinning again but was definitely on its last legs due to that horrible squeaking noise you get as they are failing.
Then the system shut down as he described and wouldn't power up again. I unplugged the system and had a good look inside, but everything seems to be plugged in firmly. I connected the power again and without pressing the soft power button on the front of the case the cpu and graphics card fans started spinning which is a bit odd. And the cases front power led was flickering instead of being constant.
I ended up trying a different graphics card but that wouldn't power on anything. I did get the system to sort of power up once with the keyboard num lock light coming on but nothing else, and the monitor didn't get a signal.
So now I'm thinking the PSU is faulty along with the graphics card. What do you all think?