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Please console my terrible, terrible ordeal....


Parias
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Last night was perhaps the single worst night I've had this year. Some of you will probably declare me "nerdy" and will shrug this off as another random difficulty to be hauled off to the higher techs so they can poke around in your machine and magically fix it, but not me. Oh no, I'm far too attached to my machine for that.

At roughly 22 hundred hours last night, I was busy fiddling around with my new Abit KT7-RAID motherboard/1.1Ghz processor. The framerates were god-like, but for some reason Mechwarrior 4 refused to run acceptably, caching it's brains out during gameplay. This, of course, was completely unacceptable, and I wouldn't stop untill the game would run smoother than a baby's recently-washed behind (take THAT baby-butt-touching commercials!). Upon the suggestion of another forum I was posting on for help as to why my comp was randomly rebooting (hosted on Apu's Hardware.com no less... I stayed as far away from the main page as possible, honest!), and someons suggested I A) Add a line (Something like "ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1") to the 386enh section of my System.Ini

B) Adjust the Windows virtual memory settings to 256 megs

C) Defrag my HD

I carried out all 3 tasks. Rebooted, grinning at how my performance would now kick ass. Unfortunately, my expression dropped through the floor faster than an anvil when a pure, blue desktop showed up as opposed to the dreamcast bikini girl I had set, and when everything finished loading, all of my desktop icons were gone. I couldn't access the start menu, nor My Computer. The only thing I COULD do was sort of navigate by right clicking on My Computer and going to "Search".

Highly disturbed, I rebooted into safe mode and attempted to access the System Restore function. The window popped up, but refused to show anything, no matter how many times I clicked or how long I waited. Rebooting normally wasn't any use either, I couldn't do anything. It either resulted in WinME complaining about ActiveX being disabled, or my security settings being too high and to "contact the admin". I was able to do a virus scan, but found nothing.

Thus began my downward spiral of mood for that evening. I tried just about everything, even restored the original System.Ini from the backup I made before modifying it and restoring my system cache to normal. No dice. I couldn't re-install WinMe, because my CDROM drive had just died 2 days prior and I was still waiting for my replacement to arrive!

So I posted a message to the forums describing my difficulty and hit the sack. Took me a good hour to get to sleep, I thought all my data was gone.

Woke up this morning and, on a hunch, did a search on "C:WindowsDesktop" for any relevant files that I might remember. To my relief, everything was still there, it just wasn't being displayed. I also checked the forums I had posted to, but naturally there wasn't anything of much use suggested there.

Finally, my friend called and suggested I try a Windows Startup disk. I did so, and learned that I should try a "scanreg /restore" to load an earlier backup of my registry. Did so, rebooted, and let loose a sigh of relief so massive, it could've probably cooled my 1.1Ghz for the next hour or so, even without the Chrome Orb. And now I'm back in action, minus 30 or so fuses in my brain.

Er, so, what's the point of this post, aside from showing that I'm a hopeless hardcore gamer with relatively no life whatsoever? The fact that if you think YOU've got a serious computer problem, chances are someone has something worse smile.gif

Anyone else got any heart-threatening computer horror stories they want to share to make me feel better? I'll be busy for the next hour or so making backups of all my important stuff, "just in case". There WAS a time awhile ago where, at a PC Repair store I was apprenticing at, one of the techs was formatting a floppy but accidentally typed a "C" instead of an "A", as well as doing a /q /p (quick format, no prompts). Oh boy, that was fun. She stayed up all night and finally found a foreign DOS program capable of restoring FAT32 partitions. After that, however, I kinda stopped going there..

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Commodore. Parias

ICV-Galatae, Sanctuary Storage Facility (Sygan)

Balor Fleet

ICQ 1293359

Staff member at HardNews

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This isn't as bad as yours, but my video is slowly dying and I'm not sure if it's my Voodoo3 card or my monitor. My system is only two years old (that's like 200 for you and me).

The image is getting darker and darker. I have the brightness and contrast turned up to the max on the monitor and I pushed the 3dfx color brightness up a notch, too. When I first start up, the screen is not exactly bright, but it gets darker as the computer is running.

As soon as I have some free time, I'm going to take it down to the local Gateway store where I can plug my computer into one of their monitors and my monitor into one of their computers to troubleshoot where the problem is.

