Not Just A User

What do you prefer between a PC and a laptop? For me, it's a PC that comes first then a laptop for any specific need like portability. From around 2010 I have been using PCs, and till now, I got three upgrades. The biggest perk of having a PC is the customization with the specs you can make, anytime you can upgrade anything. Also, the diagnosis you can do whenever there are any problems, pretty easily.

Laptops tend to run for a long time untouched, you won't push it harder as it might give you trouble after a certain level. For PC, you may push it,your hands will start itching for upgrades, and even the troubles after a certain limit are easily repairable.

I am a PC user, and also a mechanic, lol. If you are a PC enthusiast then you are bound to be a mechanic for sure, the amount of troubleshooting you will need to do will make you one. Here I am, tweaking things often, problems arise, I get down to fixing them, and that's how it's been going on for years.

Just like every other time, suddenly I am seeing an error that my PC won't start and showing my CPU as the culprit, cpu red light error. Tried some basic hardware troubleshooting attempts that every average PC guy knows but no luck. Went to the public forums to troubleshoot the known issue on the particular motherboard and processor. Bingo found related problems, well those were scary and concerning. I wasn’t ready to bear such an expense or the hassle of taking it to the service center which is in another city.

After lots of troubleshooting, I had to make the last call for diagnosis was to disassemble the whole PC, I mean the CPU cooler and the processor, and change the thermal paste. From the forums, I came across a few problems where the culprit was overheating due to the expired thermal paste. Mine got old too, so this could be the reason. I was scared to tear it down, what if I end up messing even more? Damage any product?

But I must try it out otherwise I will be in a lot of mess, without my PC I will be drown. Went to YouTube, watched a few DIY videos on how to do these, had some basic knowledge, and took the screwdriver to get started. To my surprise, it was easier than I had expected, way easier, did what I wanted to do, and turned on the PC. Guess what, the problem was still there, lol. Took some time, thought of possible issues, and did something a little different the next time and it worked. Wait, went ahead to the rabbit hole, and diagnosed a very weird issue, it is so weird that even the professionals might have skipped it as it was time-consuming, doing repetitive work in various combinations to figure out another culprit.

So yeah, lastly fixed it but found an issue that is not causing any issues right now but might do in the future. For now, I have skipped this and moved ahead with my working pc. Need to fix that later, most probably I might need to claim a warranty for that particular product's weird behavior. Not just a user, being the mechanic of it.