You hit the power button on your computer and nothing happens. This is a common problem and could be the result of many issues but we will discuss what to look at when determining the problem.

1. Is it plugged in?
   • Don’t get insulted, this is the most common problem when it comes to computers not turning on
2. Is your surge protector turned off or bad?
   • Find the power switch on your surge protector and make sure that wasn’t switched to the off position by accident.
   • Make sure other devices in that surge protector work
3. Is the main power switch on the back of the power supply turned off?
   • Below is a photo of that switch
     

If none of these solutions work you may be looking at a bad part in your computer. The most likely culprit would be the power supply which can run from $50 to $150 (Above for a high end machine).

Should you need help replacing your power supply or diagnosing your power problem and you live in the Metro Detroit click here Computer Repair.

Yes there is, in fact there is a free program that can replace all of your office programs.

OpenOffice offers you a free office suite and can open Microsoft Office files as well as safe files that can be opened in Microsoft Office.

I also love Google Docs as a replacement for Word and Excel. It is free and your files are stored on the internet so they are always backed up.

One of the worst feelings in the world overcomes you when you accidentally delete files from your computer. This feeling is multiplied when the files are precious moments captured in photos.

The good news is that you can recover your lost pictures but there are no guarantees.

Recently I formatted a memory card that was full of pictures that I had not transferred over to my computer and I was worried that they were gone. Luckily I knew right away that I needed to recover files, this is important because if you write on the disk the chances of recovery go down by a large percentage.

If found a program called Recuva, installed it and ran it. After about 45 minutes all of my pictures were found and I was able to transfer them to my computer.

Here is what you need to know about data recovery:

1. If you write to the drive after a deletion the chances of recovery go down by a large percentage
2. If your hard drive or memory card is physically bad you will have to send it to a special shop to get the data recovered and the price tag can be well over $1000

Good Luck

This question came from DweebExchange.com

Depending on how old your computer is and how much power it draws you could be paying close to $219 per year extra on your power bill. This fact alone makes me think twice about leaving my computer on. You will not do any harm to your computer either way so dont worry about that. If you do decide to turn if off you do want to make sure that your virus scans, backups, and updates are run as those are usually performed at night while the computer is idle.