Model Boat Mayhem

Mess Deck: General Section => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: tobyker on October 22, 2009, 06:29:45 pm

Title: sick pc
Post by: tobyker on October 22, 2009, 06:29:45 pm
I've got an 8 year old MESH PC with a 1400 Ghz AMD Athlon processor, 512Mb RAM. running Widows XP Home SP3. I have 2 HDs - the 115 Gb C drive has 87GB spare and the 37Gb F drive where I store photos etc has 7Gb free.
A couple of months ago it started losing my (the administrator's) profile on startup, but rebooting usually fixed that - if it didn't work the 3rd time, I went to the last reset point and that fixed it. Then I went on holiday for a fortnight, leaving the PC off and unplugged. On my return it failed to start when I switched on - the lights flashed when I pressed the button, but it just groaned and stopped. I then had to unplug it, wait until the green LED on the motherboard went out, plug it back in again and switch on again. It then works, but gives the error message about an incorrect processor speed at the last boot-up - despite showing 1400 on the DOS type setup page. ESC/return/return and eveything works. I have brushed and hoovered out the inside of the machine and cleared all the vents, and as suggested on googling the error message, have changed the mobo battery. It is still refusing to start on the button unless I do the unplug procedure. Presumably the non-starting is a mobo or power supply problem , and losing the profile is a windows problem (which seems to have gione away for now).   
Any ideas, chaps?
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 22, 2009, 06:42:11 pm
Basically:

1. Ensure that all your stuff is backed up - use an external disk.
2. Get a new PC - yours is lying on its back with its legs in the air and just twitching. I'm surprised it's lasted that long.

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Greggy1964 on October 22, 2009, 06:57:09 pm
Hi Tobyker,

Have you tried another hard drive in place of your C:/ hard drive? The problem may be caused by a virus on your C:/ drive and they are designed to attack your windows operating system files. Each time you switch off and restart, the virus spreads and the computer gets worse until all you have is a black screen. Been there done that! >>:-(

Have you tried reinstalling windows XP from your disks? You do have the operating system disks that came with the puter when you bought it? If you don't have them Ebay sells XP home for about £26 these day but only buy hologrammed disks to avoid the pirate ones.

When loading Xp, it gives you the option to repair the existing operating system which will keep all you existing files on the poorly hard drive or you can reformat and start again, but this option clears all files and reinstalls anew.

Disconnect your 2nd 87 Gb hard drive while doing all this so you don't accidentally format the wrong drive.

I keep a 2nd hard drive with an operating system using software that mirrors my original drive on the 2nd one. If the 1st one gets a virus I replace it with the 2nd and then nuke the 1st with the format command and the mirror it with the 2nd hard drive.

I keep all important files on a 2nd hard drive in my puter and I regularly update a file I have on it with my links to favourite websites as I have tons and it would take years to find them all from scratch. All important document files and picture files are kept on the 2nd drive so that if my C:/ drive goes down I don't loose too much.

If the software approach doesn't work your looking at a hard drive or motherboard failure, I've suffered both in the past.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Klunk on October 22, 2009, 07:15:58 pm
my opinion......
did you just brush and hoover inside?
wrong, take your time and take the whole motherboard apart, disassemble the processor area, you will need to buy some thermal paste to redo the processor to thermal fins. make sure all the parts you take out are cleaned with a brush and preferably blown out with a compressor on low pressure. all fans should rotate freely when flicked with your finger. dont forget to clean the powersupply. Carefully replace all components back together and restart. It should then restart.
If not does the hard drive make a grating whirring sound?? if so then the harddrive bearings are on their way out. time to buy a new harddrive. |Keep the old one and use as a back up- you can access it as a secondry drive and copy all the pics etc accross.

But I think the above post is right, Buy a new one they are relatively cheap at present!
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 22, 2009, 07:25:09 pm
It's an 8 year old PC. You may be able to patch it up temporarily but at that age you are liiving on borrowed time and your data is far more important than the hardware which is all well past its sell by date.

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Bryan Young on October 22, 2009, 07:59:01 pm
At the risk of garnering yet more odure, my computer is now nearly 8 years old. I had it built for me, specifically for photographic purposes. It cost in the region of £1000 at the time.....but most of the people I know have had to change their machine at least once since then. So (to my mind) I'm getting the benefits from going to a "high-end" machine rather than just buying whatever stuff PC World etc. are chucking at you.
It also helps if you do a disc "clean-up" or "defragmentation" every now and again. Also, and I thinks this helps, I leave nothing important on the computer....I bung all my stuff onto CDs or something. Just a thought to stop the older machines getting a bit overloaded....like my brain. BY.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 22, 2009, 08:24:08 pm
Bryan,

Your PC may still be doing the business but technologically it must be a dinosaur by now. Mine is around three years old but I'm already finding that the hard disk storage is becoming cramped. You can buy a 500gb external disk for under £50 now. Like you, I back up my important stuff onto CDs or DVDs as well as onto alternative external hard disks but I fear that CDs/DVDs may not have the longevity originally attributed to them. I wouldn't rely on them after 5 years or so. Also, before very long CDs will go the same way as floppy disks and new PCs won't read them. Once you commit yourself to digital storage you have to keep refreshing it onto the latest medium to be sure of not losing it. they call it progress I believe. A lot of early digital data is no longer recoverable as nobody knows how to read it. Mind you, paper is not much better. most records stored over the last 50 years or so are self destructing at an increasing rate of knots as the paper is not chemically stable

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dreadnought72 on October 23, 2009, 09:28:10 am
2. Get a new PC - yours is lying on its back with its legs in the air and just twitching. I'm surprised it's lasted that long.

My Mesh at home is six years old. The fan makes more noise than an RB-211 with some blades missing. The PC crashes without warning once every three to four hours. The graphics card is shot - I can only run one monitor instead of the two I own, and on occasion the screen disappears behind a pile of migraine-inducing colour stripes. (At this point you hit cntrl-save and once the HD stops grinding, cycle the power switch.)

Colin's advice is sound. At work (where I use a Dell) PCs are replaced every three years, and - to be frank - they're becoming dinosaurs at that age. Tobyker and I should be thinking of "museums" or "skips" with our Meshes rather than entertaining the idea of "repair".

Andy
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: tigertiger on October 23, 2009, 10:40:46 am
There are loads of deals on computers, now that every home has one.

