what do you do when you dont know how to fix your computer?

[supaidaaman]

Im stumped. I have reached my limit of computer "know how."

At first i thought my new raptor was locking up and stuttering making windows lag and go slow, but the drive is fine no matter what test. I then thought it was my overclocking, so i removed that and ran memtest. I removed drivers and tried countless combo's. Im on my fourth clean install.

EDIT: (i know i can copy the cds to my drive, i just want to figure out the reason for the lock up when swapping any number and order of the CD's)
I have replaced and tried a different power cable for the sata drive, so far, the problem hasnt showed up, but i cannot figure out why i cannot install WoW using the 2nd install CD, it crashes my system every time. I have the same drive in another computer and WoW installed perfectly fine, so i took that drive and put in on my main computer, and still got the 2nd CD error. (the cd installed fine on my old harddrive)

My thought is that my power supply is failing, or my motherboard is flaking out on me somewhere is the pci bus or whatever...I do not know how to test these things.

What should i do now? I dont think any of my peers are anywhere near as computer savvy as me, and im sure geeksquad or anyone like that will just tell me to start replacing stuff i dont really need.

Who do you turn to? More forums?

 

[mbeleni]

Does the problem still happen with your 320 gb drive disconnected? I'm assuming that you're booting Windows off the Raptor.

Pick it up and go to a tech shop. They'll take your system and troubleshoot to find the source of your woes, but it'll cost you. Alternatively you're going to have to do exactly what you suggested, ie. purchase hardware and start swapping out parts until you've isolated the problem.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Take a break from it for a few days, just forget about it. When you come back to it you'll figure it out in less than an hour.

 

[benplaut]

i sure can sympathize...
I'm close to that point with this damn laptop that gives every sign of overheating, yet never actually gets hot

 

[smthmlk]

you start replacing parts with known working parts, one at a time, with fresh installs of windows after each replacement. You also run on a bare-bones sytem (fewest number of components possible) and see if the problem still persists. If you change out everything and it still happens? Well, then it's not just a problem with your computer Note that doing what I've just mentioned will take a lot of time, and is a big money pit if you don't already have spare parts or a second, working system which you can swap parts from. If you don't have access to parts, ask friends/family/loved ones, or send it to someone who knows what they're doing (a friend; not a company of any kind--companies will only take your money).

 

[Ken90630]

This prolly won't be your solution, but just FYI:

I recently built a new machine for an acquaintance of mine. I used all new parts but got constant BSODs during Windows installation. Tried everything: memtest, hard drive diagnostics, reseating connectors, taking parts out one at a time, swapping parts out, etc. I was about ready to throw the thing out the window. :frown:

Long story short: turned out the prob was a scratched Windows CD. :roll: Since you say you installed WoW on another machine with the same CD, this prolly isn't your prob, but it's possible that the CD is scratched just enough that one CD drive will read it but another won't. Just throwing this out there for your consideration.

Oh, and Geek Squad or the like would be about the last thing I'd do. IMHO, you're likely to get far better advice here than from them. I like the advice about walking away from the computer and coming back with a clear head. That has worked for me in the past. Good luck.

PS: No offense, but your chances of getting the help you need are better if you post in the Technical Support forum. :thumbsup:

 

[Teclis2323]

Another thing to consider with WOW...

there are well documented cases of WOW having a hard time installing direct from CD, even if you've done it with the same CDs before!!!

Try copying all of the install files into a folder on your desktop and installing from that folder...


just a thought.

 

[rasczak]

Originally posted by: supaidaaman
Im stumped. I have reached my limit of computer "know how."

At first i thought my new raptor was locking up and stuttering making windows lag and go slow, but the drive is fine no matter what test. I then thought it was my overclocking, so i removed that and ran memtest. I removed drivers and tried countless combo's. Im on my fourth clean install.

I have replaced and tried a different power cable for the sata drive, so far, the problem hasnt showed up, but i cannot figure out why i cannot install WoW using the 2nd install CD, it crashes my system every time. I have the same drive in another computer and WoW installed perfectly fine, so i took that drive and put in on my main computer, and still got the 2nd CD error. (the cd installed fine on my old harddrive)

My thought is that my power supply is failing, or my motherboard is flaking out on me somewhere is the pci bus or whatever...I do not know how to test these things.

What should i do now? I dont think any of my peers are anywhere near as computer savvy as me, and im sure geeksquad or anyone like that will just tell me to start replacing stuff i dont really need.

Who do you turn to? More forums?

what exactly is the issue here? the laggy slow performance or the inabliity to install WoW?

 

[Mavrick007]

Yes, that's not a bad idea, copy the files to your machine (if you can) and then try installing or install it on the other machine and then copy the installation folder over to your new machine.

Also, do you have problems installing anything else on that machine? If not, it might be the WoW installation.

Good luck!

 

[termac50]

I'm convinced Murphy's Law applies to computers too. Sometimes you put everything together and it doesn't work, then you come back an hour later, and the thing turns on like nothing's wrong.

I actually had the same exact problem, my 2nd WoW cd gave me an error during installation. And the cd worked on another computer too. So what I did was made images of the cd's on to the hard drive, then ran them with an dvd drive emulator like Daemon Tools, and it worked. If you can't get your computer to copy the cd, do it on another computer and copy the image over a network, or try burning the copy and see if that'll work.

 

[supaidaaman]

thanks for the replies!

The WoW CD swapping is just a minor issue for me, i can install it fine when copying the cd's contents to my drive.

I think that if i solve the issue related to the cd swapping then i can figure out what is wrong with the rest of my computer. I can install the game fine when i swap out to my 320gig sata II drive, it just happens when im on the raptor.

