Printable View
It appears my home PC has ::turd:: the bed. I can't tell if it's the hard drive (which I replaced 1.5 years ago), or the power supply or something in the mother board. It will boot up (sometimes), but I can't launch anything once it's up. It will go into hour-glass mode and then reboot itself.
It's a Dell and is around 4 years old. Is it worth reviving or should I get a new one? Roll-My-Own or buy another Dell?
New one. A prebuilt will almost always be cheaper once the OS is rolled into the cost if you're not buying a mega machine. Be sure to check out slickdeals or fatwallet to see if there's a deal.
Get a new one. It will cost more to RR then to buy new.
If you have the skills roll your own. Otherwise Dell is as good as any other out there. Rolling your own will be more expensive.
If you're not a game player, the Dell Vostro is tough to beat...
If you can get your hands on an Ubuntu CD, you can see how it runs on that... If it's flawless, you might just have a bad hard drive (or just a corrupted Windows install). If it's memory, it'll probably tell you... Otherwise it's the main board.
Thanks guys. I did have to re-install Windows back in January (I think it was) because it flaked out on me with a corrupt install or some such crap.
The best money I have ever spent is my USB external hard drive that takes unattended backups once a week. Backups FTW! ;)
TC - I am gamer. I play Unreal Tournament online.
Vostro 420 is $619 with the combo Vista Business/Windows XP license, 3 GB RAM, 250G hard drive...
Re-reading your symptoms... you most likely have teh malware... burn it in a fire, reinstall windows. live to fight another day.
Have you been letting your computer have unprotected interactions with others? :)
It has McAfee on it, but I guess it could be infected. It started acting up this morning. The screen saver was on and when I hit the keyboard to wake it up it just froze and has gone downhill since.
I booted off the WIN/XP Pro CD. I deleted the old partition and created a new one. (8MB less than the total, so maybe there are some dead sectors?). When I try to install in the new partition Windoze says - You computer's startup program cannot gain access to the disk containing the partition or free space you chose. Setup cannot install Windows XP on this hard disk.
It's looking like a fried HD to me. Anyone agree/disagree?
www.malwarebytes.org is t3h win for cleaning your infarcted PC.
Edit: sounds like a fried HD here too...
Most likely HD. Very small chance it could be the drive controller on the motherboard.
DO you have any old PCs in the garage that have a working harddrive? I would try installing OS on to an old 10G drive and see if it works. If it does, then buy a new drive. If it doesn't, get a new PC.
dead hd, controller, memory going bad, psu going out, CPU going bad/overheating are the things I'd check.
Yup sounds fried.Quote:
Originally Posted by sammm
No thanks, I'm not hungry. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Rogue
PS
I just ordered a HD from Newegg. I'm trying a Seagate this time. The one that died after less than 1.5 years was a Western Digital. I'll roll the dice for $50 before I drop $500 for a new system.
OOPS...
There are a LOT of folks pissed at Seagate right now for dead drives. They've been having firmware problems and the drives just stop working.
Fortunately, at the price Sammm paid, it's not likely he got one of the newer, faster, flakier Seagate drives...Quote:
Originally Posted by channelmaniac
The LOT of folks pissed at Seagate need to get over themselves, learn to back up their data through this little life lesson, take a warranty replacement, and move on.
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/new...acking_contestQuote:
Originally Posted by Rogue
OK geeks....here's my build list. Let me know what you think. It would be right under $500 after rebates.
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4830 100265HDMI Video Card
Item #:N82E16814102822
Return Policy: Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy
-$10.00 Instant
$15.00 Mail-in Rebate
$99.99
$89.991http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/...8-384-TS?$S60$
GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-UD4H ATX AMD Motherboard
Item #:N82E16813128384
Return Policy: Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy
$138.991http://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductIm...103-286-03.jpg
AMD Phenom 9850 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor
Item #:N82E16819103286
Return Policy: Processors (CPUs) Return Policy
-$36.00 Instant
$155.99
$119.991http://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductIm...119-068-15.jpg
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Computer Case
Item #:N82E16811119068
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
-$5.00 Instant
$54.99
$49.991http://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductIm...227-298-10.jpg
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
Item #:N82E16820227298
Return Policy: Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy
-$10.00 Instant
$30.00 Mail-in Rebate
$69.99
$59.991http://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductIm...182-044-13.jpg
Rosewill Stallion Series RD500-2DB 500W Power Supply
Item #:N82E16817182044
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
-$12.00 Instant
$59.99
$47.991http://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductIm...185-125-01.jpg
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
Item #:N82E16835185125
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy