I feel like goddamn e-sherlock holmes...

[ShinRa]

So I can't figure out why every so often my comp craps out on me. I mean after all, it's still in the high end department. (fx-53, x800 xt platinum, the works). My harddrive sometimes makes a little beep/dashing/noise thingy and then my comp freezes for a second or two then returns to normal. Sometimes while playing cs, cs just stutters and restarts my comp. Sometimes my comp is looking to add new hardware that doesn't exist. All of this i centered around my shitty seagate harddrive. Recently, on startup, I noticed when the startup music for win2k starts playing, the speakers make scratch and screech sounds. I'm thinking this is also related to my problem. I have completely scanned out all spyware, adware, and viruses. What the hell can it be?

 

[WhiteZero]

Could still be a virus.
Dosent anyone else but you use that computer?
Also, try to find some HardDrive Diagnostic software from your HDD Manufacturer.

 

[giant384]

could be corrupted files

 

[Adabiviak]

Cooties - that nasty Bulgarian strain that's been going around. If you have that many hardware problems at once, I'd take a peek at my power supply voltages. I know that's a catch-all for a lot of machine problems (and I have never personally seen a power supply fail), but I'd start there.

 

[TrippyG]

sounds definetly like a HD problem... try defragging and using a HD diagnost program

 

[poseyjmac]

besides reinstalling motherboard drivers or video drivers, id say hmm. try running

chkdsk /r

in command prompt, then defrag maybe.

 

[duffers20]

I would personally back all important data now, the last thing you want is for your disc to fail on you. Then run some disk utilities to check teh condition of the drive. Also do what poseyjmac said, reinstall key drivers for your hardware.

 

[ShinRa]

well that was the 2nd hd ive gone through in 2 months. i just bought another one. its a wd caviar 80 gig and im on it now. i noticed something as soon as i started the comp that i noticed about the seagate: before it writes a boot file partition to start the new drive up, it says this:

Boot Sector Write!!
VIRUS: Continue? Y/N?

Last time I hit yes, this time I hit no, and I still got the disk running. So what does this mean?

 

[ShinRa]

anyone?

 

[ShinRa]

someone please...i dont want this 3rd harddrive to **** up on me too. if theres anyone who knows anything please help.

 

[Top Secret]

I'm gonna get flamed for this, but I think it's your ram.

 

[giant384]

omg top secret ur such a dum....no jk anyways i dont get y no one ask experts or calls tech support they come to forums where most ppl are guessing how to fix it

 

[poseyjmac]

im sorry but if you are having problems with this 3rd harddrive, then they werent all 3 bad drives. do you know the odds of buying 3 dud drives in a row?

the problem does not lie in the harddrive hardware itself. its either another piece of hardware, or maybe you are putting the same virus-ridden data back on each drive.

 

[socK]

PSU could be out of whack. Maybe CPU overheating. Bad stick of ram. Act of god. Could be alot of things really.

 

[J_Tweedy]

omg top secret ur such a dum....no jk anyways i dont get y no one ask experts or calls tech support they come to forums where most ppl are guessing how to fix it

tech support makes you wait and wait, and then after an hour of explanations, tells you they don't know and to 'bring it in.'

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

omg top secret ur such a dum....no jk anyways i dont get y no one ask experts or calls tech support they come to forums where most ppl are guessing how to fix it

You go call a tech support and get back to me.

 

[ShinRa]

well now im really pissed. i just went to play cs and it started that ****ing stuttering shit again and froze on me, just like the other two hd's. im assuming it might be a ram problem? my comp cant get any more spyware and virus free than it is....

 

[ShinRa]

its like a light bulb went off in my head. tell me this is plausible:

things take forever to load....
cs or any game stutters and freezes 2 seconds into the game...
my task manager says im using more memory than it even reads that i have....

ITS THE RAM!

yes? no?

 

[ShinRa]

here's another clue...idk what it means but:

http://img38.echo.cx/img38/5828/untitled6do.png

forget the colors, i just saved the image in a shitty format. but look at the system idle process....

 

[StardogChampion]

It's to do with Valve's crappy engine + your RAM.

The system idle process always takes up 99.

 

[ShinRa]

so maybe that sound i thought was my hd was actually my ram?

i mean jesus christ i have 4 ****in hd's now and if its the goddamn ram i dont want all of these. anyone want them?

 

[Mujuro]

Download and install Memtest (http://www.memtest.org), and if you have ANY errors when you run in, it’s definitely your RAM. Oh, and I'd take a new hard drive.

