After years of not shutting down my PC and just turning it off, my comp has finally gone mad.
It freezes every hour and it annoys me. It also makes weird grunting noises and the fan is louder than it should be.
When you ask it to print something it takes aaaaaaaages (about an hour for 15 pages of stuff in black and white) and it only prints when i go out of the room. (i think its a bit scared of me cos i have been known to try and 'fix' it by kicking it)
Ive deleted as many programs as possible so its got more space on it and isnt as confused but it seems to do it even more.
I cant get my new laptop til september so ive got to put up with it for 3 more months. Is there anything i can do to stop it going mad that will not involve taking it it back to the dodgy shop i got it or opening it up and electrocuting myself??? :help:

Kittykat it may be that your equipment is just getting old, mine did exactly the same before i got rid and bought a laptop.
I am far from an expert in this field so don't take my opinion as anything special.

Well i had thought of that but ive only had it for about 3-4 years. I thought PCs were supposed to last much longer - then again im not expert either

You may have a virus - run a check.

Your disk may need defragging, this could cause your disk drive to thrash around and make funny noises.

I think the printer problem may be separate. Have you another PC you could plug it into to check? If not, run a test page, see how long that takes and get back here and we'll re-think.

If I think of anything else I'll post.

PS where in R'thm are you as I work near M'room r'about.

I had mine less than that, the growling noise and constant crashing is exactly what i had, may depend how much you use your equipment.
Ah well we will wait till some expert gives a reliable reply for you.
Good luck.

When you don't shut down properly, files can move around or become corrupt. I suspect after years of doing this, the best thing to do in the mean time is to back up files of any importance, format your hard drive, re-install windows and start again from scratch, only this time, shut down properly! As for your printers, you may need to update the drivers for it, which can usually be done by going to the manufacturers website.

Heh.. My nice new p4 1.6Ghz is already playing up.
I've had it for about 12 months and it's been buggered up for the last 4. I've sent it to be fixed 3 times now, and each time it's come back exactly how it was when i sent it. The hard drive randomly crashes and restarts itself, and I'm running XP.

Yeah.. The best way around your problem would probably be to format the hard drive and re-install everything. The fan being noisy is probably due to the amount of use over-time and your pc may well need a clean inside the case. Failing that, components like that aren't too expensive to replace these days.

It might be dust causing your problems kittykat, get someone who knows what they're doing to take a look inside :wink:

Thanks people! Whats formatting though? How do you do it? If i recall, with the 1 i had before this i used to have a disk and id put it in and restart the computer and it would wip everything off except the things it came with. Is that the same thing? The only problem with that is that i dont have a windows 98 disk. Do i need one?

Michael W - yes my computer definitely has dust in it. I remember when a pencil got stuck in the floppy and i had to open it up and errr it was disgusting full of big clumps of it. Thats why i dont want to have to go inside it again.

Originally posted by kittykat yes my computer definitely has dust in it. In view of your photo, perhaps it's full of white fluff?

I remember reading somewhere that Windows 98 should be re-installed every three months if you want it to stay stable. Just a note to any others not shutting down their computers properly;
If your harddrive is being accessed when you power down it can be very bad. There is a current running through the needle which reads the data and when the computer is turned off there is a power spike to the needle which can permanently put a portion of your disc into the "on" state. In other words it breaks a bit of your harddrive, sometimes. This can be very bad if it breaks a certain bit of your harddrive but most likely is that the harddrive will just get worse and worse and things will just crash more.

Unfortuantely Microsoft have not yet manged to come up with a file system which can store where the bad bits are in order to work around them. For any Linux users reading, just like defragging, you dont need to worry about it. Defragging and bad sector marking is done automatically for you.

Originally posted by richard
I remember reading somewhere that Windows 98 should be re-installed every three months if you want it to stay stable. Just a note to any others not shutting down their computers properly;
If your harddrive is being accessed when you power down it can be very bad. There is a current running through the needle which reads the data and when the computer is turned off there is a power spike to the needle which can permanently put a portion of your disc into the "on" state. In other words it breaks a bit of your harddrive, sometimes. This can be very bad if it breaks a certain bit of your harddrive but most likely is that the harddrive will just get worse and worse and things will just crash more.