What makes this so aggravating is that I can't play BC:xx right now because everything is so dark that I can't distinguish any details. This isn't the best time to not be participating in this community.

Hopefully, next weekend I will have time to troubleshoot my system. I believe that everything is still covered by the 3-year warranty on parts and labor, but I don't need the hassles right now.

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Personaly i cant tell any horror stories like that, i just dont bother to remember them. In the last 3 years i had problems like yours every month or so. where i wanned to upgrade my system or make it better, and i'd end up messing it up so bad it would take me next 5 days to bring it back to the point where it originaly was. cwm1.gif It was easyer to just reformat HD and nuke the system for me then to restore it.

Thats why i have my HD devided so i can nuke my com before breakfast and reinstall everything before my coffie is cold cwm11.gif

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"When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you"

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Two word horror story:

Packard Bell.

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Commodore Kyle Antilles

ICV-Eclipse, Destiny Starstation (Nevuela)

Commanding Officer, Destiny

Spectre Fleet

"You can only love or hate something you truly understand"

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quote:

The image is getting darker and darker. I have the brightness and contrast turned up to the max on the monitor and I pushed the 3dfx color brightness up a notch, too. When I first start up, the screen is not exactly bright, but it gets darker as the computer is running.

This sounds like a voltage drop on the back of your tube, as the voltage drops, the tube doesn't hold the imgae long enough, and so, your screen gets darker...ergo... new monitor

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Quick question parias, what size PSU you running your AMD on?, I get loads of 'em back in all the time..upgraded the PC without bothering to change to an AMD rated PSU (sorry if I sound patrinsing, just a genuine question)

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Not sure of the size, but it's got 250 watts of power. I got the PSU with my comp when I bought it 2 years ago..... I'm hoping I don't have to buy another, but that might eventually be the case.

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Parias.... Your trying to run a 1.1 gig on a 250? Actually when I upgraded to a 900 I tried the same thing. I was having lotsa weird problems so my friend and I popped in a 300W. That fixed the problems.

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Commodore Kyle Antilles

ICV-Eclipse, Destiny Starstation (Nevuela)

Commanding Officer, Destiny

Spectre Fleet

"You can only love or hate something you truly understand"

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Hi Parias, I got the same board minus the raid controller . I'm running the 900 T-Bird. I was having the same crashes w/ MW4...traced the problem (after endless driver & prog. update searches) to the cpu core voltage being too hot... I dropped it by .025V and that cured the problem for me.

For a great resource on that board as well as general good tips check here.

As Eclipse mentioned, a 300W PSU may really be needed. Especially if you have a bunch of stuff loaded. I also have a 250W PSU and using the VIA hardware monitor am seeing a ripple in both 12V & 5V. I need to switch up myself.

Thanks for sharing your pain. Misery loves company and I'm sure that SC can relate. I understand that 1 of his PCs turned into a snake pit. cwm21.gif

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Commodore Wold

ICV-Drakr, Spectre HQ (Antis)

Commanding Officer, Spectre HQ

Spectre Fleet

ICQ 4669033

"You can only love or hate something you truly understand"

[This message has been edited by Wold (edited 02-03-2001).]

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Parias, OK, I'll share too.

I was building an Thunderbird 850, and after I had the thing all together, was trying to get the OS loaded. TTTThe 3 1/2 kept coming back and telling me that the startup disk neede to be formatted, fought the thing for over 2 hours, finally was able to get it to run off the CD-ROM. even replaced the drive and got that garbage. Finally got it running and then did a full diagnostic,and BOTH 3 1/2 inch drives were bad. Couldn't believe it, talk about frustrated. Know where you are coming from.

Also, this is something else I do at least once a week, I have a 17 gig hard drive and a 6 gig hard drive. Every week or so I ghost the 17 to the 6 and have a complete copy of it, so if I get a virus or the reg gets messed up, I pull the 17 as c and make the 6 the c and boom I'm done, then I use the 17 as backup. I never even come close to using 5 gig on that 17, so don't know why I bothered!! lol Easy backup, easy recovery!!!

Just move 2 jumpers, format the bad drive and recopy and boom, done.

cwm11.gif

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CMDR Jaguar

GCV Excelsior

This is not just a game, It's a life unto itself!!

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Owie, that's gotta suck Jaguar! Hehe, thanks for sharing everyone.

