Acreo Aeneas

Okay. Tell us how that goes.

__________________
Acreo_Aeneas
Former 9th Member

msdz

Keep us posted cause I am really curious. I think it really is something simple like the hard drive, the other suggestions sound good too but would not make sense to me. working on computers you can run across a lot of weird things that happen and never even think it possible.
Like for instance the way my hard drive had failed me.

__________________

Acreo Aeneas

I'm hoping his clean install does the trick, because it sounds like a really frustrating and weird problem.

__________________
Acreo_Aeneas
Former 9th Member

El_Gringo_Grande

Well tonight I decided to load the computer as much as I could.

Started Zune and played a video. Kept working just fine.

So I started up some music with widows media. Kept on a truckin.

So I started up a video with quick time play. Kept working.

So I loaded up a browser and started a youtube video. Again, no problems.

So I started up Armed Assault. (all the other videos playing at the same time) Little jerky but didn't crash.

So alt tabbed out of that and went to a web app that hits javascript hard. No problem.

Started up my email with all the above running.

Downloaded an update to Warcraft.

I ended up with like 20 things going on at once and it ran like that for 30 minutes with no problems. (Well, the youtube video ended.)


So now I am going to put it to sleep and see what happens....

Drum role please!


.....

Well, it took about 10 minutes to come back up but it did come back up.

I also pulled the plug while running. I hit the reset switch while an app was loading and all kinds of other things. I cannot get the problem to happen again.

Maybe my son just did a magical 4yr old thing that an adult is not capable of.

Did the computer fix itself? I don't know. But if i can't reproduce it then I am not sure doing the clean install on a new drive is worth it.

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I知 not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

westyfield

Darn text-based games...

__________________
|TG-irr| westyfield

Thanks Oldirti for this sig!
Xfire: westyfield
Ikariam- Westopia, Quosios [18:35] (S). Colonies: Westyville, Nytios [18:29] (M), Westropolis, Tasetia [15:33] (CG).
Irregular since Sept 15th, 2007

El_Gringo_Grande

LOL! That is exactly what I thought at the time.

I could see him blasting away with all the pretty sounds and colors and flashing things then, long pause, a bunch of text. What a letdown.

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I知 not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

msdz

With all the things that you did IF it does happen again, I would really start to think it was the hard drive. I know I sound like a broken record but my hard drive just did not die on me all at once. It was so gradual that I never really noticed it at first then it got slower and slower. Certain thinngs at times seemed to just disappear. I did formats and frsh installs and seemed fine for while and then one day nothing, I couldn't get past loading Windows at all, it just stayed right there with the Windows little bar going across the screen BUT then the next day all seemed fine.
So, talking and asking around people were suggesting this and that but never the hard drive and of course I was going a long with them. I was buying a new motherboard and memory. I had also tested the memory using a program, I believe it was called memtest(not sure about that) but it also tested good. Maybe your problem is fixed but I kinda have my doubts, just to be on the safe side make sure you have backups of any important data before it does go completely out on you.

__________________

El_Gringo_Grande

Here is what I did last night.

I wrote a little program that wrote random data into a file. Once the file reached 1 gig I started writing to another file. I kept doing that until the disk had < 10meg left of free space.

Then I started reading the files back byte by byte.

Then I deleted all the files.

Repeate.

I let that app run and on the boot disk it did this 100 times. No errors no nothing. On the other disk I ran it 50 times. Again no error.

I am taking your advice and backing up the important stuff.

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I知 not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

ScratchMonkey

Could the problem be heat-related such that the failure only happens when the system is cold?

__________________
Sig

El_Gringo_Grande

An update.

It did not happen all last week. But I have a new drive that was wiped and vista installed fresh. There is nothing on it but vista ultimate, my video card drivers and one dvd drive hooked up. I only enabled the ethernet. Even disabled sound.

This mornig I get up, do a bit of work then leave for a couple of hours. I come back and it is at the "safe mode screen". Would not enter safe mode. But it was obvious my son had been at the computer.

I think he has a way of crashing the thing. But I also think that the motherboard is also responsible to for a large part of it. All I have to do is power it down and everything comes up fine again.

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I知 not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

ScratchMonkey

This reminds me of the time a friend got a "broken" VCR from his brother. The mechanism was jammed and wouldn't accept a tape. Another friend tore it apart and found that the brother's kid had slipped the cover from his sipper cup into the mechanism and it got caught inside.

I think I remember a commercial where some kid slips his peanut butter sandwich into the VCR.

__________________
Sig

msdz

Ok, well since you have a new drive and a fresh install we know it isn't that then like I had thought. Still there is a problem somewhere. Maybe it is heat related, try keeping an eye on the temps to see if it is anyway it may be overheating. Just doesn't seem like heat would just build up and cause it to restart after running a week with nothing happening, especially when it should be going into a sleep or hibernation mode to safe energy and should not generate much heat in that state.
Power fluctuations? If the power fails then it will cause the computer to restart. So maybe the PSU is dying on you, how old is it? Any new add on cards that may be using more power than what the PSU can handle? if not the PSU check the voltage from the outlet. It seems like that is an unlikely idea as well cause the same thing, less power and heat being used in the sleep or hibernation mode. Gaming is when you should notice the problem if the PSU is going bad.
Guess maybe it is the motherboard, after running through a lot of the possibilities that I can think of that seems the most likely. I am sure others will also give their 2 cents worth and they maybe be a lot better than mine.

__________________

El_Gringo_Grande

I am almost positive it is a MB issue. Today it wouldn't start again. Even the power down restart wouldn't work. So I shut it off for about 15 minutes and on startup it said "Overclocking failed enter setup".

I never overclocked. Never even went to that screen.

It did startup eventually. The tempatures are fine.

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I知 not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

El_Gringo_Grande

It is back!

It has started happening again. Exactly the same symptoms.

No new hardware or really software.

The difference? I cleaned the innards! I took some compressed air and blew out the dust.

Do you think my components like just a bit of dirt? After all, the last time this happened it took about a month total for all symptoms to go away. About the time it takes to get a even coast of fine dust over everything.

Hmmmm....

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I知 not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

jb4

Maybe they prefer a little blankie on the cold Oklahoma mornings.

It seemed interesting that your overclocking warning came up which leads me to think about changes we make for overclocking: Bus speeds, changes in voltages, etc. I wonder if a failing PSU may influence voltages or if you have a failing part in your mobo and the voltage is fluctuating to the point where the system is self-protecting and going unstable. That would be a guess to why the computer thinks you are trying to overclock it when you are not. I am not sure if static build up or improper grounding may cause it also.

__________________

POE2 2.5 Overview | How to get started with POE2 (for free)