Posted on

Air Cooling Mid Tower CPU Chasis With HDD Docking Station

This is quite unique as no one has tried something quite the same, maybe due to increase in costs. Yet it can be quite useful, especially if you are a person who keeps throwing your things around. The Dokker is priced at $65 only, able to support upto 12.5”cards, so a perfect match for your foot long CPU. When compared to the earlier Corsair case, the Dokker is sure a hot deal!

Thermaltake is a famous DIY Chassis brand, which is coming out with their latest top mounted HDD single bay docking station PC chassis, the all black Dokker. It can compile one 3.5” or 2.5 SATA drive as required. It gives way for fastest on-the-go data transfer without the necessity to set up a software or hardware.

The Dokker also allows great airflow with a choice of fitting upto 7 fans. A whooping 10 drives can be installed while the HDD drive bay presents an anti-vibrant design, promising a silent computing experience. For those looking for more cooling effect, the Dokker is prepared for liquid cooling setups too.

A comparatively huge mother board tray hole design assists free movement for removal/exchange of CPU coolers. Then you also have the pre-installed dust filters for the fans, mainly the dust filter beneath the PSU is easily removable and cleanable. It is equipped with just a 120mm blue LED- boasting fan at the rear end.

Thermaltake’s case is listed in Australia at present and is priced at AUD 89.10/88.3 USD. But at the Thermaltake’s store it costs $64.99. The Dokker measures 18.5×7.9×19.1 inches weighing about 13.4lbs. It also supplies three 5.25 inch and one 3.5 inch accessible drive bays. Other features are slots for USB 2.0 and HD audio; tool free installations of PC cards and storage drives; pre-installed dust filters for fan and much more.

Posted on

My Computer Beeps When I Switch It On … What’s The Problem ?

This post is part of the series Boot-up Troubleshooter.

If somethings wrong with your motherboard and/or graphics card, then your PC will make some unusual noises in the form of beeps, these beeps are known as beep codes. These beep codes are actually produced by the BIOS chip.

The BIOS chip has an inbuilt diagnostic system whereby it alerts you to any problems it encounters during bootup. It does this in two ways – a series of coded beeps if the problem occurs before the graphics sstem has initialized or a text error message if the fault comes after.

Depending on your BIOS manufacturer, the beep codes will vary, so you’ll need to know who your manufacturer is before you analyze whats wrong with your motherboard and/pr grpahics card.

Finding who your manufacturer is very easy. As soon as you re-boot your system, you’ll notice your BIOS manufacturers detains at the top of the screen. You should quickly make a not of it as it won’t be displayed for long.

If you are a Windows ME user, you can get your BIOS details by:

::> Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools

::> Click System Information and look under System Summary.

There you’ll find information about your BIOS Version.

Posted on

My Monitor Doesn’t Work Or Turn On / PC Does Not Boot – How Can I Solve This Issue ?

You come home and switch on your system, and the system decides to shock you! This post is part of a series what I call ‘Boot-up Troubleshooter’, with the aid of which, you’ll find solution to the most common boot up problems.

You may face one of the two basic problems while booting up your system :

1> The PC appears dead, ie. the monitor is blank, nothing shows up in your monitor,

2> The PC refuses to boot up completely, i.e. it starts the boot up process, but stops half way through before completion

If you are facing any of the problems, read further. Lets take it case by case, to start with

PC appears dead / monitor is blank / nothing shows up in the monitor when computer is swiched on

May be it sounds silly, but the first thing you need to check is whether all the power cables are connected properly. At times, everything will be right and a loose connection in the network of wires can be creating problem. Check if there is power available to your PC. This should be the first check, not only in case of your computers, but any other electronic or electrical appliances.

There are LED’s and something called a ‘power supply fan’. Check if the LEDs are working and the power supply fan is blowing. When you switch on your PC, the lights on the keyboard should light up, check if you can see that working fine. If they are working fine, then the power supply is pretty much fine.

If your answer was a no, then check one of the following:

> Is there power at the wall socket? The easiest way to check this is to plugin another electronic appliance and see if that works fine.

> Are you using any surge suppressor or any other similar device? If you are using anything like that, try removing them and see if the PC works fine after that.

> Check PC’s power cable and also most modern PC’s have an on/off switch at the rare of the CPU case. Make sure it’s ON.

If none of the above is causing a problem, then you need to get a technician and check if the PC’s power unit is defective and may need a replacement for it. The other possibilities are that you may be facing any  one of the three potential problem, that is either the monitor, graphics system or the motherboard is faulty, which needs replacement or repair.