I'm Losing My Hair...

[Arby]

...because I'm pulling it out in major frustration.

There doesn't seem to be any good place for me to say this here. I wish there was a nooby section in all the forums. But here it goes.

I am having all kinds of problems all of a sudden. I can't say what's causing them. But I hate Microsoft. My computer is a couple of years old. I'm using a P4 1.7, 512 SDRAM, asus mb, ati graphics card and soundblaster 5.1 and my os is windows xp home. My pc came with an asus dvd player, and a plextor cd burner. My monitor is a 17" Viewsonic, flatscreen, which has never had to be adjusted. I'm connected to the net via Rogers Cable. A friend of mine - who I wish would pay me a visit - looked at the print-out that I got from DSL downloads and said that he found my speed to be slow. I wouldn't know. It's 730/184.

There's a number of things that I've done recently, so I can't figure out which might be causing my problems. And I'd be wasting my time troubleshooting, at least without step by step guidance from someone. I don't expect to get that via this or any forum. It's just too much hassle. But I thought I'd toss this out and possibly get a little useful feedback from you good folks, or at least a shoulder to cry on.

I've been using the latest Shareaza lately. It's public beta. I haven't abandoned my Kazaa, which has looked after me quite nicely for some time. Although I'm on the fence about upgrading it to the latest version. My 172 has served me fine. Anyhow, The other thing I did was clean the grimy dust out of my computer. In the course of doing that, I noticed that the plastic housing on my cpu was warped and cracked, to the point where the fan was catching on an edge of it and not turning. I know enough to know that you can't have that. (When I have a few dollars, I suppose I should go to a pc shop and buy a new housing. Is replacing the one I have something I can do on my own?) For now, I rigged something up that kept the housing on and the fan turning freely. It was either that, or go without my pc completely.

Initially, I was interrupted with a message saying there's a hardware monitor problem and telling me to go to the settings. I had no idea what that meant. But I figured out that my hardware monitor is accessed via the safe mode you do on start up. (Is there any way to enter those settings other than via safe mode when you're booting up?) I couldn't understand what I was seeing there. But soon as I saw the word 'temperature' I knew enough to check the fan. This was after I had cleaned my pc, but before I had rigged it up. Between the time I had found the problem - and bent the housing a little so as to free up the fan - and returned to it after getting the alert, the stupid housing (on my $4000 pc!) had warped even more and the fan was stopped.
This is when I rigged up the housing, which is in fact broken.

Now, I get the odd message (black screen with suff on it) that there's a problem. I have no idea what I'm looking at though. Also, I have twice run my Norton's (systemworks 2002, with update virus definitions however) and both times it failed to complete. The first time that happened, the pc was simply hanging and I had to reboot. The second time, there was a windows gray box saying that a critical error prevented the virus scan from completing.

I'm also flummoxed by this system restore function. It would be nice if windows didn't make me hunt for the stupid thing, for starters. I'm also curious why none of the dates I select work. I'm only selecting previous dates that show in the calendar and that are highlighted, as windows requests. What's the deal here? And then when the date you select doesn't work, windows says 'Sorry, Didn't work? OK?' You really have no choice but to click on 'OK', after which the wizard (?) shuts down, leaving you to go hunting for it again before giving it another shot.

I'd like to give Microsoft a shot.

[Arby]

None of the system restore dates I selected pan out. I've tried 2 or 3 in early August. I went back to July. I went back to June and May. Nada. Is that normal? Do I just go through all the highlighted dates until something works?

Also, I was too quick to complain that the restore wizard is completely useless. It's only mostly useless. I didn't notice that the option to click on 'home' kept the wizard open. Perhaps something like 'keep wizard open', while getting our attention, is just a bit to helpful for Microslop.

[maartendc]

Your fan not spinning is never good...
Shut down your pc and get it working again, or buy a new one.
If you run your pc without a fan on your cpu, you might as well throw away your cpu. Its suicide.

