My &%^$$ PC

Epona · 05-26-2002, 10:52 AM

Gah, it's just getting worse and worse. HDD format and clean Windoze install seemed to settle it down for a day or so - but now I'm getting General Protection Faults all over the place again.

I ran Scandisk, and it sorted out my File Allocation Tables, and found a bad cluster on my HDD, but now I seem to be getting even more GPFS.

Time to throw it out the window. I installed CIV3 after 3 aborted attempts, and I get a GPF every time I try to play it.

I would welcome any useful suggestions for something useful to do with a dead PC - mmmmmm, perhaps I could plant begonias in the case, or turn it into an indoor water feature? Any ideas?

Earthdog · 05-26-2002, 11:10 AM

Get a new hard drive. Are you runniing windows 98? ME?? NT?? 2000?? XP?? sounds like 98 to me. I had that problem too and went to windows ME and didnt have anymore trouble. Could be ram. Borrow a stick of someone elses and put it in your comp and see if the problem continues. Other than a new OS and hard drive thats all I can think of. SiSoft Sandra is a program you can download from tucows and its got alot of diagnostic stuff on it. It should tell you if youve got hard drive problems.

When was the last time you defragged it? clean disk??

[ 05-26-2002, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Earthdog ]

Bahamut · 05-26-2002, 11:11 AM

Well I got those GPF with my RAM... I had a straight hard talk with my PC and after a while it got itself running again [img]smile.gif[/img]

Sorry to hear that your pc doesn't want to conform and tries to be high class all the time

johnny · 05-26-2002, 11:42 AM

right now i'm having some problems of my own. Yesterday i was playing nba live 2001 and suddenly there was a little flash on my screen. Almost immediately the graphics turned kinda grey and there were horizontal stripes all over my screen. Maybe my graphics card is screwed but it could also be the monitor, and if that's the case it's the third time this year my monitor breaks down, and it's only May, go figure. I'll have it tested tomorrow, but i'm afraid it's gonna cost me again. I'm starting to get a little pissed off at my supplier !

The Hunter of Jahanna · 05-26-2002, 11:54 AM

If you cant get your comp to work you can use it for a lovely fireworks display on the 4th!! All you need is some rubbing alcohol,a 2 liter plastic bottle and a drill.

#1 find a spot inside of your case big enough to fit the bottle,remove hardware cards if nesecary

#2 drill a hole in the case big enough to fit the mouth of the bottle.

#3 Put the bottle into place

#4 add about a cup of rubbing alcahol to the bottle and plug the end of it.

#5 SHAKE your machine till most of the alcahol has evaporated inside the bottle

#6 put the machine down with the bottle mouth faceing the ground

#7 remove plug and add FIRE

#8 watch as burining alcahol fumes launch your machine into the sky

#9 make sure all of the neighborhood computers are there to wittness what happens when a computer acts up!!

[ 05-26-2002, 11:55 AM: Message edited by: The Hunter of Jahanna ]

/)eathKiller · 05-26-2002, 12:47 PM

I'd turn that into the manufacturer for either an upgrade or a good ol' fasioned fixin'...

Epona · 05-26-2002, 01:10 PM

Earthdog - thank you! That is exactly what I have decided to do. Yes I am running Windoze 98 and as soon as I get my hands on XP I can install my lovely new 80Gb HDD which is sitting beside my desk, and adding more RAM (so I can swap the sticks to check whether the old one is fried).

Hunter of Jahanna - Great idea! We don't celebrate the 4th July here in England, I can't think why not [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] , but I can save that idea for 5th Nov, when we celebrate the attempt by Guy Fawkes to blow up Parliament. Now that gives me a secondary idea

- ah no, better not.

Deathkiller -

I dunno, people these days

I am quite capable of fixing it mesself dearie, seems the modern answer to everything is to get someone else to do it. Manufacturer? Built it mesself, and it had been working fine until very recently. Thanks for the thought though.

Earthdog · 05-27-2002, 04:28 AM

Epona, having had some major problems with XP myself, I wouldnt be interested in putting it back on my computer. Something you might be interested in knowing about XP is its a NTFS (all that means is NT based Filing System) and not DOS based. Some games WILL NOT install on NTFS. If youre a fan of BG2 i cant tell you one way orthe other if youll be able to install it. My wife had XP on her comp and she couldnt get several games to install. So she went back to Windows ME.