One stratgegy I use is to buy lower spec computers and replace them every 3 years. Basically I am getting last years state of the art for about a sixth of the price.

And I buy in the UK because the big discounters are much cheaper than buying in China. The same would be true in the US, except that in the US I would be paying 300 dollars and not 300 pounds.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: FullLeatherJacket on October 23, 2009, 11:49:28 am
http://www.misco.co.uk/

Huw ACTionweb put us on to this company. Excellent prices and ricochet service.
Suit yourselves, but we'll go to them for any hardware in future.
FLJ
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: meechingman on October 23, 2009, 11:58:15 am
I'm with Colin, too. It's time for a new one. 3-4 years is the most I've ever realistically got from a computer.

I always self-build, as it lets me customise the system, as well as getting the latest components (not ones that are in a PC built some months ago). Not rocket science, and if you have the skills to build a boat, I reckon you've probably got what it takes to build a PC.

Andy
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 23, 2009, 12:01:15 pm
Quote
and if you have the skills to build a boat, I reckon you've probably got what it takes to build a PC.

Andy

And you can buy the hull, sorry case!  :-)
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: The long Build on October 23, 2009, 12:54:26 pm
I built mine just to see if I could do it total cost at the time I think was about £360,with the main cost being the Motherboard and cpu.. 
It was a dam site easier than building a model  :-))  took me less than an hour to install all the bits and pieces , more surprised it worked when I plugged it in to put on the os etc.  Just in the throws of upgrading the os drive to a seperate drive at 320gb and then a storage drive only of 1tb got for £65.00  from www.aria.co.uk.

Also have a backup 1tb external drive.

We use
www.aria.co.uk
www.misco.co.uk
www.ebuyer.co.uk

I have had no problems to date, and find the usual Highstreet stores a bit pricey.
Larry


Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Wasyl on October 23, 2009, 01:01:33 pm
I,ve had this Laptop for 6 years now, and it only has 40gb hard drive and 256 on the other whatever that is, and it does me fine,I can get to ebay and back,and to here,and I can find anything on the net,Its never let me down,and apart from the time when i decided to use the Vax hoover to pick up the dust that was between the keys,"all the key plates went in the hoover"  {:-{ {-) then i had to sift through the hoover bag to find all the letter plates,apart from this, i,ve always been online,Not bad for a £299 pc,and its got a cd re-writer,dvd drive,what more can i ask for,

Wullie
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Bryan Young on October 23, 2009, 04:42:08 pm
Bryan,

Your PC may still be doing the business but technologically it must be a dinosaur by now. Mine is around three years old but I'm already finding that the hard disk storage is becoming cramped. You can buy a 500gb external disk for under £50 now. Like you, I back up my important stuff onto CDs or DVDs as well as onto alternative external hard disks but I fear that CDs/DVDs may not have the longevity originally attributed to them. I wouldn't rely on them after 5 years or so. Also, before very long CDs will go the same way as floppy disks and new PCs won't read them. Once you commit yourself to digital storage you have to keep refreshing it onto the latest medium to be sure of not losing it. they call it progress I believe. A lot of early digital data is no longer recoverable as nobody knows how to read it. Mind you, paper is not much better. most records stored over the last 50 years or so are self destructing at an increasing rate of knots as the paper is not chemically stable

Colin
Colin, you've got me a bit worried now! My "Dinosaur" is still faster than my wifes fairly new Dell thing. But it's your comments on long-term storage on CDs that's bugging me a bit. I'd imagine that just about everyone on the planet has CDs for one purpose or another. Is all that music and data just going to go bosoms up? Now you've got millions of people worried....what's the "long-term" answer. And for heavens sake, don't say that there isn't one! Cheers. Bryan Y.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: ActionWeb on October 23, 2009, 04:50:17 pm
I've got an 8 year old MESH PC with a 1400 Ghz AMD Athlon processor, 512Mb RAM. running Widows XP Home SP3. I have 2 HDs - the 115 Gb C drive has 87GB spare and the 37Gb F drive where I store photos etc has 7Gb free.
A couple of months ago it started losing my (the administrator's) profile on startup, but rebooting usually fixed that - if it didn't work the 3rd time, I went to the last reset point and that fixed it. Then I went on holiday for a fortnight, leaving the PC off and unplugged. On my return it failed to start when I switched on - the lights flashed when I pressed the button, but it just groaned and stopped. I then had to unplug it, wait until the green LED on the motherboard went out, plug it back in again and switch on again. It then works, but gives the error message about an incorrect processor speed at the last boot-up - despite showing 1400 on the DOS type setup page. ESC/return/return and eveything works. I have brushed and hoovered out the inside of the machine and cleared all the vents, and as suggested on googling the error message, have changed the mobo battery. It is still refusing to start on the button unless I do the unplug procedure. Presumably the non-starting is a mobo or power supply problem , and losing the profile is a windows problem (which seems to have gione away for now).   
Any ideas, chaps?
Startup errors in POST (power on self test) are generally due to 1) Failing hardware, 2) Dead/failing CMOS or 3) Loose connections/shorts.  As advised elsewhere, unplug everything, clean all the dust puppies out (you will have some), reseat and reconnect and start up.

Have you run a Windows disk check on the C: drive?

Don't worry about the age of the PC.  My main one is 10 years old,  I've just upgraded it to Windows 7 and it still runs faster than the one I've got that's two years old running Vista...

At work I'm still maintaining some legacy software on a Pentium P75 with 64MB of RAM and a 10GB hard disk that's still running as sweet as a nut.

Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: toesupwa on October 23, 2009, 04:56:58 pm
Have you changed the battery on the motherboard?
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: ActionWeb on October 23, 2009, 05:02:21 pm
Have you changed the battery on the motherboard?
If you need to change it, don't pay more than £1 for a CR2302 battery.  Get them from a pound shop or any other discount store.  Don't buy them from a PC shop.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 23, 2009, 05:06:31 pm
Bryan, everyone used to store their stuff on floppy disks or tape but a lot of that is now unreadable, either due to new computers being unable to read the format or because the actual media has deteriorated. Not all CDs are the same, some are better quality than others. CDs will be around for a while yet but look at the advances we are already seeing, DVDs, dual layer DVDs, Blu-Ray DVDs - all with bigger capacities. At the moment there is a fair degree of backward compatibility with the hardware but at some point conventional CDs will go the same way as floppy disks. So, every so often you will need to change your backup media. In my case, all my important stuff is on my PC and the CDs/DVD are effectively just transient backups. My main backups are to external hard disks.