And about that software problems. A quick and clean sollution is a format c.

[Ardor]

I'm suffering from SADD, meaning I have problems concentrating while reading long text-pieces like yours, but I'll try to help you out.

The most critical thing is the CPU and the fan. If the fan no longer runs, your cpu runs a large chance of burning up... which could damage your motherboard as well. In other words, I would either take out the cpu and fan and take it to a shop to be checked, or if you don't feel confident in doing so, take the whole PC to a store to have them check it. You'll most probably just need to replace the fan, which is not expensive.

On the whole, if your PC is hanging, it's most likely a hardware problem, not windows. Another reason to get your PC checked asap...

You can test your DSL-performance on various sites. On www.pcpitstop.com you can do a full system-scan, including measuring your internet-speed, and on www.speedguide.net you can find a lot of help regarding tweaking your internet-connection, and the forums of both sites are usefull too.

Shareza? Sorry don't use it. Maybe someone else can help?

Hope that was of help... :shy

[Ea$y_E]

first of all if your cpu fan is warped that means 1 of 2 things..
either it was a crappy stock fan that was put into system by manufacturer or you decided to overclock your system with out upgrading fan first.

if the system hangs its quite obvious why....THE CPU IS OVERHEATING!!!

a bad cpu fan on a p4 of that speed is just bad news, you risk actually binding the cpu to the board, theres no telling how much damage has been caused to cpu. get a new fan and get a new cpu DO NOT USE that computer with out servicing it first, otherwise you risk possibly more damage to something else around the area due to heat.

[eruhk]

by the "housing" do you mean the casing around the heatsink?

from what you are describing it sounds like your heatsink has been fucked up for a rather long time. i would recommend ripping it out entirely and replacing it with a new one (i like antec, and they're pretty cheap, around the $20 range). this is something you can do on your own fairly easily, most manufacturers include instructions with their products.

do not ever ever EVER turn on your pc when the heatsink fan is broken, or even impaired. irreperable damage can be caused to the cpu, the motherboard, and from there in the most extreme cases out to your hard drives and peripherals. you're looking at a simple $20 fix ballooning into a monstrous complete system failure, which is magnanimous not only financially but in the amount of grief you will experience over all your lost data.

if you are lucky you can simply replace the heatsink and everything will work out, but i fear that you may be beyond that point. system restore will not help you at all, not that it can't in certain situations, just that this is not one of them.

if all else fails, take it in to a tech and cross your fingers.

[shawners]

Usually the Riaa causes premature hairloss..

[Arby]

Well, There's not much to disagree with in the above replies. I have the side of my pc off and can see the fan on my cpu without even turning my head. Nevertheless, I think I should indeed get my pc to the shop. I've pulled my invoice out and it seems I've got a few months left on the warranty.

I told them I only wanted Antec ball bearing fans when I purchased my pc. I had to fight with them to get what I wanted. I didn't have the luxury of shopping forever. Without a vehicle, that's difficult. As well, They (Signa on Kennedy Rd here in Toronto) were better than some of the shops I looked at. Initially, They shorted me on one fan, and another wasn't hooked up and running! I got the fan that wasn't running running, and then when I went in to pick up the fan they didn't give me, I realized, once I got home, that it wasn't the better quality Antec brand which I had paid for, as my invoice clearly shows. I complained loudly about that, and got them to upgrade my fan. Alas, It's 'take what you get, whether you like it or not, whether you deserve it or not'.

All my fans are spinning. I don't know why I'm still having problems. But, as others have pointed out, the damage may have been done and can't be undone. There's not much I can do now. I will be taking the pc into the shop, if it's still there, next week, Wednesday at the latest.

Yes, As I noted, it was the 'housing' around the cpu fan that warped and jammed against the fan.

I can't get my Norton's to work. :-(

It causes my pc to hang, no matter what I do with it. I suppose it's possible that it's become corrupted somehow, so I'll uninstall and re-install it. I've got nothing better to do at this point.

Later...