You dont have to do the NTFS partition. You can do an "upgrade install" and keep your FAT 32 partitions, and not have to do a complete "clean install" of XP. My brotehr is Microsoft A+ certified and thats what he told me this weekend. I wish I had known that stuff before when I had tried XP on my comp and had major problems with it and ended up going back to ME.

My only real complaint with XP was severe hardware incapatabilities. I didnt want to have to buy all new hardware just to run an OS.

Minimum ram requirement for XP is 128 meg. You really need at least 256 though. Makes your comp run a lot better.

WOLFGIR · 05-27-2002, 08:23 AM

Well as far as XP goes, very stable, very good with AMD since the support for the AMD is better under XP then many other OS´s.

Win ME.. now thats a big virus!

BG2 runs beatiful under WinXP, just get the XP patch and you are set to go. I have so far been able to run all the interesting games I want under winxp, I don´t play and DOS games though...

NTFS Is really great, tells you when something is weird and then fix it. What you need to do is to explore the new system since it is different from the Win98 settings. Also get a good feel for it, and turn off all thoose blimey eye-catching-graphic things.

Blääärgh, shades, and opacity and other processor stealing things.. :S

05-26-2002, 10:52 AM	#1
Epona Zartan Join Date: March 1, 2001 Location: London, England Age: 53 Posts: 5,164	Gah, it's just getting worse and worse. HDD format and clean Windoze install seemed to settle it down for a day or so - but now I'm getting General Protection Faults all over the place again. I ran Scandisk, and it sorted out my File Allocation Tables, and found a bad cluster on my HDD, but now I seem to be getting even more GPFS. Time to throw it out the window. I installed CIV3 after 3 aborted attempts, and I get a GPF every time I try to play it. I would welcome any useful suggestions for something useful to do with a dead PC - mmmmmm, perhaps I could plant begonias in the case, or turn it into an indoor water feature? Any ideas? __________________ [img]\"http://www.wizardrealm.com/images/epona.gif\" alt=\" - \" />

05-26-2002, 11:10 AM	#2
Earthdog Emerald Dragon Join Date: May 1, 2001 Location: melbourne victoria australia Age: 59 Posts: 960	Get a new hard drive. Are you runniing windows 98? ME?? NT?? 2000?? XP?? sounds like 98 to me. I had that problem too and went to windows ME and didnt have anymore trouble. Could be ram. Borrow a stick of someone elses and put it in your comp and see if the problem continues. Other than a new OS and hard drive thats all I can think of. SiSoft Sandra is a program you can download from tucows and its got alot of diagnostic stuff on it. It should tell you if youve got hard drive problems. When was the last time you defragged it? clean disk?? [ 05-26-2002, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Earthdog ] __________________ THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!

05-26-2002, 11:11 AM	#3
Bahamut Iron Throne Cult Join Date: March 12, 2001 Location: Manila, Philippines Age: 39 Posts: 4,864	Well I got those GPF with my RAM... I had a straight hard talk with my PC and after a while it got itself running again [img]smile.gif[/img] Sorry to hear that your pc doesn't want to conform and tries to be high class all the time __________________ http://makeallthedifference.blogspot.com http://www.bratgirlcentral.com/cgi-b.../ikonboard.cgi

05-26-2002, 11:42 AM	#4
johnny 40th Level Warrior Join Date: April 15, 2002 Location: Utrecht The Netherlands Age: 58 Posts: 16,981	right now i'm having some problems of my own. Yesterday i was playing nba live 2001 and suddenly there was a little flash on my screen. Almost immediately the graphics turned kinda grey and there were horizontal stripes all over my screen. Maybe my graphics card is screwed but it could also be the monitor, and if that's the case it's the third time this year my monitor breaks down, and it's only May, go figure. I'll have it tested tomorrow, but i'm afraid it's gonna cost me again. I'm starting to get a little pissed off at my supplier ! __________________