As long as you keep the primary copy of all the important stuff on your main machine you will always be able to back it up to whatever the current flavour of secondary storage is. The danger comes if you move important stuff you want to archive onto a CD/DVD to free up room on your PC. Then the "backup" you have made becomes the primary and maybe only copy and if you leave it long enough then you may find you can't get it back if you need it.

As far as music is concerned, CDs are rapidly going the same way as vinyl now as everyone buys Ipods instead which can hold all the music you want and link to music libraries on your PC. It won't be long before new cars don't come with a CD player any longer, there will just be an IPod connector.

So, to respond to your question; there isn't a really long term answer (unless you build a pyramid or something), you just have to keep running to stay up. Yes, it is potentially scary and it's an acknowledged problem.

A longer (as opposed to long) term solution is seen as being Cloud Computing where your data is stored and backed up over the internet.

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: ActionWeb on October 23, 2009, 05:14:49 pm
A longer (as opposed to long) term solution is seen as being Cloud Computing where your data is stored and backed up over the internet.

Colin
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Roger in France on October 23, 2009, 05:34:05 pm
ActionWeb,

Please expand/explain. I did find your comment a tad unhelpful !

If your point is that you are no longer in charge of your data that is an issue I have wondered about with online storage of photo images.

Roger in France.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 23, 2009, 05:41:51 pm
I didn't say I agreed with it - just that it is seen as a solution. There's all sorts of minefields associated with Cloud (Cuckooland?) Computing.

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: tobyker on October 23, 2009, 06:45:54 pm
Yes as stated in my post I did change the battery - made no difference. I've ordered a 500Gb external drive to collect in store tomorrow and hope I'll be able to back eveything up that I want to transfer to a new PC. The start-up error messages are getting starnger and stranger but "load defaults" seems to work. I'd quite like to build my own but haven't really got time to find out about it all this time. I might get an expert in, pay him for a new PC and get him to do the data transfer. Thank you all for your comments.
Toby
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Bryan Young on October 23, 2009, 07:09:07 pm
Well. I must say that I'm nonethe wiser just now. Between postings I've run a couple of CD data discs that are (from an earlier machine) and they are still perfect. Is the possible degradation due to the disc material or the format it's stored in? i.e. is "Raw" better than "Jpg" which I know does suffer from electronic degradation. Still baffled. If I buy a (huge capacity) back-up hard drive, will this not go down the same tube? Or am I worrying about nothing? BY.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: malcolmfrary on October 23, 2009, 07:11:58 pm
A few years back a mate had similar problems.  After much thrashing about we got a FREE diagnostic program to actually test things.  Better than the poke'n'hope procedure.  The problem turned out to be one bit of one location of memory which was "stuck".  This created random mis-reads, and subsequent mis-writes that looked for all the world like a virus and created random mayhem whenever that particular bit was used and needed the unstuck value.
Fans need to be clean and free-running.  Cooling fins must be clean.  The hard drive should be silent.  All the bits that plug in need to be firmly seated in clean seatings.

My last upgrade was a cheepo - from  http://www.saverstore.com/product/20018388/ECS-3207610-AMD-Athlon-3200-Processor-and-Motherboard-Bundle   (durn - its now cheaper from when I got mine)  plus some memory.  The entire bundle at todays prices was less than my mates replacement memory back then.  
In an elderly box, it might need a new PSU.  
I picked on this one because I could keep nearly all my old peripherals, its one of very few boards that still has 2 IDE slots in its price range.
I have my operating system and programs on drive C: , all my data and stuff like default file destinations and swapfile live elsewhere.  This means I can use cloning software to back up the main system and archiving the data is relatively simple.  It takes about a half hour to completely reload the OS, programs and settings, as opposed to an hour or so to reload Windows and about a fortnight to find everything else.
Like Tiger, I am a firm believer in letting someone else break the ground with new technology.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Bryan Young on October 23, 2009, 07:27:14 pm
Just re-reading the Bishops reply, I sort of agreed that the days of Floppies are over....but the I wondered if there is a multi-functional card reader that would fit into the redundant floppy drive slot. It'd be a lot neater than having it (the reader) just sat on top or the casing. Just asking. BY.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 23, 2009, 07:40:06 pm
Bryan,

It's unlikely that you have any immediate problems to worry about. With cheap CDs and depending under what conditions they are stored, the disk material can possibly degrade after several years. Like everything else there is always an element of risk.

To put things simply, which is the way I like them, for your important data play safe and have one copy on your PC, another on an external hard disk and any really important documents or photos etc. on removable media such as CDs or DVDs. And then make sure that at least one of the copies is well off site so if your house burns down you still have one copy to restore from. Big external plug in hard disks of 500GB only cost £55 or so which is a pretty cheap insurance policy in my view.

In the longer term, like many of the rest of us at or approaching retirement age, what do you want to happen to your data when you have passed onto a different plane yourself? Like lots of other people I have my father's and grandfather's photos in albums which are part of the family history. I in turn would like to leave my unique photos to my daughters so that in years to come they will have a record of the places my wife and I visited and what we used to look like. For the past five years all my photos have been digital and only exist in electronic form. This is something I don't want to lose. I hope to get a selection printed out but that is one of those jobs you never seem to get around to, especially when you can download your last year's holiday snaps onto a USB stick and view it on the family TV. So it is important that all your vital documents and photos held in electronic form are as secure as you can possibly make them so that they can be passed on when you pass on. Morbid maybe, but practical all the same.

Just some thoughts anyway!

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: The long Build on October 23, 2009, 07:51:53 pm
Just re-reading the Bishops reply, I sort of agreed that the days of Floppies are over....but the I wondered if there is a multi-functional card reader that would fit into the redundant floppy drive slot. It'd be a lot neater than having it (the reader) just sat on top or the casing. Just asking. BY.

There are but I think that they tend to be for the 3.5 disk slot , but I'm sure you could get a casing to hold them in the larger slot.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: ActionWeb on October 23, 2009, 08:03:35 pm
ActionWeb,

Please expand/explain. I did find your comment a tad unhelpful !

