BongoBob Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 I just finally fixed my computer, and am waiting for windows to install, so I decided to share my story with my fellow swampies. About a month or two ago, we bought a new main computer, and I got the old one. The one I paid to upgrade so that it could play oblivion (extreme props to TiE for the sweet deal he gave me on the graphics card). It was messing up, but I thought it was just virus related, so I scrapped the windows install, and reinstalled it. It worked fine for about 3 weeks, then it started randomly crashing. So reformatted again. Now, the first thing I do when I reformat, is get AVG and Zonealarm on it stat. Well, I ran AVG, and it would not install worth ****. Nothing I tried, even after 5 reformats. Finally, Roxstar gave me some advice to check for overheating. I opened the case, and lo and behold, the cpu fan and heatsink was clogged with dust. I got it all out, disconnected everything except the cpu, reconnected everything, reformatted (again, up to 6th or 7th within the course of a day or two -_-), and avg installed. So I declared it fixed, and reinstalled everything on it. Well, it started doing it again. And again. And again. Then I found out that for some reason, the system restore that came on the compaq, the only way to reinstall xp, had gotten corrupted. Yes, fun. So I found out that the cd doesn't matter, it's the cd-key, and I saw my xp cd key stuck firmly on my computers case. So I downloaded an xp home edition disk, because compaq wanted to charge me 15 bucks plus shipping to get recovery disks, and used my cd key to install windows. Well, I was gonna try. It kept freezing. It would get to the partition manager screen if I was lucky, and then it would freeze, sometimes giving me an error. I said **** this, and installed linux. It worked without a hitch. So firmly believing know that windows is a steaming pile of **** that can only be excused remotely is because it's basically the only way to play games, I decided to try to do a dual boot of ubuntu and xp. Well, it still wouldn't ****in install xp. Finally it gave me the error message again, and I went to the main comp to look it up. Turns out, the error could mean anything, but it shouldn't do that during installation of xp. Great. As I read more and more, a couple of forum posts explained that this happens with failing cpus, where they won't execute windows code nicely, but will run linux fine. Then it hit me, I had a spare cpu of the same calibur (slightly better, as it has a smaller core) from when my cousin upgraded, and she let me keep it. Here's where it gets fun. I'm awake off of 2 hours of sleep, been awake for about 22 hours straight. I decide to swap out the processors. Lovely decision isn't it? After trying to get the heatsink off, I succeeded and failed, as I broke off the plastic piece holding the heatsink to the mobo. Insert torrent of obsenities here. But then I realized that this heatsink only had one prong, where as three plastic prongs on the cpu socket, and 3 prongs on the replacement heatsink and fan. I lucked the **** out. I squeezed some thermal paste I had lying around from when I had to fix my video card (damn UPS), a dab will do ya, and had the heatsink on, fan plugged in, and everything back to normal. So I crossed my fingers, and booted her up. Hoo-****in-rah she posts. I go into the bios to check, and everythings running fine. The new cpu runs at 45 celcius, and that's with ****ty radioshack thermal goop. I pop in the WinXP disk, and lo and behold, I can move around without it freezing! Thank the good robot lord! Now I just need to make it last until I can get around 200 bucks for a new cpu and mobo. I don't know why I posted this, but I'm a half an hour away from being up for 24 hours straight, and am bored. I needed to let it out. Anybody else have any computer horror stories they'd like to share? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coupes. Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 O_O Wall of Text ! The first accessory you should get when you buy a computer is a compressed air can to clean the dust from your computer. You'd be surprised how many issues you can avoid when you kepp your computer dust-free. I hope everything goes smoothly from now on... good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BongoBob Posted August 18, 2006 Author Share Posted August 18, 2006 Lol, yeah I know. Anybody know what a dangerous heat level is for a cpu? EDIT: At first I thought it might have been overheating, but this cpu is just 10 celcius below what the other one was. I guess that cpu was just borked, as it seems that this is about the normal temperature. Also, what is burn in time? EDIT 2: Now it's all the way up to 50 celcius again. And this is only in the bios. Should I be worried : | Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pho3nix Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 Nice story BongoBob. I've never had any problems with my Windows, my father on the other hand had. He updated his BIOS and for some reason his WinXp got ****ed up, so he decided to format c and reinstall Windows. Didn't work. Tried it again and again and still not working. Then he changed back to the old BIOS and still it wasn't working. Then he decided to check if his components were working properly and voilá he noticed the motherboard was apparently ****ed up (can't remember what it was), so he bought a new one and everything worked again. I guess the lesson of this is, If it's not broken. Don't fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IG-64 Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 Well, I have a recent horror story I would like to post. It's not about a computer, it's about a TV, but I'm sure no one will mind. It's kinda long so bear with me: On my parents' 25th anniversary in late april of this year, they came home with a sweet new HDTV. We had had a tiny crappy old standard CRT tv that had a terrible sound system and was about 10-15 years old. My parents had decided to make the jump to an HDTV and had found a good quality display model at Best Buy that was a low price and was Best Buy's own brand (Insignia). We went and got a nice