 

[ShinRa]

well you'll never believe this.

im back on the 2nd hd, the seagate. apparently i can fix these hd's as many times as i want and theyll run fine until i try to run steam or any game. after i try to play css too many times, my whole hd ****s up and i haveta reformat. my 3rd hd just crapped on me, after i tried to play css to take a picture of what the error looks like. my system crashed with the message "Hard Error" and just kept repeating. then when i restarted the comp it froze on the win2k loading screen, sorta like the first hd did (the raptor).

and now here's the bigger news. i noticed my agp is set to 0. when i try to set it to 8x, when i restart the comp and come back its at 0 again. i had this exact same problem with my 9800 pro and my old computer. this cant be coincedence, apparently there's something i can do. anyone have any ideas?

edit: and its definately not my powersupply or my ram. i ran the memory tests like 5 times and came up with nothing. my psu is positive. now the only thing i think it can possibly be is...sadly...my x800 xt platinum.

 

[ShinRa]

someone...please...im ready to cry over this. ive wasted so much money on all these damn harddrives and all 3 of them are ****ed up over my goddamn video card. if anyone has any idea please im begging you...im just getting really depressed over this.

 

[baron insig]

u thought about borrowing a mates system, and swapping hdds around to see if u get same problem?

and also u can use ur hdd ina mates system to completly format each drive with out a chance of infecting cross drives

 

[jverne]

hey man can't you format the whole thing and start from scratch!?!? it's better than use some shitty programs! A bad PSU might also be your problem!

 

[AmishSlayer]

well you'll never believe this.

im back on the 2nd hd, the seagate. apparently i can fix these hd's as many times as i want and theyll run fine until i try to run steam or any game. after i try to play css too many times, my whole hd ****s up and i haveta reformat. my 3rd hd just crapped on me, after i tried to play css to take a picture of what the error looks like. my system crashed with the message "Hard Error" and just kept repeating. then when i restarted the comp it froze on the win2k loading screen, sorta like the first hd did (the raptor).

and now here's the bigger news. i noticed my agp is set to 0. when i try to set it to 8x, when i restart the comp and come back its at 0 again. i had this exact same problem with my 9800 pro and my old computer. this cant be coincedence, apparently there's something i can do. anyone have any ideas?

edit: and its definately not my powersupply or my ram. i ran the memory tests like 5 times and came up with nothing. my psu is positive. now the only thing i think it can possibly be is...sadly...my x800 xt platinum.

This stood out to me because this exact same thing happened with me when I first put in my 9600. The AGP was set to 0 and when I tried bumping it up to 8x and restart, the comp would start up just fine, then my monitor would click like it was changing resolutions, screen goes blank and I see it's AGP 0 again.

I have an older board, L7S7A2 by ECS so I decided to go and update the drivers. I updated them and the AGP problem was gone. There was never any evidence that the 0x AGP setting was affecting performance...but I wanted to get it fixed anyways.

After it was fixed with these new drivers, new problems came up. Games and programs I never had problems running before started locking up my computer forcing me to hard reset. WC3 was pretty much the only game I was playing at the time but it had never given me problems before. I checked out SiS Sandra diagnostics and it showed my computer was running too hot.

I tried reverting to my previous drivers on my mobo but that didn't wanna work...so I did the only thing I could think of at the time and clocked my computer down from 2.5 ghz to 2 ghz. I haven't bothered to fiddle with it to see what an acceptable temp would be but I might before I sell it to my friend.

In summation...maybe it's your comp overheating...I dunno...I'm not a doctor.

 

[ShinRa]

well i just formatted the 2nd hd (the seagate) and im on it now. i installed VIA 4in1 drivers and one of the options was "Install agp driver?" and i clicked yes. Now my card is at 8x and fast write is on. however, i cannot choose 4x like i used to. this leads me to believe that when i go to play css (which im not going to attemp just yet since i got everything back up and running) that it will play for a few minutes, then start freezing stuttering and ejaculating and itll be set back to 0. but do u think i fixed the problem?

 

[ShinRa]

hmm this is odd. could it be the sound card? ive just installed my drivers off the cd for my sound card yet no sound is playing at all. and when i try to listen to music the system freezes the process. any tips?

 

[poseyjmac]

try taking out the sound card, and playing. see if it screws up. also turn off fast writes, its known to cause instability, but it doesn't give you a performance gain if on.