Im thinking that somewhere, somehow on my motherboard there is a problem with IDE interfacing with the sata 150 raptor. Im almost sure of it.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: benplaut
i sure can sympathize...
I'm close to that point with this damn laptop that gives every sign of overheating, yet never actually gets hot

Laptop is probably a few years old, right? The CPU heatsink is clogged with dust, and it IS overheating. Really. Find the INTAKE port/area, point a can of compressed air in there and blow. Guaranteed you get 5 pounds of dust blown out the EXHAUST area. Problem solved.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: AnonymouseUser
Take a break from it for a few days, just forget about it. When you come back to it you'll figure it out in less than an hour.

Good concept. I go to the gym and work out and it's amazing how many times the answer to the problem that's been vexing me comes to me in the middle of a set!

To facilitate troubleshooting computer problems I keep a second desktop. In fact it sits right under my main desktop tower (they are bolted together!). I rarely boot the bottom machine, but do use it for backups and for troubleshooting the occasional head scratcher. I also multiboot on both machines. Many times booting to a different partition will provide information that really helps. For instance, if it doesn't happen when booting to one of the other partitions, it's evidently not a hardware issue.

I also keep around alternative devices - for instance, my old video cards. If the one I have goes bad, I have a backup device.
- - - -
Edit: Going back and reading your post, I have an idea. A slow, stuttering HD happened to me a while back and someone suggested checking the advanced options in Device Manager for the drive. The drive wasn't operating in Ultra DMA mode. It was an operating system thing and I was shown a registry hack that forced the system to use Ultra DMA for my HD's. Otherwise, with Windows 2000 I could have these problems. Worked for me.

I made some notes under this title: Forcing Ultra DMA for ATAPI drives with VBS script that makes registry changes

There's a page: DMA reverts to PIO

 

[agathodaimon]

Sounds like the problems I had with My Asus boards. A7N8X and an A8N-E.

Both were swapped for MSI's.... Problem = Solved.

Just my personal experience... lol.

 

[supaidaaman]

Also i was wondering, could overclocking my graphics card cause problems that would be harddrive related? I havent had a problem yet, and i realized that i dont have an OC set up for this 4th windows install im on now.

 

[termac50]

Absolutely. My last system, a 3500+ single core, I didn't overclock it all for 2 years. Then I tried it a few weeks ago, from 2.2 to 2.4 I think. It corrupted my C drive so bad, most of it was rendered useless. I would get these weird popup windows, "Windows has detected an error in the registry, now fixing" or something like that. Next thing you know, I couldn't boot off the damn drive. So yeah, it can happen. That experience led me to upgrade the whole system.

 

[Sforsyth]

Have you checked in the device manger the IDE channel to make sure it didn't go into PIO mode this will slow your PC way down, This happens to me all the time pisses me right off here is a link to fix it if it that.


http://winhlp.com/WxDMA.htm


let us know if you fix it and what it was.

 

[Aikouka]

I've heard about the 2nd WoW CD messing up for quite a number of people, it's your CD, not your computer. Just copy the contents of your all 4 (or 5) CDs to the hard drive in reverse order (this ensures you don't have to go back to CD 1 and copy the install.exe off of it). You can burn a DVD with this if you'd like an optical copy.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: termac50
Absolutely. My last system, a 3500+ single core, I didn't overclock it all for 2 years. Then I tried it a few weeks ago, from 2.2 to 2.4 I think. It corrupted my C drive so bad, most of it was rendered useless. I would get these weird popup windows, "Windows has detected an error in the registry, now fixing" or something like that. Next thing you know, I couldn't boot off the damn drive. So yeah, it can happen. That experience led me to upgrade the whole system.

Not the system, but the graphics card itself.

I don't really see how overclocking a graphics card will cause degraded general usage performance. If you overclock it too far, it'll crash in games, but you're not talking about actually playing the game, but installing it. I'm not sure, but I'd revert it to stock anyway. The best thing to do when you have an issue is return everything to stock, and then start evaluating from there.

I also second walking away from the computer for a day or so. A couple times a year I will come across a computer displaying the strangest behavior that almost feels impossible to single out, no matter what I try, and I get extremely frustrated. It's not good, and doesn't help you think.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Sforsyth
Have you checked in the device manger the IDE channel to make sure it didn't go into PIO mode this will slow your PC way down, This happens to me all the time pisses me right off here is a link to fix it if it that.


http://winhlp.com/WxDMA.htm


let us know if you fix it and what it was.

That's exactly what I suggested with the same link a few posts ago.

 

[Sforsyth]

sorry didn't see that part of your post.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Sforsyth
sorry didn't see that part of your post.

That's cool. Thanks for the netiquette.

 

[supaidaaman]

The DMA mode is the first thing i always checked. Its currently set for Ultra DMA 2 with autodetection DMA if available.

Originally posted by: Aikouka
I've heard about the 2nd WoW CD messing up for quite a number of people, it's your CD, not your computer. Just copy the contents of your all 4 (or 5) CDs to the hard drive in reverse order (this ensures you don't have to go back to CD 1 and copy the install.exe off of it). You can burn a DVD with this if you'd like an optical copy.

Ive done this many times already, but its clearly NOT the CD's. Ive taken my CD/DVD drive up to another computer and the CD's install fine. I only get the error on the raptor harddrive . I even reverted back to my old 320gig drive and it installed fine.

This leaves me to believe that something with IDE and the first generation sata have a problem somewhere...or its the motherboard.

 

[termac50]

Ah, my bad then, thought he said the processor.

 

[bluemax]

"Dude! You're gettin' a DELL!"


(Just kidding!)