If your point is that you are no longer in charge of your data that is an issue I have wondered about with online storage of photo images.

Roger in France.
Sorry, Roger.

The basis of cloud computing is that your data doesn't exist on your PC/laptop, it exists on the Internet, so you can access it from anywhere.

This raises a few issues.

1) What if you can't access the Internet?
2) Who pays for the storage? I'd rather pay a fixed price for a hard disk than pay someone a montly fee to rent their 'cloud'
3) If you are renting space off someone, (more than likely in the States because they'll do it dirt cheap), what happens about backups, data security etc.? Who 'owns' the data? There have already been issues with the likes of facebook/myspace claiming rights on your content that you post
4) If 1) applies then you still ned local storage so you need to have a mechanism to synchronise data between your computer and the cloud
5) Even with this level of 'vapourware' there is already talk of your programs existing in the cloud as well. Revisit 2, 3 and 4.

I'll happily place a bet now that if we're all running everything from the cloud in 2015 I'll buy you a case of whatever poison you want.

Back in the real world, the talk is of moving away from real hard disks on to SSD, like you get in netbooks. (For the techies, check out FusionIO)
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: ActionWeb on October 23, 2009, 08:07:06 pm
Bryan,

It's unlikely that you have any immediate problems to worry about. With cheap CDs and depending under what conditions they are stored, the disk material can possibly degrade after several years.
Agreed.  Sunlight being the biggest killer.  As for BY's question regarding RAW v jpg, the only real difference is the revel of data held.  RAW is the full monty.  Everything.

jpg is a compressed format, so you lose some detail.  Most people can't tell the difference in print or on screen.  But a photographer can.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Roger in France on October 24, 2009, 08:03:48 am
Helpful and informative, thank you.

On a slightly different note, I do find that photographs printed off via a dot matrix printer using a good quality cartridge (one black, one colour) on good quality paper, still deteriorates quite rapidly.

Roger in France
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dougal99 on October 24, 2009, 08:44:01 am
Good morning Roger,

What do you consider 'quite rapidly'? I have several photographs printed on an Epson which have been used in club displays for a couple of years, which are still fine. Admittedly they aren't exposed to daylight all the time as they would be if displayed in a frame on a shelf.

Funnily enough I have just printed a picture of my son, at his graduation earlier this year, to join that of his sister on the wall. I'm hoping that it will last some considerable time, years with any luck.

Interested to hear your experinces in this area.

Doug
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: The long Build on October 24, 2009, 09:19:53 am
I have to agree with Roger here, I left some pictures printed on the window ledge from a standard inkjet printer and they started to change colourings quite quickly
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 24, 2009, 11:38:24 am
If you use a good photo printer with the original manufacturer's inks and matching paper then your photos should last for 20 years or more. Use cheapie inks and paper and you are on your own.

Of course, as long as you have the original file you can keep printing out new copies if the old ones fade.

UV in sunlight will break down almost everything in time, a good example is oxidization on fibregalss boats and of course any type of paintwork.

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dougal99 on October 24, 2009, 12:05:10 pm
Colin

Happy to hear about the 20 years however, as the technology is not that old, where does the figure come from?

Just curious

Doug
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Roger in France on October 24, 2009, 12:18:43 pm
I am talking 2/3 years using a Dell printer, Dell ink cartridges and Kodak paper.

Roger in France
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: cbr900 on October 24, 2009, 12:30:19 pm
For printing photos I always print onto treated paper, supposed to last several hundred
years, I do have a photo printed on my Canon printer in 1995 of Peter Brocks Austin A30
and it has not changed in any way, it is on display in our lounge room, which is bright and
sunny.
So if you use quality products it will out last us all.............


Roy
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 24, 2009, 01:18:37 pm
Quote
Happy to hear about the 20 years however, as the technology is not that old, where does the figure come from?

They subject samples to accelerated ageing artificially - a bit like opening and closing a car door thousands of time to see if the hinges break!

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 24, 2009, 03:24:25 pm
I am surprised at some of the advice on this thread. It seems to accept that PCs have a lifespan of about 3 years. This is not the case, but it is in the industry's interest (and especially Microsoft's) to get people buying a new machine every few years.

Your machine may have a hardware problem, or a software problem, or (probably) both, since a hardware glitch can often cause software corruption. The advice to clean, reseat all connectors and replace internal components is good - I am running a variety of machines up to 20 years old here (including some running 24/7), and I find that the fans getting clogged is the most common problem. My major failure has been power supplies going due to dead fans and consequent overheating. An external drive to back-up critical data - your photos, for instance, is a very good idea and should be used with all systems.

If you have a reliable on-boot hardware fault you can often isolate it by taking the machine apart and rebooting just the motherboard, then adding components until the system starts to fail. A hardware problem must be identified and corrected before you can proceed further. But you need to run with a simple operating system, preferably booting from a CD, to do all this checking. I use Knoppix, which is a Linux optimised for diagnostics.

If your hardware is OK you can proceed to sorting out the software. Microsoft operating systems have a poor architectural design, and get regularly get themselves screwed internally. I find that, for a Microsoft system in normal use, it is advisable to rebuild the system from scratch about once every year or so. Otherwise the registry and file system get so out of line that regular crashes can be expected. You can get registry cleaners and de-fragmenters, but they do not solve the whole problem. It is interesting to note that Linux does not have de-fragmenters or registry cleaners - it does not need them.

If rebuilt, a Microsoft system should go back to working fast. Eventually, it will get out of date, because commercial companies are always developing new software which is kept intentionally incompatible with the old software, thus forcing you to buy new programs. For instance, drivers for new hardware will not be written for old Windows software, even though the old machines would be powerful enough to run it. When Vista came out, the new DirectX v10 graphics drivers (required to give the top graphics in games) were only written for Vista and not XP. XP systems could run DirectX v10, but they were not allowed to. You will now find a load of unofficial hacks on the net which let you have DirectX v10 effects with XP running DirectX v9, so there are obviously no technical barriers to doing it.

