Some computer questions for the tech-savvy

[The Lone Gunman]

If that's literally the only thing you're looking to do, you can probably just use your phone (assuming you have a basic smartphone).

Download the song you want from YouTube using a free ripping website or app (there are hundreds of them, just Google "YouTube music rip android" or similar).

Then download a simple audio editing app to trim the song to 30 seconds. Again, there are hundreds of free ones available (your phone might already have one installed).

If you're just playing the first 30 seconds of the song (rather than a specific section), you don't even have to do that.

Almost all sound systems should have bluetooth or even a wired connection so that you can then play them during the quiz.

Might sound like a faff on the surface but it's far more efficient (and cheaper!) than the "old school" way.

Thanks for the advice, and I understand what you're saying, but that's not for me. I don't use my mobile for music at all.

I have an enormous CD collection which includes a couple of hundred three or five disc various artists compilation albums. A large part of the enjoyment of preparing and recording the quizzes is digging through the collection, finding the tracks, selecting the segments to be recorded, etc.

There will be a way to continue and I'll find it. There are a couple of apparently sturdy BluRay/DVD/CD players and burners available on the market at present costing between £120 and £160. The problem is the reviews are mixed as the machines are geared towards far more complicated operations than I need.

I'm talking a local professional PC expert tomorrow to get his views on the existing machine and any possible solutions going forward.

[blue matt]

2 options in my opinion

get a new PC PSU, £50 - £60 on eBay , 15 min job to change it in your Tower PC, hoover out all the fans and vents, maybe if you are feeling brave change the fans to better ones ( with more airflow )

option 2, get yourself a old MacBook Pro ( Sub £200 ), install windows on it ( using bootcamp ) which is easy to do , get yourself a external Mac CDR ( the apple superdrives are only £30 on eBay these days, which USB 2 and a slower date transfer rate, they will be good enough and simple enough for what you want to do )

[blue matt]

There will be a way to continue and I'll find it. There are a couple of apparently sturdy BluRay/DVD/CD players and burners available on the market at present costing between £120 and £160. The problem is the reviews are mixed as the machines are geared towards far more complicated operations than I need.

not sure what you are doing with it to be hung up on it being " sturdy " , they are designed to be slung in a laptop bag , at £15 each, get 2, if one fails when you need it, you will have a spare, but they are not as delicate as maybe you think

[The Lone Gunman]

not sure what you are doing with it to be hung up on it being " sturdy " , they are designed to be slung in a laptop bag , at £15 each, get 2, if one fails when you need it, you will have a spare, but they are not as delicate as maybe you think

I can understand your viewpoint, but I'm not talking about the build of the external CD/DVD drive as such. As you say, they are sturdy enough in that respect. I have an old HP external CD/DVD drive and it's solid enough. However, what I'm referring to is the internal mechanism of the machine.

When I record a quiz, there are ten rounds. Each round contains ten tracks and each track excerpt is between 30 and 40 seconds long. Therefore, each quiz lasts approximately an hour and contains 100 track clips. Unfortunately, almost all of the external CD/DVD drives on the market are just not built to cope with such a rapid turnover of discs. Unlike normal CD players, you need to clip the disc into these external drives. It's fiddly and the mechanisms are not robust enough for frequent use.

I need a drive where I can open it, drop a CD in and close it again like you would with a standard CD player on a stereo system. That's how they used to be on PC towers like the one I have now, but these days any PC tower that does come with an optical drive has the flimsy, upright, clip-in type of mechanism.

The sort of external drives you're referring to are no doubt fine for loading the occasional CD and burning the occasional disc, but they're not robust enough for the type of frequent use I'd need. I require something more like the Pioneer models in the link below, but they're obviously a lot more expensive.

https://pioneer-blurayodd.eu/

[lardy]

The sort of external drives you're referring to are no doubt fine for loading the occasional CD and burning the occasional disc, but they're not robust enough for the type of frequent use I'd need. I require something more like the Pioneer models in the link below, but they're obviously a lot more expensive.

https://pioneer-blurayodd.eu/

Never knew what the Welsh word for bluray was.

