A Computer Gone Mad!

[kittykat 10]

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???

[Cycleracer 10]

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.

[kittykat 10]

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

[max 13]

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.

[Cycleracer 10]

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.

[t020 11]

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.

[Neo 10]

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.

[Michael_W 11]

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

[kittykat 10]

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.

[robh 10]

Originally posted by kittykat yes my computer definitely has dust in it.

In view of your photo, perhaps it's full of white fluff?

[richard 10]

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.

[RPG 10]

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