The obvious answer here is to use Open Source. Here all the code is made available for anyone who wants it, and development is additive, and not forced. This is also the answer for people who want to archive old data - if it is kept in an Open format, this will be published, well understood, and there will always be readers for it. There will be no commercial pressure to drop one word processor in favour of a new one which offers no extra features. Plus, you won't have all these complicated licensing problems, because all Open Source software is free. But it does mean using Linux, which Microsoft hates, and which has been accused (in the US) of being anti-capitalist because it is all free....
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 24, 2009, 04:02:55 pm
That may be true, but you are predominantly seeing things from the teccie viewpoint. The average Joe or Jill would not be able/willing to carry out the procedures you have listed. They treat their PC as a tool for doing whatever they need to do whether running a business, home office, managing photos or whatever. They don't want to get into how it works and run diagnostics etc. It's the same thing with cars. You can have cars that are 20 years old but these are usually owned by enthusiasts. Joe public, if they can afford it, will change their car every few years to be sure of always having something which is relaible and reasonably up to date.

The reason people change their PCs every few years is to avoid the hassle of what you have described. Life is too short and the kit is cheap. One less thing to worry about.

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: malcolmfrary on October 24, 2009, 05:59:53 pm
As long as average Joe is not prepared to learn fairly simple tasks like pressing a button to run a cleaning program, the PC industry will continue to "progress".  A bit like swapping a car because the washer bottle is empty.  The only real  reason for for changing is, in most cases, the requirement to run a new piece of hardware not otherwise supported by the version of Windows that the existing machine can run.  Some folks feel the need for state of the art, most just want it.
Apart from the range of system and registry cleaners, there is a handy tool in Windows.  From "Start - Run" type "cleanmgr" and you will be asked which drive to remove the rubbish from.  When it has had a look you get the chance to use the "more options" tab.  This gives the chance to remove all except the last registry backup.  Quite often, this will free enough space to bring a slow machine back to life.
Doesn't solve tobyker's original problem, of course.  Theres a hardware problem lurking in there that needs finding. 
Memtest86 checks out memory and whatever is needed to access the memory (most of the system, as it turns out).  Most hard drive manufacturers have programs to test their products.  After a short time determining what the problem actually is, a sensible decision can be made about the best way to cure it.  Replacement of one part, a new system, or something in between.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 24, 2009, 06:39:56 pm

... Joe public, if they can afford it, will change their car every few years to be sure of always having something which is relaible and reasonably up to date.



[Rant Mode]

A car wears out, and Joe Public can see and appreciate what he is getting for his money - new seats, shiny paint, etc. A PC and its software does not 'wear out' in the same way (leaving aside any actual hardware failures, and recognising that of course moving parts like a fan will wear). But Jo Public is unable to comprehend techological flannel...

What is happening is that the industry is conspiring to keep Jo Public in the dark, and pretend that a regular 'new pc' is as much of a requirement as a 'new car'. For a while, during the technology boom of the 90s, it was true that a 5 year old machine was so slow compared to the latest one that a replacement was sensible - typically the latest software could only be run on machines one or two years old - anything earlier was not powerful enough. In 1995 100 mhz was standard, by 2002 3Ghz was achieved...

Nowadays, a machine clocking at 1 or 2 ghz is fast enough for pretty well all purposes. And they have been around for ten years. So you would think that the need to buy newer machines has diminished. And so it has - but the industry structures built up during the boom years of the 90s are still with us, and they are still trying to keep the regular profitable turnover of systems. They can no longer justify this with hardware speed improvements, so they have been deliberately planning obsolescence although there is no reason to do so. In my book that is conspiracy and fraud.

I think it is appalling that MS operating systems have been unable to run for more than a few years before needing attention. I can see why that came to be the case - they were never needed to work for longer than that, and it was very convenient for the marketing boys to have software problems occurring at about the same time that a new system was available. But now this bad design should be uncovered for what it always was...

[/Rant mode]
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 24, 2009, 06:41:02 pm
While not wishing to argue the issue, what constitutes a "fairly simple task" does rather depend upon where your baseline is. I have quite an extensive IT background myself although I came to it from the user rather than the specialist side and I personally don't mind getting my hands dirty delving behind the scenes. But I have noticed that there is a propensity on the part of IT specialists to expect a higher skill level on the part of users than is actually the case. Its a bit like "well, surely everyone knows that!" But actually they don't.

There was a classic instance when we were all writing games for the Sinclair Spectrum (remember that?) and submitting them to magazines for publication. One editor crashed the evaluation program sent to him and explained what had happened to the hopeful programmer and which key combinations he had pressed. The response was "Oh! You weren't supposed to do that!".

Nothing like good error handling - you have to protect the user from themselves and that entails matching the procedures to their skill levels. I doubt if one in a hundred users knows that the Registry or the Run command exist, let alone how to clear out restore points that are no longer needed.

Colin

Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 24, 2009, 07:00:12 pm
While not wishing to argue the issue, what constitutes a "fairly simple task" does rather depend upon where your baseline is.

Colin is quite correct here, and I am not suggesting that non-specialists should learn enough IT to perform complex tasks. in all walks of life we rely on specialists to do complex things for us - farmers, doctors, architects, diplomats... and by and large they do a good job. But I believe that in the PC operating system world things are badly askew, and that it should be the duty of experts in that field to point this out. And they don't do so - there is a lot more money to be made sticking with the monopoly supplier.

So my rant is really addressed to the IT specialists here - and consequently of limited value to the poor chap who just wanted his machine mended. But he might like to appreciate some of the back story...
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: justboatonic on October 24, 2009, 07:19:05 pm

[Rant Mode]

A car wears out, and Joe Public can see and appreciate what he is getting for his money - new seats, shiny paint, etc. A PC and its software does not 'wear out' in the same way (leaving aside any actual hardware failures, and recognising that of course moving parts like a fan will wear). But Jo Public is unable to comprehend techological flannel...

What is happening is that the industry is conspiring to keep Jo Public in the dark, and pretend that a regular 'new pc' is as much of a requirement as a 'new car'. For a while, during the technology boom of the 90s, it was true that a 5 year old machine was so slow compared to the latest one that a replacement was sensible - typically the latest software could only be run on machines one or two years old - anything earlier was not powerful enough. In 1995 100 mhz was standard, by 2002 3Ghz was achieved...

Nowadays, a machine clocking at 1 or 2 ghz is fast enough for pretty well all purposes. And they have been around for ten years. So you would think that the need to buy newer machines has diminished. And so it has - but the industry structures built up during the boom years of the 90s are still with us, and they are still trying to keep the regular profitable turnover of systems. They can no longer justify this with hardware speed improvements, so they have been deliberately planning obsolescence although there is no reason to do so. In my book that is conspiracy and fraud.