[North Cardiff Blue]

Last week my 12 year-old HP tower PC went bang, literally. It’s been chugging away on Windows 8 for the last few years and had developed a habit of suddenly shutting itself down at random moments. Whenever that happened, I merely used to unplug it, give it a few seconds, plug it back in again and it would usually start back up after a short delay. However, when I tried that on Friday there was a loud bang, the electric in my flat tripped out and there was a brief smell of smoke from the back of the PC. I’m not a computer expert by any means, but I think it might be knackered…..

I only use the PC for recording audio music quizzes. That involves ripping 30 to 40 second segments of songs from CDs to create WAV audio files and then burning compilation discs in the disc drive. I have a Chromebook I'm currently using for the internet and almost all of my document work, but it’s not possible to do the music quiz stuff on anything other than a tower PC. Unfortunately, all the external CD drives currently on the market are really flimsy and not designed for the type of frequent use I need while preparing a quiz.

My questions are these: do you think there is any realistic possibility that the old PC could be fixed? If so, do you reckon it would prove cost-effective (I've already been quoted approximately £180, and that's if it only needs a new power unit)? Failing that, do you reckon the small amount of data on the hard drive that I'd like to keep could be recovered and moved to an external hard drive so that I could eventually transfer it to a new PC tower? My guesses are possibly, probably not and quite likely but, as I’ve said, I’m pretty much clueless when it comes to stuff like this.

Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions.

Chat GPT says

"It definitely sounds like your old HP tower is beyond saving in any cost-effective way. A loud bang, tripped electrics, and smoke strongly suggest a power supply failure—possibly taking other components with it. While replacing the PSU (£180 quote) might get it running again, there's a good chance other parts (motherboard, hard drive, or RAM) were also damaged, making it an expensive gamble.

As for data recovery, your hard drive is probably fine unless it was directly affected by the power surge. You could remove it and connect it to another PC using a SATA-to-USB adapter or external enclosure (these cost around £10-£20). That should allow you to transfer your files to an external drive and then onto a new PC when you get one.

Since you rely on a solid optical drive for ripping CDs and burning discs, your best bet is probably a new/refurbished tower PC with a built-in disc drive or an older but reliable external DVD/CD burner. Avoid cheap, flimsy USB drives—they won’t hold up to frequent use.

TL;DR:

Fixing the old PC? Probably not worth it.
Recovering your files? Likely doable.
Best solution? Get a new/refurbished tower with a built-in disc drive.
Hope that helps!"

[WJ99mobile]

Dont bother fixing old one.

Some good advice in here for alternatives.

[sneggyblubird]

Like I said before I'd be surprised if you PC wasn't repairable. Years of dust is the biggest cause of overheating in a PC and I hazard an educated guess but I'd be surprised if there was any other sort of damage to other components as they are well protected. If there was then that quote for 180 wouldn't cover it. I would repeat though don't use a vacuum cleaner to clean it out otherwise you risk frying components with static-Take it from a chap that's done it.

[tforturton]

Buy a new PC, and an external CD drive, preferably with a cable. CD drives are £20-odd on Amazon. As long as your (new) PC has the socket for it (usually HDMI, but they do differ), then you're good to go. The PC should 'recognise' the drive as soon as you plug it in.

[PontBlue]

Hdmi is a display standard. Any internal cd drive will almost certainly be a sata connection

[AlwaysFeelinBlue]

A 12 year old PC usually isn't worth salvaging (unless it was really really high spec when it /the parts first came out).

The loud 'bang' could mean numerous things.

Possibly, the PSU is fried, you could replace it and whilst it's 'pretty easy' probably isn't worth it, also other components are likely gone as well, most notably the motherboard, if that has fried it probably has travelled to the RAM, CPU could be fried.

I would personally recommend a new PC, however in 2025, make sure it's got either windows 10 or windows 11 (if the former, if it's new enough should still allow you to upgrade to windows 11, but if not sure just get a machine with windows 11 pre installed) Do not get windows 8 again as as other people have said, end of life.

Make sure the primary drive is an SSD, I would recommend at least 8GB RAM at a minimum now.

Be careful when people say to make sure it's an I7, we are currently in the 14th gen of the I processors by Intel, for example, a 10th Gen I5 would be better than a 3rd gen I7.
You probably wont have a need for a graphics card for what you're using the PC for, and also to what others said, depending on the case, you will be able to situate the CD drive within the case and connect via SATA cable.

