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Computer having Hissy Fit TM.

Posted: 2003-12-16 06:39am
by El Moose Monstero
Got back from the US to discover that the old machine,

1.2 Duron
128 MB DDR Ram
20 GB Harddrive
Geforce 4 64 mb
Windows XP

Standard Modem
Hauppage WinTV card

One Buggered Monitor

was filled to capacity, it had 17mb left on it, I don't know how long its been like that, my sister had filled the remaining gigabyte of space I had left, now I admit it wasnt in great nick when I left, but now, I don't know whats going on.

My monitor is buggered, I know this, because aside from the fact that it's been left too close to a speaker and now has permanent weird colour on the side, but I also think that the connector cable has been damaged in someway, as I know get a flickering and stuttering display, and every now and again, it simply gives up and displays a pattern of diagonal patterned vibrant coloured lines, this usually coinciding with a total crash.

So, I've cleaned some space from the computer, but the system is now extremely unstable, crashing every time I turn it on after about 5 or 6 minutes, this usually meaning that every attempt to defrag or scandisk or virus scan is totalled within a very short amount of time.

As far as I can see, the only solution to this is a reformatting and a clean slate, which means that I lose everything on it, unless I can transfer it all to this computer, but on the outside chance that it is a virus, (but I'm pretty sure it is extreme wear and tear), I don't want to screw this one up too much either.

Can anyone help me on this one, I've tried doing this in safe mode, but again, same problem, is there anything I can do before I hit the big red reset button - could it be something physical, the computer has been standing idle for a while, could it be dust clogging up a fan or something?

Posted: 2003-12-20 12:20pm
by El Moose Monstero
Update- and could really do with the help here - have fixed problem I think, but made the mistake of selecting last known good configuration on the F8 XP menu at start up. Desktop now running at 4 bit colour and will not let me change it, I just dont get any other options. I've read that the last known thing alters the registry, but I've no idea about what to do with the registry and am not going to go fiddling around unless anyone knows what to do. Can anyone help with this?

EDIT: It still reads that my graphics card is installed, I just can't change it, and of course, nothing runs on 4 bit colour.

Posted: 2003-12-20 01:11pm
by TrailerParkJawa
Lumberjack,

You mentioned a second computer? One way to tackle this problem would be to take the hard drive out of the unstable XP machine and place it into the other machine. Set the unstable drive as a Slave to the drive in the good machine. Once you boot use your anti-virus software on the good machine to scan the bad drive. Just to make sure. If its clean you can pull off the data then format it.

-- TPJ

Posted: 2003-12-20 01:19pm
by El Moose Monstero
TrailerParkJawa wrote:Lumberjack,

You mentioned a second computer? One way to tackle this problem would be to take the hard drive out of the unstable XP machine and place it into the other machine. Set the unstable drive as a Slave to the drive in the good machine. Once you boot use your anti-virus software on the good machine to scan the bad drive. Just to make sure. If its clean you can pull off the data then format it.

-- TPJ
I think I have the stability problem cracked now, not sure what it was, but i took the whole computer apart last night (a bit of a mistake, as I then had to consult every instruction manual I had to get the pins back in the right place, and generally blew all the dust off the parts, then put it all back together, and the flickering and crashing appears to have stopped, but theres no way to be sure until I get the display back to normal.

Your idea is sort of a last resort as I'd have to clear quite a bit off computer number 2 to copy all the data across, if I can fix the current registry/good config problem, then I think it should work again.

Posted: 2003-12-20 02:11pm
by Kyle
The_Lumberjack wrote:
TrailerParkJawa wrote:Lumberjack,

You mentioned a second computer? One way to tackle this problem would be to take the hard drive out of the unstable XP machine and place it into the other machine. Set the unstable drive as a Slave to the drive in the good machine. Once you boot use your anti-virus software on the good machine to scan the bad drive. Just to make sure. If its clean you can pull off the data then format it.

-- TPJ
Your idea is sort of a last resort as I'd have to clear quite a bit off computer number 2 to copy all the data across, if I can fix the current registry/good config problem, then I think it should work again.
You wouldn't have to clear any space. What he's talking about is physicalling hooking up the HD from your old comp to your new new comp and then running antivirus. You're just hooking up your old primary hard drive as a secondary HD on the newer computer. No data transfer required. just unpluggin and then repluggin two wires and a change of jumpers. a less then two minute job in all.

Posted: 2003-12-21 05:20am
by El Moose Monstero
Kyle wrote:
trailerparkjawa wrote: If its clean you can pull off the data then format it.
You wouldn't have to clear any space. What he's talking about is physicalling hooking up the HD from your old comp to your new new comp and then running antivirus. You're just hooking up your old primary hard drive as a secondary HD on the newer computer. No data transfer required. just unpluggin and then repluggin two wires and a change of jumpers. a less then two minute job in all.
I got that bit, the quoted bit above was the thing that I was saying that I didnt have the space for, the stability thing is less of an issue now as, as I said, I think it's solved, as I've had none of the monitor corruption (which has been on two seperate monitors so I know that it's something to do with the graphics card) and none of the random blackouts that I was getting. But there's this registry thing, see post 2, which is bugging me at the minute, and if there's an easy way to solve that, then I think it should work again.

Thanks for the assistance though, both of you.