I think it is appalling that MS operating systems have been unable to run for more than a few years before needing attention. I can see why that came to be the case - they were never needed to work for longer than that, and it was very convenient for the marketing boys to have software problems occurring at about the same time that a new system was available. But now this bad design should be uncovered for what it always was...

[/Rant mode]

Sorry but I dont think it is correct to say that about pc's or software. The demands on pc's and software changes massively in the course of a few years. Graphics become more complex, realistic and 3 d like year on year. The code to accomplish this needs to grow year on year. Thus, the processor required to run the longer more complex code needs to be faster and faster. Operating systems such as those released by MS need to be modernised and re written for the newer code that gets released.

As an example, for the last few years, I've been using a pc that is probably 6 or 7 years old. Yes, I could surf the net with it but, even news sites such as the torygraph on line were slow and caused it to crash due to all the flash and godknows what they have in their pages. It got so bad I just had to update a year ago to a new laptop. Its been great. Lots of net sites are now more accessible and easier to read. CNN was always crashing my old pc, not so the new laptop.

I've recent bought the RealFlight training software. It runs quite well on the laptop but its not perfect. The new RealFlight trainer was released after I bought the new laptop which is dual core so that just shows how quickly things progress in the computing world.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 24, 2009, 10:24:10 pm
.... Operating systems such as those released by MS need to be modernised and re written for the newer code that gets released.

As an example, for the last few years, I've been using a pc that is probably 6 or 7 years old. Yes, I could surf the net with it but, even news sites such as the torygraph on line were slow and caused it to crash due to all the flash and godknows what they have in their pages.

/quote]

O/S need to be updated, true, but you shouldn't be forced to change and pay for a new one for no good reason, as in the example I gave.


When your old O/S started to fail, did you rebuild it? Microsoft designs require that, otherwise they go slow and fail. Or did you think that was just because your O/S was 'old' and you had to buy a new one? Without a lot more detail I cannot tell just what was happening, but I strongly suspect the speed issues were not because the O/S was 'old technology'.

 If Flash caused your system to fail, had you loaded the latest Flash code? If not, was this because it wasn't available for your (I'm guessing) Windows 2k? And was this because the W2k technology couldn't handle it (unlikely) or because Microsoft had 'persuaded' Adobe not to make it available....

I am not complaining about new development - I am complaining about the technical dirty tricks which are used to force upgrades when they are not strictly necessary....
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: AlisterL on October 24, 2009, 11:13:14 pm
I feel compelled to chime in on this thread as an IT professional.

It seems to me that the problem that the original poster described, particularly with the CPU clock speed not being reported correctly, is most likely due to the battery that keeps the BIOS memory going when not powered on had finally run flat/stopped charging. This is common in older PC's. This can be replaced, but finding someone to do it might be difficult and probably isn't worth it. So is the problem of capacitors exploding - where a computer requires that a number of power cycles are needed to get it to start, can be symptom of this. It is possible to replace these capacitors, but again would almost certainly not be economical.

With regard to the problem of the user profile itself, well, that happens in an MS world. Every time you use your Windows PC (in fact this is true for Mac OS X and Linux as well) stuff changes in the profile, the registry and other places on the hard disk. Changes get piled on changes and eventually you get a big pile of poo - to be blunt. Solution - copy off all the important bits to something else, copy them again to another device just to be safe and then wipe the HDD and reinstall - if you are lucky enough to have something to reinstall from. Be very wary of downloadable registry cleaners! In fact, avoidance is best. Some probably do work as advertised, but I wouldn't bother. Most will make the problem worse or even introduce virii...

Media deterioration on CD's, DVD,s magnetic tape and disks is a problem. Quality media helps but does not and cannot fix this. The best idea is multiple copies of everything and remember to shift that important data to new and/or different storage types frequently. A W.A.G. on the time frame would be in the 5 year range for optical storage. If you have any recordable media heading towards more than 5 years old, consider checking the content on a regular (yearly) basis. Humm, maybe 5 years is a little too short - I guess it  depends how careful you want to be. The reason is that the heat applied by the laser to optical devices causes degradation that worsens over time. Storing in a cool location with minimal temperature fluctuation will also prolong the life. Rewritable media is the worst here. The example of VHS tapes needing to be replaced after a while because the recording quality drops is perfectly analagous to what I am trying to describe for both optical and magnetic media. Magnetic media has the same problem for a different reason - the fact that it is magnetic for starters. Basically the polarity of the magnetic bits on tapes and drives can flip all by themselves, and the larger the capacity of the device the more likely this is to happen. Oops. Pretty much all modern hard drives deal with this in various ways, but ultimately you can loose everything. One of the other problems with spinning disks is that when they do get old, sometimes when they power on they don't start spinning... Oops... By the way, USB sticks typically have a high failure rate. These should be used for transferring items, not permanent storage.

Anyone scared yet? Don't be - just take some precautions.

A rule of thumb is that a PC should last at least three years. More than that and you are realistically on borrowed time. Anything over 5 years is probably a bonus. Monitors, in particular LCD's and such should last at least 5 years and potentially up to 10 for good quality Philips or Viewsonics etc. Of course these brands do fail as well, after all these are electronics...

Operating Systems - ahh yes, lots of fun here. The problem is not that the OS gets old and stops working, what happens is that it gets superceeded and support disappears. This happens with XP next year I believe - so no more patches for that. You will need to be on Vista or Window 7, or something else (OS X if you prefer that or even Linux for the more technically inclined and/or adventurous). The Apple stuff is very user friendly, particularly in a home user environment and increasingly popular too.

I have an increasing preference to put stuff in the "cloud" as it is now known. But I choose to be careful what I put there and everyone should be careful with the licensing agreements that you must accept to sign up to these services - you may find that you do not own what you put up there, or that the provider has a "right to use" what you put up there. I do not and won't put photos of my kids on these services. Anyone read the licensing agreement for PostImage as used on this forum? I haven't... And I'm not implying that there is a problem either.

Always run an anti-virus program and keep it updated - AVG Free is good if you don't want to spend money. The Windows firewall and equivalents on OS X and linux should be used too. Windows defender or whatever it is called now should also be turned on.