Wold: I think I like the idea of a new PSU better than being told to get a new heat sink... before I got this Chrome Orb, I heard nothing but good reviews about it, but now that I finally have it in, everyone's telling me I should have gotten the GlobalWin. GAH! But the PSU would make sense, seeing as how I have a friend who runs at similar temps without any problems... I'll see if I can pick up a 300 watt-er later on... and then hope like hell that this fixes the issue, because I'm really getting tired of buying more and more stuff smile.gif This was just supposed to be a simple upgrade! Of course, true hardware enthusasts know never to use "simple" and "upgrade" in the same sentence...

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Commodore. Parias

ICV-Galatae, Sanctuary Storage Facility (Sygan)

Balor Fleet

ICQ 1293359

Staff member at HardNews

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quote:

Of course, true hardware enthusasts know never to use "simple" and "upgrade" in the same sentence...

cwm27.gifcwm27.gifcwm27.gif

LOL!!!

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Commodore Wold

ICV-Drakr, Spectre HQ (Antis)

Commanding Officer, Spectre HQ

Spectre Fleet

ICQ 4669033

"You can only love or hate something you truly understand"

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Parias, from someone whos been building rigs for a LONG time: 300W PSU is the minimum. The orb is fine providing your not trying to overclock the cpu. GlobalWin just came out with a new HS+fan combo that rocks, but it JUST came out. Did you have to make any "modifications" to that orb?

Anyway, get at least a 300W PSU or more if you can find/afford it. Addtronics and Zippy both make 400W PSU wink.gif

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Insurgent Two, Akira

ICV Nevermore, Spectre HQ (Antis)

Minister of War,

Insurgency

Official Tester, Battlecruiser Series

ICQ 13379858

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Aye, that's what I was thinking Akira. I've recently gotten my temp to stay down around 45 degrees when it's working hard (goes up to 51 if it works REALLY hard.. it's good, since even my 433 used to do that) and yet it still reboots. Average temp while doing very little-to-nothing in Windows (with ICQ, Motherboard Monitor, 2 IE windows, Outlook Express, and one or two other things running) is around 33 degrees.

Aye, the Chrome Orb has been modded a bit. Out of all the motherboards, I had to get the one with the capacitors super-close to the CPU. Only had to file down a small portion of the lower area (in retrospect, maybe I should have grabbed a mini chrome orb).

Anyways, I just recently read somewhere that, for my particular processor, the +5V channel should have at least 22Amps on it. Defying the laws of physics (and nearly breaking my neck in the process), I was able to squeeze around my case and determine that my PSU has only 13Amps on the +5V channel. Perhaps as the processor gets hotter, it draws more power, hence leading to the eventually rebooting difficulty denying me from all but the most simple of functions? That would explain why I can't reboot properly once my system reboots itself, just simply go into the BIOS or load Windows in Safe Mode. Otherwise I have to wait for the processor to start cooling down.

I'm working to see if I can score myself a 300 watt power supply. Any chance this might solve my "1 second complete hang every 7 seconds for the next 40 seconds after initially loading a game" problem as well?

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Commodore. Parias

ICV-Galatae, Sanctuary Storage Facility (Sygan)

Balor Fleet

ICQ 1293359

Staff member at HardNews

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Um, okay, now I wake up this morning, reboot my machine, and find that I'm stuck in the same situation that I had before, ALA Terminus.

Another reboot, system disk load, and scanreg /restore fixed the problem, but that's the second time my registry has gone bonkers in the past 2 days. Most odd...

At least I was able to fix the problem this time without getting another heart attack smile.gif

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Commodore. Parias

ICV-Galatae, Sanctuary Storage Facility (Sygan)

Balor Fleet

ICQ 1293359

Staff member at HardNews

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Yeesh! I'm surprised your head didn't explode after that one SC!

Heh, last month when I formatted my HD, WinMe created a partition for the D: drive and allocated 7 megs to it, while passing off the rest of the room to drive C:. Go figure.