05-26-2002, 11:54 AM	#5
The Hunter of Jahanna Emerald Dragon Join Date: September 25, 2001 Location: NY , NY Age: 63 Posts: 960	If you cant get your comp to work you can use it for a lovely fireworks display on the 4th!! All you need is some rubbing alcohol,a 2 liter plastic bottle and a drill. #1 find a spot inside of your case big enough to fit the bottle,remove hardware cards if nesecary #2 drill a hole in the case big enough to fit the mouth of the bottle. #3 Put the bottle into place #4 add about a cup of rubbing alcahol to the bottle and plug the end of it. #5 SHAKE your machine till most of the alcahol has evaporated inside the bottle #6 put the machine down with the bottle mouth faceing the ground #7 remove plug and add FIRE #8 watch as burining alcahol fumes launch your machine into the sky #9 make sure all of the neighborhood computers are there to wittness what happens when a computer acts up!! [ 05-26-2002, 11:55 AM: Message edited by: The Hunter of Jahanna ] __________________ \"How much do I love you?? I\'ll tell you one thing, it\'d be a whole hell of a lot more if you stopped nagging me and made me a friggin sandwich.\"

05-26-2002, 12:47 PM	#6
/)eathKiller Dracolisk Join Date: January 5, 2002 Location: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Age: 38 Posts: 6,043	I'd turn that into the manufacturer for either an upgrade or a good ol' fasioned fixin'...

05-26-2002, 01:10 PM	#7
Epona Zartan Join Date: March 1, 2001 Location: London, England Age: 53 Posts: 5,164	Earthdog - thank you! That is exactly what I have decided to do. Yes I am running Windoze 98 and as soon as I get my hands on XP I can install my lovely new 80Gb HDD which is sitting beside my desk, and adding more RAM (so I can swap the sticks to check whether the old one is fried). Hunter of Jahanna - Great idea! We don't celebrate the 4th July here in England, I can't think why not [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] , but I can save that idea for 5th Nov, when we celebrate the attempt by Guy Fawkes to blow up Parliament. Now that gives me a secondary idea - ah no, better not. Deathkiller - I dunno, people these days I am quite capable of fixing it mesself dearie, seems the modern answer to everything is to get someone else to do it. Manufacturer? Built it mesself, and it had been working fine until very recently. Thanks for the thought though. __________________ [img]\"http://www.wizardrealm.com/images/epona.gif\" alt=\" - \" />

05-27-2002, 04:28 AM	#8
Earthdog Emerald Dragon Join Date: May 1, 2001 Location: melbourne victoria australia Age: 59 Posts: 960	Epona, having had some major problems with XP myself, I wouldnt be interested in putting it back on my computer. Something you might be interested in knowing about XP is its a NTFS (all that means is NT based Filing System) and not DOS based. Some games WILL NOT install on NTFS. If youre a fan of BG2 i cant tell you one way orthe other if youll be able to install it. My wife had XP on her comp and she couldnt get several games to install. So she went back to Windows ME. You dont have to do the NTFS partition. You can do an "upgrade install" and keep your FAT 32 partitions, and not have to do a complete "clean install" of XP. My brotehr is Microsoft A+ certified and thats what he told me this weekend. I wish I had known that stuff before when I had tried XP on my comp and had major problems with it and ended up going back to ME. My only real complaint with XP was severe hardware incapatabilities. I didnt want to have to buy all new hardware just to run an OS. Minimum ram requirement for XP is 128 meg. You really need at least 256 though. Makes your comp run a lot better. __________________ THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!

05-27-2002, 08:23 AM	#9
WOLFGIR Bastet - Egyptian Cat Goddess Join Date: March 1, 2001 Location: Sweden Age: 50 Posts: 3,450	Well as far as XP goes, very stable, very good with AMD since the support for the AMD is better under XP then many other OS´s. Win ME.. now thats a big virus! BG2 runs beatiful under WinXP, just get the XP patch and you are set to go. I have so far been able to run all the interesting games I want under winxp, I don´t play and DOS games though... NTFS Is really great, tells you when something is weird and then fix it. What you need to do is to explore the new system since it is different from the Win98 settings. Also get a good feel for it, and turn off all thoose blimey eye-catching-graphic things. Blääärgh, shades, and opacity and other processor stealing things.. :S __________________ Don´t eat the yellow snow

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