Computers are not solid state devices. Every time they are used their state changes electrically, electronically, chemically and logically. They do degrade. They are not a lump of iron or steel or concrete that sits in one spot endlessly and should not be considered so.

Happy computing!
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 25, 2009, 08:11:08 am


A rule of thumb is that a PC should last at least three years. More than that and you are realistically on borrowed time. Anything over 5 years is probably a bonus.


Why is a PC any different to a radio, or other electronic item? They last for a lot longer than that.

Of course moving parts can wear and break, so fans and HDs may need replacing. And CDs and floppys may fail with dust inside (especially in a smokers house). Depending on the environment, regular cleaning is a good idea. But saying that a computer should last three years seems a very short time, and sounds rather too conveniently close to the Microsoft standard 'new operating system release' time. My experience is that, barring individual component failures due to wear, computer hardware is happy for 10-15 years or more.



Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: tigertiger on October 25, 2009, 09:25:50 am
Some hardware is good for 10-15 years or more. But then you run into what are called 'legacy' problems.

An obvious one is when hardware becomes obsolete For example I still have an old computer in the garage in England and I bet the floppy drive still works, but can I use the floppy discs in a new machine if that one died.
Another problem is related to connecting. Do you USB ports, or serial ports, or something else. All my older computers have a video port, and a multi-pin plug for the keyboard.
Some machines now rely on USB ports.

There are also issues of the software drivers of some devices, not being forward compatible with newer operating systems or even newer versions of windows.
The biggest issue with legacy stuff is, as AlisterL pointed out, getting stuff fixed.


One other thought. I was told by an IT engineer (could be BS) that a computer that is permanently on will last longer than one that is turned off everyday. The surge of power causes aging, at the microscopic level, in components.

Other old components just die, without explanation.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: malcolmfrary on October 25, 2009, 10:14:36 am
Quote
Why is a PC any different to a radio, or other electronic item? They last for a lot longer than that.
Simply, a radio, and most other electronic devices, do a single job.  End of story.  That job never changes. 
A PC, n the other hand, can do many different jibs depending on the hardware and software installed.  What is got as a glorified typewriter can evolve into a recording studio and photographic lab and super pinball machine. 
Back in the '80s and '90s there was growth into unoccupied space - at the start nobody had one, so all sales were new sales.  Now, the things are fairly universal, so it has become a replacement market, and they are generally so reliable that the only way to sell new ones is to have ongoing development, of hardware to give more capability, then software to push the new limits, then new hardware to run the new software better and so on.
Tobykers symptoms do sound like a CMOS battery - a relatively cheap and hopefully simple trial fix.  If it works, his machine is set for another 5 or six years at a low cost.  It will possibly need the software re-installing, but that will happen with a new machine.  If the new battery doesn't work, then the simple next step is to go shopping around places like cclonline, saverstore, scan, play,com and no doubt a few others to get a new box with an OS that can use his monitor and other external bits, or a complete system. 
Like Tiger says, a PC that is running a 6 month old specification can be got at a relatively low cost.  It is up the the individual to work out for themselves what the best combination of price and effort is for themseles.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: tigertiger on October 25, 2009, 10:27:52 am
Perhaps now newer machines will be installed with MSWindows 7, older machines with MSVista installed will be on clearance price.

To be honest I have had no problems with Vista.
However, MSOffice 2007's 'Compatiblility Mode' (for earlier versions of MSOffice aps) is a bit clunky. Seems like a fudge to me.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 25, 2009, 10:44:09 am
Some hardware is good for 10-15 years or more. But then you run into what are called 'legacy' problems.


Yup. That's exactly what I'm complaining about.

There was a time in the 90s when hardware development was so rapid that it made sense to junk old hardware. The older stuff wouldn't perform anything like as well as the newer stuff, and all sorts of memory and disk addressing limits that the old systems had were being breached. 'Legacy' meant something in those days...

But now hardware development has slowed down, and a machine more than 5 years old is still quite good. My EeZeBilt web site runs 24/7 on a 10-year old P3 in my attic. However, if people were to use computers for the 'standard white goods' 10 year period, a lot of companies which based their business model on a 3-year replacement turnover would be losing money.

So we see instances of people building intentional software incompatibility into new software, to force a replacement. I have no complaint about changing a machine to get a real benefit, but I do complain about an operating system which degrades over time when it shouldn't, an industry-enforced treadmill of software change so that they can make a profit, and drivers only being written for the latest systems to force a replacement when it is not technically required.

And these are things you don't get with Linux...
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 25, 2009, 10:57:43 am
I don't think Linux is exactly lily white. An "undocumented feature" (to refer to it kindly) denied access to some vital data my Brother had on a University system and it took their IT department days to work out a solution. My brother isn't exactly a novice either, he teaches weapons communications at Dartmouth.

Oh, and if you tour HMS Daring you will find all the screens in the ops room displaying the Windows logo.  :o

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: omra85 on October 25, 2009, 07:08:11 pm

Oh, and if you tour HMS Daring you will find all the screens in the ops room displaying the Windows logo.


I can just see it now -

"Your weapon system has encountered an enexpected error and will have to close. Do you want to report the fault to Microsoft?"

Still, if all the Worlds armed forces have the same system - peace in our time!!

Danny
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: The long Build on October 25, 2009, 08:18:21 pm
I can just see it now -

"Your weapon system has encountered an enexpected error and will have to close. Do you want to report the fault to Microsoft?"

Still, if all the Worlds armed forces have the same system - peace in our time!!

Danny

 {-) {-) {-) {-)  but probably true !!  .. Wonder if they Will  get   "Please run the " Windows Genuine Advantage programme"  pop up... >>:-(  I Have , I do , and yet every now and again it crops up again..
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 25, 2009, 08:20:53 pm
More likely that the computer shuts down in the middle of a battle to install updates...

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: AlisterL on October 25, 2009, 08:55:48 pm
Why is a PC any different to a radio, or other electronic item? They last for a lot longer than that.

Some PC's do, that is absolutely true. But some don't. Thus my warning is based on averages. If you have bought quality equipment and not the el cheapo stuff then absolutely you should see that equipment last longer than three years. But not everyone does that and some people do not realise this and as such everyone should be aware of the risks after that 3 year period.

