Around 11 am, I received a call from a young customer in Woodhill, near Jimboomba. His gaming PC had made a crackling noise and smoke had come out. He thought the motherboard had blown.
I attended the same day and traced the failure to the power supply. After replacing it, the computer powered up and ran again—a welcome result for a customer who had feared a much bigger repair.
With the PC working, I checked the rest of the system. Although it was an older machine, its Intel Core i5-9600K and Gigabyte Z390 motherboard were still suitable for Windows 11. It needed TPM enabled and some work on its boot configuration.
One complication was that Windows was installed on the SSD, but the files needed to start it were on a separate hard drive. I made the SSD boot independently, converted its partition layout from MBR to GPT, and configured UEFI boot and Secure Boot.
I also spotted an opportunity for a performance improvement: the 3200 MHz RAM was running at just 2667 MHz. Enabling its rated speed offered a possible performance gain of around 10% in some games and applications, depending on the workload. It was disappointing to think it had potentially spent years running below its rated speed, but satisfying to give the customer more from the hardware he already owned.
To finish, I gave Windows a tune-up, removed unused programs and unnecessary startup items, and updated the graphics driver.
The job ended with a working gaming PC, its Windows 11 compatibility issues resolved, and a five-star Google review:
“Very good and respectful did a fantastic job fixing my computer, would recommend”
These are the jobs I enjoy: finding the fault, getting the customer running again, and spotting a few worthwhile improvements along the way.