Unfortuantely Microsoft have not yet manged to come up with a file system which can store where the bad bits are in order to work around them. For any Linux users reading, just like defragging, you dont need to worry about it. Defragging and bad sector marking is done automatically for you.

happened to me the other day did that, power went off on an access, took a good 30mins to boot up

*seems* normal at the moment, running 2K mind so its quite tough :)

I would recommend defragging the hardrive(s) this will arrange the files in the correct order so it knows roughly where to look for the data first. You may also have bad sectors within the hardrive. Scan Disk (found in the same area) should correct this if it is a minor sector. thought sometimes even formatting the computer fails to remove some bad sectors. as for the printer. well its probably just old age. I had an old old Canon 4200 and that suffered from the same fatigue. took 5mins to print 1 a4 page.

Originally posted by RPG
*seems* normal at the moment, running 2K mind so its quite tough :)

Yea I agree, Windows 2000 Pro is a very good system. Probably one of the best Microsofrt have made (for the home market, low end server market). even in comparison to windows xp. though I was always having LAN problems. loosing packets constantly. gave up trying to fix it and installed xp pro. not problems as yet. no format since february and its pretty caked up at that! very impressed (touch wood) watch it now, blue screen of death! arrgghh! hehe! sods law! :D

1) Run Windows 2000. It is a very stable operating system, doesn't crash as often as previous versions and doesn't suffer from the 'XP slow down'.

2) Keep your anti virus up to date on an almost daily basis. Don't have or can't afford one? Get AVG FREE from www.grisoft.com (http://www.grisoft.com)

3) Protect yourself from hackers with free firewall software from
www.zonelabs.com (http://www.zonelabs.com)

4) If you need to check if you are vulnerable to hackers, run the tests at www.grc.com (http://www.grc.com)

5) Invest in WINDOW WASHER, an excellent program to check your system and delete unwanted internet and temporary files. Find this at www.webroot.com (http://www.webroot.com)

6) Use the Windows DEFRAG tool at least once a month.

7) BACKUP!

8: BACKUP AGAIN! CD Writers are only £30 and are an ideal solution to back up your work.

9) Re-install once every six months or so. It can be a bit of a pain but there are ways to minimise the disruption:

Partition (split) your hard drive. It allows you to keep just Windows on one drive and all your documents on another.

Install Windows then install all the service packs and updates from Microsoft. Ensure your drivers are all the latest versions and then use a program like Drive Image or Norton Ghost to make an 'image file' of the drive. Then, when you need to re-install, just use this file and it will restore your computer to how you set it up.

Originally posted by alchresearch


9) Re-install once every six months or so. It can be a bit of a pain but there are ways to minimise the disruption:



LOL Thats if u you can get it to last that long! hehe! Im usually on an 4 Week cycle.

When you re-format and re-install all your programs, take an image of the new, "cleaned up" hard drive using a utility like Norton Ghost or Acronis Backup.

If you do this, on subsequent re-installs, the process is completely automated. All you need to back up then is your data.

re-format the hard drive and re-install your windows 98 i think you said its easy 20 mins tops if you got your master windows disc and licence number there are ways to clear your hard drive FAST,but what you had on your pc will be wiped off completly so you need drivers for your /printer/scanner etc.the printer whats the model cus it sounds like it may need to be taken off and reinstalled .if any body wishes to know how to reformat with windows 98/98 se them shout out ill print you a step by step quide etc dummies guide instead of taking to thepc shop and paying out from £ 30 .

I decided to take the easy option and get a new computer instead. I think my old one was just too messed up to fix. Anyway now ive got a lovely new laptop, so another Q:

Has anyone got a laptop that plays DVDs?

The one i just got does and i havent got any DVDs for it yet. Can you actually watch them ok on a laptop? Is it worth me buying any or is the pic all blurred and the motion all slow?

Does it depend on the speed of the laptop as to how well it plays them cos mine isnt really that fast, i had to sacrifice one thing to get it so cheap and that was the processor which i understand to be quite crap (1.7GHz Intel Celeron) but RAM is apparently OK AT 256 ddr


So with all that in mind is it worth me buying Kes or other such films on DVD or will it be a waste of time. (i dont want to buy a proper DVD player as i think videos are good enough)