Also make sure that whatever type of connector you are using for the monitor, is also situated on the new PC (I.E, if you are using HDMI, make sure it has a HDMI port... there are adapters but from personal experience aren't as great as 'native')


I have worked in the NHS for 6 years in IT and have a degree in computing, but would also like to say a lot of people here also seem to know what they're talking about!

Good luck! :)

[The Lone Gunman]

Thanks for all the advice. It really was appreciated.

On Thursday evening I spoke to a local computer engineer. He said it was almost certainly a PSU failure as a result of both the age of the unit and a build-up of dust in the fans, as a couple of you suggested. He didn't think there was likely to be any other damage, so I took the PC over to his workshop yesterday afternoon. He contacted me a few hours later to say he'd installed a new PSU, cleaned out all the dust and the machine was booting up just fine.

I collected it this morning, it's working perfectly now (better than it has in years, in fact) and I was charged just £40.00! Excellent service and Neil is a really nice guy to deal with. Can't recommend him and his company highly enough. If you live in the Cardiff area and have any PC or laptop issues, his website is here:

https://wewillfixyourpc.co.uk/

I quickly managed to back up the data I thought might have been lost and now have plenty of breathing space to explore the market for some new equipment. £40.00 well spent I reckon.

[PontBlue]

£40 is a bargain for parts and labour

[Michael Morris]

Thanks for all the advice. It really was appreciated.

On Thursday evening I spoke to a local computer engineer. He said it was almost certainly a PSU failure as a result of both the age of the unit and a build-up of dust in the fans, as a couple of you suggested. He didn't think there was likely to be any other damage, so I took the PC over to his workshop yesterday afternoon. He contacted me a few hours later to say he'd installed a new PSU, cleaned out all the dust and the machine was booting up just fine.

I collected it this morning, it's working perfectly now (better than it has in years, in fact) and I was charged just £40.00! Excellent service and Neil is a really nice guy to deal with. Can't recommend him and his company highly enough. If you live in the Cardiff area and have any PC or laptop issues, his website is here:

https://wewillfixyourpc.co.uk/

I quickly managed to back up the data I thought might have been lost and now have plenty of breathing space to explore the market for some new equipment. £40.00 well spent I reckon.

My trading name is wefixyourpc, has been for 20 years. In the past I had people calling me thinking I was him. Glad you got it sorted.

Handy to know as I only usually do domestic stuff for my regulars, so I can recommend him if I get enquiries I'm not able to deal with.

[Tuerto]

Thanks for all the advice. It really was appreciated.

On Thursday evening I spoke to a local computer engineer. He said it was almost certainly a PSU failure as a result of both the age of the unit and a build-up of dust in the fans, as a couple of you suggested. He didn't think there was likely to be any other damage, so I took the PC over to his workshop yesterday afternoon. He contacted me a few hours later to say he'd installed a new PSU, cleaned out all the dust and the machine was booting up just fine.

I collected it this morning, it's working perfectly now (better than it has in years, in fact) and I was charged just £40.00! Excellent service and Neil is a really nice guy to deal with. Can't recommend him and his company highly enough. If you live in the Cardiff area and have any PC or laptop issues, his website is here:

https://wewillfixyourpc.co.uk/

I quickly managed to back up the data I thought might have been lost and now have plenty of breathing space to explore the market for some new equipment. £40.00 well spent I reckon.

And you didn't tip him? Tighter than cramp.

[blue matt]

Thanks for all the advice. It really was appreciated.

On Thursday evening I spoke to a local computer engineer. He said it was almost certainly a PSU failure as a result of both the age of the unit and a build-up of dust in the fans, as a couple of you suggested. He didn't think there was likely to be any other damage, so I took the PC over to his workshop yesterday afternoon. He contacted me a few hours later to say he'd installed a new PSU, cleaned out all the dust and the machine was booting up just fine.

I collected it this morning, it's working perfectly now (better than it has in years, in fact) and I was charged just £40.00! Excellent service and Neil is a really nice guy to deal with. Can't recommend him and his company highly enough. If you live in the Cardiff area and have any PC or laptop issues, his website is here:

https://wewillfixyourpc.co.uk/

I quickly managed to back up the data I thought might have been lost and now have plenty of breathing space to explore the market for some new equipment. £40.00 well spent I reckon.

thats very cheap, even a real cheap non branded ( which im not keen on ) PSU would cost £25, leaving him 30mins to swap it and turn the PC on

that PC should do you now, if it does what you want now, no need to upgrade