So we had the CD drive stop working, then the screen ...

[LIZS]

now the sound has suddenly stopped . Any ideas please ? It 's a Dell btw with Windows XP. Are they preset to self destruct ?

anyone ?

in control panel - Sounds and audio devices there is a mute option you can check isn't ticked.

Windows Media player or whatever you use would have a volume control of course.

Are the speaker cables in properly?

Thanks,we rebooted it(relaised it had shut itself down and restarted at some point overnight on Friday) and seems to be ok again - weird.

now the printer , which we had left on and open while we bought new ink cartridges , has lost power . Ideas please ? Have tried alternative power lead.

I've lots of printer problems, but never had one just die on me. Could it be in some kind of standby mode?

If it connects to the computer via a USB cable try unplugging that and putting it back in. Many USB things can be told by the PC to go to sleep. Never thought of that applying to a printer, but worth a try.

You might post the model. Perhaps someone has the same one.

thanks, it's an i560 Canon. Had problems a few weeks back with it not printing black and had printer head cleaned. Today it produced a 5200 message which we took to mean it needed ink as one was running low but the power died before we could replace spent cartridges. Wonder now if printer head has overheated and whole thing cut out.

Where the power lead goes in does it look as though that section slides out for replacement? if so it may be replacable (probably not worth it) or it may be loose.

I'm assuming pressing the power button on the printer itself does nothing at all.

If not perhaps someone else has some ideas. I'm afraid printers seem to be made to break these days

yes that bit is sort of attached to the main body of the printer iyswim.

I saw a post somewhere where someone claimed that taking it out or even just fiddling with it appeared to fix the same problem. I suppose it could be a loose connection.

Thank you - turned it over and fiddled with the ac bit and now have power. Still got a problem - light pattern suggests with printer head - but not all is not completely lost.

That's great! I'm afraid it might still have had it, but at least you can try things now. I wish printers were made a little better. It seems like I'm always struggling to keep them working.