Around a month ago, my computer's fan started making weird grinding noises. I knelt behind my computer and stared at it. It was definitely turning around, but it was clearly not throwing much air when I put my hand in front of it. I touched the Power Supply Unit (PSU) and it was a bit warm. I tapped it, and it stopped whirring. The computer was not as warm afterwards, so tapping worked. But little by little, it became more frequent, until one day tapping it didn't work.

New experiences

I opened my computer for the first time since I bought it, and I'd never played with this stuff, so it's not like I wasn't savvy: I was completely ignorant about it. At the time, I didn't know it was even called a Power Supply Unit. It was just the box that got plugged in and had a fan. I watched a few videos online, disconnected the PSU from the motherboard (after taking a picture to know where each of the wires goes), opened the PSU, disconnected the fan and gave it a good clean with an alcoholic-water-dipped toothbrush.

Brushy brushy brushy it went, and from a dusty old fan, it looked like new. I then did as someone suggested and poured some circuit oil in it and poured some pressurized air. Into the PSU it went again. Solved, right? Nope. Still overheating. It didn't whir, it was smooth, very smooth! But it didn't blow hard enough. So I traveled the virtual markets for hours and looked for "cheap fans around me" announcements. I picked a store with many clients and got a fan.

Broken hopes

Days later, I replaced the old non-whirring fan with a new louder fan that blew air a little harder. It was 12 volts, but I didn't know the amperage. Cool, I guessed. 2 weeks later, my computer started turning off. Not cool, I guessed. Wrong fan? Did I break my PSU? I took my PC to a trusty technician who heard my story. He removed not the PSU fan, but the motherboard's fan and condenser, and saw that the resin between the condenser and the CPU (which I guess is necessary to transmit temperature) was dried and cracked. He got some more resin and spread it like butter all over the little circle on both ends, then plugged it all back in after giving it all a good brushy brushy and air pressurizing to remove the dust.

And it turned on! At last, I thought it was fixed. One day later, it didn't turn on again. So I'm guessing it was not the resin. But it had turned on for a day! So it may have not been the PSU. But it turned off again! So I don't know. What if the motherboard is damaged? What if it's the processor? What if it's the PSU? I saw that a motherboard is $80, and a PSU is $20. Will I have to pay over $100 to replace these parts and then find out that either they're not compatible or they were simply not at fault and something else was going on?

Uncertain future

I'm guessing only a technician will know. Meanwhile, I'm on a low spec laptop, wondering how long I'll be unable to play games, or have 2 screens, or use my lovely VPN to trick web services into giving me their forbidden foreign treasures. And I also haven't made much money these last few months, so all expenses will come from a not-so-deep pocket while I make plans to flee Venezuela. How much will this put me back? I guess I'll answer this question in a few weeks when I'm done with these problems.