Official "Computer Troubles" Thread

[Tigman_1]

still no fix :(

[Tigman_1]

how do i check that the hdd is communicating with the mobo?

I had this problem before but it fixed itself... but countless rebootings...if i remember correctly.

EDIT: I tried again, and it worked, but i have tried wihout plugging in anything except my screen and power...

EDIT: I think my hard drive is screwed...

[Tigman_1]

What would cause my pc to do this? I mean it was idling, and then boom!

EDIT: now it says disk read error, press crtl + alt + del to restart.

[Wesley]

ok, I finished Dead Space today (edpic!-on pc). I went to grab dinner, returned to my pc and there was the bios scribbley stuff writing on the screen which I usually see when I start my pc.

At the bottom of the writing it said disk boot failed. I assumed my pc had restarted itself while I was gone. I restarted the computer several times only to my disappointment of the same thing happening.

The hard drive makes a strange kind of revving noise, spinning up, then spinning down, the speeding up and so on...

I havn't done my pc upgrades yet and this problem has gone into my Fu**ing annoying pc shop, which I hate with passion, for repairs and they said it was a 'software clash'.

An ideas?

Software clash my ass. Have you tried installing it into another computer as a slave drive? If it picks up and works, grab everything you can and get yourself a new drive. It sounds like yours has already crashed, and with the sounds that you're hearing its a sure sign that your hard drive has either already failed, or is on the road to certain death.

[GeometriX]

Download and burn to disc your HDD manufacturer's diagnostic tools, which you can find on their website (Seagate's is called Seatools, for example). Run the full test (which will probably take a few hours). If it fails, well, your hard drive is stuffed. It could also be things like your southbridge failing (not exactly a great thing in itself) or something as simple as a power supply being dodgy or even your SATA/IDE cable. So poke around, you know. Be adventurous.

[Wesley]

[QUOTE=Tigman_1;186356]EDIT: I tried again, and it worked, but i have tried wihout plugging in anything except my screen and power...[QUOTE]

Power supply failure? It certainly sounds like it. Your PSU could have bombed out and your hard drive undervolted itself and is now malfunctioning. Its not rare, but its not common either, and doesn't usually happen. As usual, at this time of night, thats the only thing I can think of.

[Tigman_1]

it happens in routine like every 1 month lol...that computer shop (Nexture) is a dumb bum. full stop. They lie to me on purpose, what they think i'm noob or something? Im gonna try and grab as much data as possible. Thanks for the help, ps. how do i test if the southbridge is failing?

[Tigman_1]

Power supply failure? It certainly sounds like it. Your PSU could have bombed out and your hard drive undervolted itself and is now malfunctioning. Its not rare, but its not common either, and doesn't usually happen. As usual, at this time of night, thats the only thing I can think of.

how can I tell if i am under volting my HDD

[Wesley]

how can I tell if i am under volting my HDD

Hell if I know, and I'm not opening my textbooks at this time of night to find out either, my brain's already fried just looking at my stack of second-year manuals. In all probability, you wont be able to tell whether the hard drive is undervolted or not, its just my guess what happened. The fact that your pc booted up properly with only the monitor, motherboard and HDD powered up does tell you that your PSU is part of the cause of your problem.

[Tigman_1]

ive got my pc working agina, but it's way way slower than usaull. I have fraps, and playing a particular video alsways agme me 30 FPS. now it onl gives me 5FPS.

should I do a system restore?

[Tigman_1]

seems to be back to normal. Thank goodness, thanks for the help

EDIT: now that I think about it, computers do the weirdest things for no reason.

[Chevron]

Is your monitor drawing power from the psu? If it is, give it it's own power cable.

[Tigman_1]

No, it has its own cable, how can i check if thw southbridge is failing?

[Interfan]

Hi guys. Need a recommendation for a lap top hard drive recovery place. My sister's laptop is just totally dead and she needs to recover her data on the thing.

Laptop doesn't power up at all. No lights go on. Tried different power cables so it seems its just totally dead.

[Wesley]

Hi guys. Need a recommendation for a lap top hard drive recovery place. My sister's laptop is just totally dead and she needs to recover her data on the thing.

Laptop doesn't power up at all. No lights go on. Tried different power cables so it seems its just totally dead.

Where are you based?

[Azraphael]

Please somebody help me, I think I'm going mad. My specs are the following:
AMD 3500+
Biostar Tforce 550 m/b
3 gigs of RAM
320 gig IDE drive
3 x 250 gig SATA drives
GeCube Radeon X1650 Pro
450 watt PSU

My problem is this, when I access certain folders, i.e my music or movie directories, explorer crashes. It is becoming a right pain in the ass considering that this machine is used as a media server to stream to my Xbox. I am using TVersity as my media software, because when I tried to import my media into Media Player 11 it tells me it's found the media but then it doesn't add it to the library. It will only add, say 10 % of my media and when I click on the video tab in media player, my system crashes. Ideally I would prefer to ru media centre over media player but I can't find it anywhere and don't really wanna put vista on. I'm suspecting a hard drive issue is to blame, any ideas?

[Wesley]

I am using TVersity as my media software, because when I tried to import my media into Media Player 11 it tells me it's found the media but then it doesn't add it to the library. It will only add, say 10 % of my media and when I click on the video tab in media player, my system crashes. I'm suspecting a hard drive issue is to blame, any ideas?

Do the Math. TVersity is hogging your system resources and CPU cycles. Try get something less taxing on your system.

[Azraphael]

Any suggestions for a replacement for TVersity

[Interfan]

Where are you based?

Pretoria.

[Chevron]

Do the Math. TVersity is hogging your system resources and CPU cycles. Try get something less taxing on your system.

I was thinking virus. Usually when resources are being used up the pc is just unresponsive.