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Commodore. Parias

ICV-Galatae, Sanctuary Storage Facility (Sygan)

Balor Fleet

ICQ 1293359

Staff member at HardNews

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I'll tell you guys about computer troubles when I get mine back from the shop and find out what I've actually lost. Currently mine's at the manufacturer of said machine being completely rebuilt. Smoke is a very bad thing to see rolling out of a computer chassis. frown.gif

I post this from my wife's machine in eager anticipation of the soon return of my own little joy giver. Should be sometime this week. I've been told that the HD and Video card were still good, 3.5 floppy was still good and the CD Rom was good, but my CDRW, MOBO, and Ram were Toast! They replaced those and formatted the HD, Loaded Win98SE, and all appear normal. So much for my loaded programs (BCM Beta included). frown.gif

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Insurgent One, Rattler

ICV Necromancer, Spectre HQ (Antis)

Commander-In-Chief,

Insurgency

Official Tester, Battlecruiser Series

[email protected]

ICQ 12894104

"You can only love or hate something you truly understand"

[This message has been edited by Akira (edited 02-05-2001).]

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Parias... Get yourself a new PSU NOW... Here's a couple of online locations:

Plycon

Outside Loop

You should also be able to find a 300W or better from your local mom and pop computer shop.

Did you build this system yourself? If not, your first step should be to get the reseller to fix it for you or replace the whole thing.

Good luck smile.gif

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Here's one of the human kind...

My wife's aunt passed away over the weekend (her mom's sister was in her 80's), so I booked my wife on a flight from San Francisco to New York City, connecting through Dallas.

This morning, as I was preparing some coffee to take on the drive to the airport, I dropped the jar and it shattered on the kitchen floor, a sharp edge cutting a 1 inch gash on the side of my left foot. Luckily it was early in the morning and the hospital was on the way to the airport. We went to the ER where they stitched up my foot and we made it to the airport in time for my wife to catch her flight.

Meanwhile, her brother is also flying into New York from San Diego via Denver. As you may know, a big storm is hitting the northeast today, and all of American's flights from Dallas to New York were canceled. I was able to book my wife into a hotel at the airport, but her brother's flight from Denver took off for New York. I'm sure they'll divert him somewhere else, but we were coordinating schedules so they would arrive at La Guardia at the same time.

So I'm home by myself for a week with stitches in my foot, and my monitor went bad last week and my old 14" one works okay but since my hardware configuration changed, BCM won't run!!

Not now!!!! cwm14.gif

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Some weeks you just wished never started! I hate trips like that! cwm36.gif

Well Parias, you got me to thinking about the individual amps so I doublechecked things... I thought I had a 250W PSU cause that's what the box said that the case came in. Just checked the PSU directly and it is a 300W PSU. You just saved me a few bucks. (sorry, I'm not sending you any $$) biggrin.gif

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Commodore Wold

ICV-Drakr, Spectre HQ (Antis)

Commanding Officer, Spectre HQ

Spectre Fleet

ICQ 4669033

"You can only love or hate something you truly understand"

[This message has been edited by Wold (edited 02-05-2001).]

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I, like many of you, am very attached to my computer. My mental state revolves around it. If it is purring along nicely, I am too. If it is old and out of date, I feel that way.

I used to get major, earth shattering problems all the time. I used to format my hard drive less than a dozen times a year, I'm sure. However, since I now use my computer for work, I've never had a major problem I couldn't solve in ten minutes by following two simple rules:

1) Buy ONLY quality, name brand hardware. Get the best possible. Make sure its been out a while and check to see what its patches fix before you buy it. Make sure the company hired a professional writer to create the manual and make sure there aren't spelling errors. You can get the manuals for most hardware on manufacturer's websites in PDF.

2) Don't load unncessary crap onto your computer. At the moment I only have WinMe, MS Office 2K, various drivers and a few games. No shareware, freeware or betaware. No leaked nVIDIA drivers. Neither my CPU nor my video card (GeForce 2MX) are overclocked because everything runs at over 30fps anyway. Most of you may not accept such a low FPS, but on my P-233 I was happy to get over 10fps whenever I played CS or TFC.

So that's my recipe for reducing stress. Hope everyone's computer is running nicely!

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quote:

So that's my recipe for reducing stress.

I don't know.... I prefer a little target practice w/ a 44 mag to the side panel on a really anoying puter....then buy another.. they're cheap these days! biggrin.gif

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Commodore Wold

ICV-Drakr, Spectre HQ (Antis)

Commanding Officer, Spectre HQ

Spectre Fleet

ICQ 4669033

"You can only love or hate something you truly understand"

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