TV desk for it, and everything was going fine for about 2 months. Then it died. No one did anything to it to make it die, no one was even up when it did die, we just woke up and it wouldn't turn on. The good news (at the time) was that the little power light was still on, so it wasn't completely dead. We had all the insurance and warrantees and everything, so we thought, we'll just call in and they'll fix it or send us another one. So we called in and they told us our TV needed to be inspected and that an inspector would be sent to our house in a week. A week later, the inspector came, his name was Alan I think; a nice man though kinda weird, I think something was wrong with him. Anyways, he told us one of two things could be wrong: the power supply could be dead, or the TV's processor could be dead. So he made an order for both, from their over-seas suppliers. A week later, we got 2 boxes in the mail, called up Best Buy, and they sent Alan back over within a day or two. He opened up the first box, it was the processor. He opened up the TV, took out the old processor, put in the new one, and pressed the power button to the TV. Nothing. So then we knew that it was the power supply, so he opened the second box. Then he looked from the power supply in the box to the power supply in our open TV, and told us that they sent the wrong one. So he got out his laptop and made an order for another power supply, while he was doing this he was mumbling to himself about the over-seas suppliers. Then he said he was sorry about the trouble and left. Another week later, we were getting pretty pissed because we had already missed the Discovery shuttle launch, and the world cup finals in HD (which we had to watch on our old TV). Then we got another box in, called Best Buy again, and they sent Alan back. He opened the box, took one look at the power supply, and told us they sent him the wrong one again. He said he felt sorry for us, and that if he was in charge we'd have had a new TV by then. Then he told us that there was a waiting time of a few weeks before we could get in a new TV, and that the waiting time was most likely up by then. So he gets out his laptop and a receipt printer, and prints us out the receipt we needed to go get a new TV. He told us we needed to take our broken TV back to the store, and that Best Buy has a policy to give us a TV of equal caliber. And then he told us we might have trouble getting said TV of equal caliber, because the particular model we bought had since been discontinued, which is why they kept sending us the wrong part, because they don't make the right part anymore. So then a day or two later we took our TV back to the Best Buy, and tried to get another one. We found that there were only 2 of those models left, and they were both display models, they were both off for some mysterious reason, and one of them had already been returned by someone else and put back on the shelf. They pretty much knew it was a crappy TV. Not wanting a repeat performance, we decided not to get one of the same thing, and asked for a different brand of the same caliber. They didn't have one. They only had TVs that were higher or lower capability, and we didn't want a lesser TV than the one we originally paid for. They said that in order to get a greater TV, we would have to pay more, and they couldn't compensate the price at all. So we simply asked for our money back instead, so we could find a better deal elsewhere. Problem was, they have a store policy that they can't give you your money back after 30 days, so they could only give us store credit. Ok, so we said we'd just leave the TV there, collect our store credit, and go home to decide what we were gonna do. Then they told us we had to either decide right then and there or take our TV back home. We were kinda pissed by then and complained, but we eventually had to give in and take our TV back home. We spent the next couple of weeks trying to decide what to do. We went to another Best Buy to look for another TV, and told them about how the first Best Buy made us take our broken TV back home, which they said was "unethical." We didn't find anything there, so we went back home and talked about complaining to Best Buy to get our money back, talking to the district manager, ect. But none was actually done. We eventually decided to save up some more money and wait for a TV sale at Best Buy (since we had to buy it there because of the store credit thing). Finally, after a few more weeks of waiting, there was a TV sale and my dad found a new JVC model, in the box, with all the specs of the first TV and even more. We still had to dish out a couple extra hundred dollars but we could afford it nonetheless. We bought it and brought it home, and found that it was a much better TV than the Insignia (the one that broke). It had 2 HDMI plugs, when the Insignia had none. It also had a much better sound system, more control options, and probably a better picture. So even though we had to endure months of waiting and stress, we came out better in the end. We've had our new JVC TV for a few weeks now and have been very happy with it. Nevertheless, we plan to never buy anything from Best Buy ever again. I would also like to note that when we bought the Insignia they gave us the wrong remote and sold us the wrong cable. At least now that we have the JVC TV we have a remote that works properly. Here are the specs for both of the TVs for anyone who's curious: Insignia: Picture. (before we got the new TV desk.) 32" screen LCD 16:9 1366x768 screen resolution DVI plug Set of component (YPbPr) plugs S-video plug PC input plug A/V plugs JVC: Picture. Picture of desk. 32" Screen LCD 16:9 1366x768 screen resolution 2 HMDI plugs Set of component plugs S-video plug PC input plug A/V plugs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoxStar Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 Ha, I had two 9800 pro's, both broke on me within a month, so I returned them and went nVidia 6600. Best decision ever? Yes. My computer's motherboard is fried now, so I'm upgrading to 64 bit momentarily, which should rock hardcore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nerd_Annhilator Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 