Carolina PC Pros | Tech Blog

Carolina PC Pros, LLC

90 Sylvan Way • Zebulon, NC 27597
(919) 302-9063 • help@carolinapcpros.com

Serving the Raleigh, Knightdale, Wendell,
Zebulon, Wake Forest and Rolesville Areas

Click for Zebulon, North Carolina Forecast

In our Tech Blog, we document some of the more interesting or challenging repairs that we come across as well as providing helpful information.

May 24, 2014 • Windows XP

A general note to all of our customers (and potential customers):

If you are still using Windows XP, your computer is at risk. Microsoft stopped providing Windows Updates for XP on April 8, 2014. Without these updates, security flaws can be more easily exploited. It is recommended that the computer be upgraded or replaced. Depending on your usage, a free operating system like Linux can be installed, extending the life of your system.

February 20, 2011 • Updates

A general note to all of our customers (and potential customers):

Make sure that you have Windows updates turned on, and let the computer perform the updates! This is critical for closing security holes and keeping your computer as reliable as possible. The same goes for Java updates, Flash Player updates, Adobe Acrobat updates, and so on. KEEP IT UPDATED!

July 13, 2009 • LCD Monitor Repair

LCD Monitor would blink on and off after power up and would occasionally blank out. After opening the unit and inspecting the power supply board, four swollen capacitors were observed. This is a very common problem in modern electronics. Electrolytic capacitors are used in many devices. Please Note: This is not meant to be a complete guide to repairing an electronic device. If you are unfamilair with electronic concepts, you should seek assistance from a professional.

	Here is the back panel. The stand is removed first.
After the stand is removed, remove the remaining screws.
	Using a small flat blade screwdriver, or something similar, work the case loose and remove the rear cover.
Once the cover is removed, unplug the inverter cables. In this case an adhesive foil must be also removed.
	Remove the video cable; this is a thin edge connector that is gently slid out of the connector on the LCD panel.
The LCD panel with the power supply and digital boards removed.
	Here is the power supply board, removed from its frame, showing the bad capacitors.
A side view of the power supply board. The tops of bad capacitors begin to bulge; in extreme cases, the electrolytic paste may be visibly leaking from the capacitors.
	The new capacitors, ready to be soldered on the power supply board.
Here is the solder side of the power supply board. Each capacitor's location is determined and the polarity of the capacitor noted. I used a removal tool and a soldering iron to heat and remove the existing solder. After removing the bad part, I inserted the new capacitor, verified the polarity and flowed fresh solder onto the pad and lead. I then cut off the excess leadwire. The process was repeated for each of the bad parts.
	Here is the power suppy board, with the new capacitors installed.

The unit was the reassembled by reversing the process used for disassembly. I powered the unit up and success!!

June 25, 2009 • Virus Removal

Customer complained of pop-ups and dire warnings on-screen of infections and data loss.

The computer had become infected with a virus in the Virut family. This particular machine had a rootkit (apparently in the MBR) that would survive the usual efforts to disinfect the machine. After some research, I decide that backing up user data and formatting the machine (including a wipe of the MBR) would be the most expeditious approach.

May 11, 2009 • Corrupt Security Descriptors

Customer could not log in and use his profile. Since Windows supports multiple users, it assigns ownership to files and folders for each user on the system. The customer could not log into his Windows XP profile. His documents and other data was intact; he simply could not log in using his account. There are several ways to correct this. Sometimes the CHKDSK process will correct security descriptor issues. In this case, CHKDSK did not correct the issue. I created a new profile and moved his documents and other data to the new profile.

May 5, 2009 • HDTV Repair

Customer contacted me and asked if I could replace some parts in an LCD HDTV. His HDTV was intermittently failing to power on when commanded to do so. He had found a number of people online who were experiencing the same problem, and one person had posted the fix, which involved replacing faulty electrolytic capacitors. He had the parts and the instructions but had no experience with electronics or soldering. We disassembled the unit to get to the power supply board. After noting the polarity of the existing part, I desoldered the faulty components and installed and soldered the replacement parts. We powered up the TV and success!

November 2, 2008 • Faulty Network Card

One of my business customers contacted me after noticing a complete loss of network connectivity. Upon investigation, one network switch port was showing a massive amount of traffic that was being passed to all of the other ports and switches. I first isolated the switch with the traffic. The other switches returned to normal. I then began tracing the cable that was connected to the port in question. I found a PC that had crashed and apparently suffered a network interface card (NIC) failure. The NIC was blasting random data into the network and had been causing a total saturation of the available bandwidth. After isolating and later replacing the faulty card, the network returned to normal.