If you're plugging in to the same AC outlet, then possible home circuits are wonky. Only a true electrician can really check that for you. It could be anything AC wise or wiring. You can try a simple AC surge(single) at the end of plug and then plug into a surge protected strip before connecting PC in. A simple meter on the AC line could show possible spikes or surges if that frequent. Also, if that AC line has other items connected on that "circuit", remove them or relocate the PC for testing purposes. Also, an AC line conditioner maybe required for your home that entirely different from a surge or UPS type setup. If you had all these working together they may protect your PC, too. That's surge protection, AC line conditioner and UPS all together.
It certainly helps to explain what PC model# and specs are involved. You say, "charging" heck desktops don't charge only laptops or networks, excluding any tablets.
If you add any s/w to the PC, YouTube has "iffy" freebies for doing this. Some are not to be trusted and can hose a PC up. It doesn't matter if you used it before, d/l'ing may introduce an issue.
Now, you're using 2nd hand PC's are they really that good? Check outside the home to see if they work well before trying at home. Also, if your location has "power issues" like brownouts or similar, then consider that as well. Alas, cheap is cheap if build from used parts, something maybe on its last days.
tada -----Willy ![]()
Hi there
Ok I am a computer noob, so; sorry.
Over the last 6 weeks or so I have had three computers stop working in almost the same way.
They were all second hand but it seems too unlikely that they all had almost exactly the same problem as they 'died'.
So I'll start off with the first one, it was a desktop "AMD Phenom 8650 Triple core". It seemed to work ok when I first turned it on, except that the sound wasn't working and at that point I didn't know to go to the website and simply re install the sound drivers.
Anyway, unrelated to the sound drivers the computer after a few boot ups seemed to have some issues, the computer would turn on but not load into windows properly as soon as it got to the windows screen in would return to the part of the boot up before that and continue in an endless cycle.
Eventually after hours of attempts I managed to get into windows and delete any personal information off the computer before it was to be returned to the seller. A few of the other times I tried to turn on the computer and it would die almost as soon as it had started powering up. So I gave up and returned the computer to the seller.
The next computer that came along was loaned to me by my father. It was another desktop computer. It was fairly old and slow but it worked well enough to listen to music. So I had it playing music on youtube for a night and happily went to sleep. The next morning I started up the computer, went to youtube and got a couple o f songs out of the computer and then out of nowhere there was a flash of the BSOD and the computer completely powered off. After that it had a similar problem to the first computer. It had trouble running through the startup and would get stuck on the windows loading window. It would also have trouble with staying powered on after startup. It would also shut off a few seconds after switching it on.
So my last computer I decided to spend a little bit more money on, yet it is also second hand. This one is a ASUS X5DAB.
The first time I turned it on it was ok. It seemed to be in fairly good condition and working relatively well. The only thing that I noticed was that there seemed to be some kind of problem with what I figured must be the power supply.
The backlight on the computer would go bright and then dim semi erratically and it seemed as if the computer was refreshing itself as the windows open would look like they were all trying to resize and they would quickly disappear and reappear as the screen would flicker to black and then back to the normal windows. Also the computer would at times not register that it was connected to the power supply or it would take a long time to realize it.
None the less I managed to work with it for a while and download a few free antiviruses, set up email accounts etc. Then I spent a night listening to music on youtube.
The next day I proceeded to listen to more music on youtube... After a few songs out of nowhere there was a sudden flash of BSOD and my computer was dead.
Since then I moved the computer into a different room and plugged in into a new power socket, then let the battery charge for a while and it worked for a few hours before once again powering off.
After that I was lucky if the computer remained working for two minutes.
However for some reason, I tried out the computer at another house and after plugging it in for half an hour it ran for around thirty minutes before dying again.
I repeated the procedure of charging in the same power socket to no avail and would be lucky to get ten seconds of the computer running.
The computer is back home now and I have attempted charging it and it will only run for 5 seconds or so if that...
Sorry for writing so much, does any one know what could be going on?
Any help would be much appreciated,
Cheers ![]()

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