Dangerous heat levels for a CPU is usually above 65c. 65c is also terrible. Anything normal should be under approx 50c Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TiE23 Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 *Takes props and decides to start a movie using them* Anyway, have you gotten the 10,000 burned CD's of data back on the computer? Kept all the Oblivion saves and shizzle? This post is pretty bad but anyway, I really want to get a PCI-E/AGP mobo with a good processor and another gig of ram. My 7800 is pretty sweet but the 3.2ghz-3 yearold CPU is sucking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoxStar Posted August 18, 2006 Share Posted August 18, 2006 *Takes props and decides to start a movie using them* Anyway, have you gotten the 10,000 burned CD's of data back on the computer? Kept all the Oblivion saves and shizzle? This post is pretty bad but anyway, I really want to get a PCI-E/AGP mobo with a good processor and another gig of ram. My 7800 is pretty sweet but the 3.2ghz-3 yearold CPU is sucking. I'm buying this baby soon: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081 AGP 4X/8X and PCI 16x. Plus you can upgrade the Processor slot to AM2 with a special card. I will accompany that motherboard with a new processor. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103529 Or maybe this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103562 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BongoBob Posted August 19, 2006 Author Share Posted August 19, 2006 Dangerous heat levels for a CPU is usually above 65c. 65c is also terrible. Anything normal should be under approx 50c DO you mean normal or under load? I wonder how hot it gets when I do things like play CS:S or Oblivion : | *is gonna install monitoring software* In other news, I checked it this morning after letting it run in ubuntu all night long, and it was at 46 celcius. ASAP I'm gonna get some AC5 on it and maybe get a new heatsink/fan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightsaberboy Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 I think the computer would be too hot once you can cook an egg on top of the case, but if you can't, then it's allll good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TiE23 Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 I'm buying this baby soon: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081 AGP 4X/8X and PCI 16x. Plus you can upgrade the Processor slot to AM2 with a special card. Nice, I want to just pull out my mobo and CPU and replace it. I want the AGP/PCI-E combo because I haven't switch over yet. I think the computer would be too hot once you can cook an egg on top of the case, but if you can't, then it's allll good! On the trip home from camping I revealed my secret plans to my parents: I smuggled the Xbox 360 for the ride with me. We have a portable DVD player that can act as a TV and a power inverter. So we hooked it up and played PGR3, Jade Empire and for the hell of it my sister and I messed around in GTA:SA in Co-op. But anyway, one thing was this: The thing was freakin' hot! Just sitting next to it for a bit your eyes and lips would dry! Felt like a hair dryer on low. So I was thinking of getting this some time: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000F5RW1U/sr=8-1/qid=1155954142/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2455495-8848068?ie=UTF8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoxStar Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 Nice, I want to just pull out my mobo and CPU and replace it. I want the AGP/PCI-E combo because I haven't switch over yet. Yeah, thats what I thought... unless you don't want to go AMD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TiE23 Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 Yeah, thats what I thought... unless you don't want to go AMD. Confusing sentence but I don't hold loyalty to CPUs. Just a little bit of nVidia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BongoBob Posted August 19, 2006 Author Share Posted August 19, 2006 But anyway, one thing was this: The thing was freakin' hot! Just sitting next to it for a bit your eyes and lips would dry! Felt like a hair dryer on low. So I was thinking of getting this some time: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000F5RW1U/sr=8-1/qid=1155954142/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2455495-8848068?ie=UTF8 It's not very good from what I've heard. Give me a day or two to check my facts on xbox-scene.com and I'll let you know. EDIT:nevermind, I was thinking of the pelican one, that one works great. Anyhow, According to PC-Wizard, my processor is running at 34 celcius. I just wanna know why it runns hotter in the bios than it does in windows EDIT: Motherboard Manager says it's 46 and at the same time PC Wizard says 34 at the exact same time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TiE23 Posted August 19, 2006 Share Posted August 19, 2006 EDIT: Motherboard Manager says it's 46 and at the same time PC Wizard says 34 at the exact same time. They can't both be right, that sucks. Like in a Scanner Darkly, had a reference to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BongoBob Posted August 19, 2006 Author Share Posted August 19, 2006 Well the MBM one is closer to what I get in the Bios at startup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BongoBob Posted August 19, 2006 Author Share Posted August 19, 2006 Well, after an hour and a half of CS:S and putting the case together, my cpu is at 55celcius acording to Motherboard manager. I set it to alarm at 65 celcius, as the shutdown temp is 75. Starting tomorrow I'll try to get the **** neccesary to cool this bitch down. I'm gonna get a new heatsink and fan, clean the die, and get some better thermal, like some AC5. Hell, maybe I'll add a side fan. I actually have an 80 mm fan lying around, would that be good enough for a side fan? Where should I put one, by the gpu area, or the cpu/ram area? Should it blow air in or blow air out? Note, I have a 120mm fan in the back, and that's it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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