As other have stated, a PC is quite a bit different from a radio. I would be inclined to compare a radio to a PC sound card rather than the PC as a whole...

Quite amusingly, I had typed up a reply on my laptop, went to post it only to find I had lost my connection to the internet, so this is a retype as I went to my 8 year old PC to see what was happening. Fortunately it came back again - but I notice that right this minute it has again disappeared - so you will have to wait to read this reply!
Oh and in my 8 year old PC the fan on the video card died so I'm expecting to have no video one day and it wouldn't surprise me if one day the damn thing just doesn't turn on. SWMBO has a budget and it doesn't include a new PC as yet.

Whilst linux may be an option for some, as Colin rightly points out it is not nirvana either. While there are some very good distributions available, my favourite is OpenSuSE, if one is to work with linux then one be prepared to get udner the covers, use the command line and generally pretend to be interested. I think you can probably end up with a non-functional PC running linux a lot easier than with Windows.

That damn internet connection still hasn't come back...

Oooh - it's back = post quick!!
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 25, 2009, 11:04:01 pm
Why have I been unable to post a reply to this thread all day? I have been able to post to other ones....
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 25, 2009, 11:18:15 pm
"I don't think Linux is exactly lily white. An "undocumented feature" (to refer to it kindly) denied access to some vital data my Brother had on a University system.." Colin

No one said that Linux didn't have bugs. All systems have bugs. In some areas Windows might even perform better than Linux (though I can't think of any...). I'm not saying that Linux is always better than Windows (though I personally believe this). What I'm complaining about is deliberate design decisions being made to lower user service in return for more profit, and Linux does not have this.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 25, 2009, 11:22:47 pm
Sorry about the multiple posts - for some reason I can't post a single long response, but I can do shorter ones.....

"..Oh, and if you tour HMS Daring you will find all the screens in the ops room displaying the Windows logo..." Colin

Of course you won't see Linux offered in a big commercial procurement. It's free, so no one can make a profit out of it....
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Colin Bishop on October 25, 2009, 11:37:10 pm
Quote
Sorry about the multiple posts - for some reason I can't post a single long response, but I can do shorter ones.....

Maybe you need a new PC.....  {-)

Colin
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: funtimefrankie on October 26, 2009, 08:04:44 am
Sorry about the multiple posts - for some reason I can't post a single long response, but I can do shorter ones.....
linux  undocumented feature? :-))
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on October 26, 2009, 09:24:15 am
linux  undocumented feature? :-))

Ha Ha!

It's certainly an odd feature - I could post on other threads with no problem, but for some reason the board rejected the (longish) message I was trying to put up here.

I think I must call a halt to this rant - I'm running on a 7 year old machine, so I had better conserve the electronics.... :)
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Bryan Young on October 26, 2009, 12:25:26 pm
Sorry about the multiple posts - for some reason I can't post a single long response, but I can do shorter ones.....

"..Oh, and if you tour HMS Daring you will find all the screens in the ops room displaying the Windows logo..." Colin

Of course you won't see Linux offered in a big commercial procurement. It's free, so no one can make a profit out of it....

I had this problem after installing upgrade 8. Once that was removed all is OK again. But the damn thing keeps popping up to tell me I have upgrades waiting ( no 8 again! Very annoying).BY.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: tigertiger on October 26, 2009, 12:58:27 pm
If you mean IE8. I had so many problems, and it got so slow, that I swithched to firefox.

Something I had resisted doing. This is because I am a 'if it ain't broken don't fix it' person. I am used to living with sub optimal, but IE8 was just to far for me.

I have found firefox much better as a browser, faster, and less aggro.
I still have IE8 installed, but rarely use it.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: funtimefrankie on October 26, 2009, 01:00:30 pm
In vista you can use "hide updates" so it doesn't keep asking you
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: tigertiger on October 26, 2009, 01:04:13 pm
Hi Bryan

Just out of interest. What version of Windows are you running. 95 or earlier by anychance?
I am curios because of what you said about floppy drives.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: funtimefrankie on October 26, 2009, 04:25:55 pm
My only proble with Firefox is/was downloading bank statements from RBS, ok from Alliance & Leicester.
RBS just sits there and says downloading, but it isn't.
Back to IE and all OK.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: Bryan Young on October 26, 2009, 05:59:44 pm
Hi Bryan

Just out of interest. What version of Windows are you running. 95 or earlier by anychance?
I am curios because of what you said about floppy drives.
Windows XP with all the bells and whistles except IE8. Upgraded various cards over time. The machine came with a 3.5" floppy drive that I've never used....a redundant gizmo filling what could be a useful space. Bryan.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: tobyker on October 26, 2009, 06:38:54 pm
Backed up all my data on the external drive - my lad is up from hampshire with the details of the PC he built himself with kit from overclockers.com, and we've just ordered the bits for one for me - shipping tonight.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: malcolmfrary on October 26, 2009, 09:45:12 pm
That should be a 100% cure  :-))
It does go a little against the grain to not fix something, but that's modern life.  If it had been a laptop, in all probability the answer would have been "Mend it with a new one" straight away.

Quote
The machine came with a 3.5" floppy drive that I've never used....a redundant gizmo filling what could be a useful space. Bryan.
You could always dig the floppy drive out and plant a hard drive in the meccano in its place.  All it needs then is somewhere to plug it into for power and data, and a cover plate to hide the hole.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: tobyker on October 27, 2009, 02:57:11 pm
When we've got the new one going, we'll do a strip and rebuild on the old one, just to see if we can get it working properly again.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: tobyker on November 01, 2009, 07:46:16 pm
Yippee! The box of bits is up and running - humungous clear LCD screen  = I've just been looking at hama's work photos again - I must go back to Stockholm. The only outstanding problem is that though I've saved all my contacts from Outlook express in XP, I don't seem to be able to get them into Outlook in 7. And by the way, assembling a pc is very easy - all you do need is some advice on which bits to get so they all talk to each other.
Title: Re: sick pc
Post by: dodgy geezer on November 01, 2009, 08:12:30 pm
Yippee! The box of bits is up and running - humungous clear LCD screen  ...

That's perfectly normal for a Microsoft machine - they need rebuilding after a few years of use.  And because nobody uses any other operating system, nobody realises that a computer doesn't have to be as bad as that....