dx my pc problem

[furcalchick]

i'm not sure where i should put this, mods move if need be. and no pc flamers (pc sucks type posts) either.

i'm currently having a major pc problem running xp (this could end the pc days for good, as i'm in the progress of migrating the rest of my pc work to my macbook, a year long process). for the past few weeks, my pc has been restarting at the strangest times, first, it was just after working on memory intensive programs. but over time, the restarts got worse and the restarts happen when i'm checking my mail or some other normal task. my computer is slowing down gradually, taking longer to respond to the mouse and keyboard. i've been also hearing strange buzzing noises from the tower, and i'm not sure where it's coming from.

i've pretty much ruled out a virus, since i've ran a virus check in the past week and put me with a clean bill of health. i personally think the hard drive is failing, but someone else said that the motherboard could be going down as well. can someone help me figure out why my computer keeps having these restarts? thanks.

 

[4JNA]

hard drive is a good first guess. you could try right clicking on the 'c:' drive, clicking 'properties' at the bottom of the list, and then clicking on the 'tools' tab along the top of the window that opens. the first box/pane is 'error checking'. click the 'check now...' button, and then put check marks in both the 'automatically..' and 'scan...' boxes and click 'OK'. it will tell you that you can't run it now due to windows running, but 'would you like to run at the next restart?' click yes and then ok/cancel you way out. this will schedule a disk check (chkdsk /R) at the next reboot and will scan the drive for errors and bad sectors. restart the computer and be prepared to wait, that is don't do this with any hopes of a quick reboot! after the reboot, i would recommend running 'defrag' if you haven't already. 'start>all programs>accessories>system tools>defrag' to find it, or the same right click/tools thing as above. running once a month is a good rule of thumb. more often offers no benefit, running less and windows will start to slow down.

second, and you didn't list comfort/skills level, but if you don't mind taking the side cover of, you should take the thing outside and hit it with a can of compressed air. blow out the power supply, cpu/heatsink/fan, and the rest of the case. while you are in (if you go in) look around the cpu for capacitors that have started to bulge. great if you know what i'm talking about, if not, look for little 'cans' with lines on the top that are starting to bulge up/out, and may have some 'goop/crud' dried on the top. if so, you've a dead/dying motherboard, and should save your info quick!

third is a whole bunch of windows command line troubleshooting that involves the registry. not fun.

best of luck with the repair.

 

[furcalchick]

just checked the hard drive, it checked out clean based on 4jna's instructions. and yeah, i backed up my important data over the weekend.

i'm starting to think the motherboard is dying out, since i've had it since 2002-ish. i'll test if the random restarts stop now or something.

 

[Frisco]

just checked the hard drive, it checked out clean based on 4jna's instructions. and yeah, i backed up my important data over the weekend.

i'm starting to think the motherboard is dying out, since i've had it since 2002-ish. i'll test if the random restarts stop now or something.

Check out the last post in this thread

 

[furcalchick]

after a complex series of events, i found out that the indeed it was the motherboard that died. a few days after this post, the power supply and the motherboard died, and only found this out after replacing the power supply. looks like it's time to put the pc to rest for real. mac only now baby. and after dealing with windows xp activation just to get some new files out really made me happy about my mac.