Sister's Computer Acting Up.

aPanzerIV

Daemon Poster
Messages
670
So here my sister is, once again, 2 feet away from the tv playing everquest on dads laptop 24/7.

Laptop is dell, so it has the ussuall stupid dell problems, overheating, poor design, pos...

I turn on the tv, watch it for about 20 mins, then my sister walks into the room...

VWHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaa


ok there goes the laptop time to find somthing else to do because i CANT HEAR THE FRIGGIAN TV!!

about 20 mins later, bored of getting this airboat bomb plane on gmod to even liftoff.... boo i know i cant hardly make a plane. I go into the room and question her on why she isnt playing on her computer

"it a downgrade of my old computer"
"no it isnt, that LE-1300 is way faster than that 2800+"
"no it isnt"
"ok then why arnt you playing on your old computer"
"because it played it slower than **** and was on its last legs"
"nothing gets slower than my laptop and it plays eq2 fine, whats it doing"
"blue screening every other day"

So apparently her old computer has a major hardware problem, because it is preforming like **** and has some obvious windows problems...

Good Cpu, equivelent to my XP 3000+ which pwns.
Better graphics than my 9600.
ide loads fast on my laptop...
leaving the ram;

I opened up the case....

honest to god it was 200x worse then my western digital dust bunny ($4 HP).

so now theres dust everywhere, may be causing some components to overheat.

she didnt explain when it blue screened or what it said when it blue screened.

Her birthday is on the 30th and I would like to give her a computer that actually works.

Thanks Ahead :)
 
If you guys consider XP 3000+'s "pwn status" CPUs, then that might be your first problem. I realize I preach the mantra "if you don't think it's obsolete, it isn't" but c'mon... I shed all of my Athlon XP's 5 years ago. There's far faster computer processors out there now for far less money than we paid for obscene performance, well, 5 years ago.

Also, 9600 what? There was a Radeon 9600, which is also sorely outdated. If it's a GeForce 9600, which one and how much RAM?

need more specifics. It already sounds like a PC that should be given to Goodwill or Salvation Army because the tax writeoff will buy 50% of the parts of a new system.

Also, FWIW, I have several Dells that work just fine, TYVM.

Need to know exactly what kind of errors you're getting on the desktop to even start.
 
My curent system:

AMD Athlon XP 3000+
1.5gb Ram
Radeon 9600 pro
80gb hdd
in my sig fyi

Runs EQ2 1024x768 maxed 30=38fps, runs gmod maxed 1280x1024 48-60fps, that is my certified PWN status.

The computer in question is:
AMD Athlon 64 2800+
2Gb
Visiontek Radeon x1550 256mb

she didnt get into detail when the bluescreens happened or what they said.
should be faster than my pc, yes, is it? no,
I have a feeling its either a memory problem or an overheating problem, considering she reboots her pc once a year lmao.....
 
Oy. My guild leader on wow has that same video card. Utter shite for what you guys are asking it to do. :(

It won't be much faster, no. The Athlon 64 2800+ is pretty anemic in general, especially compared to today's tech. I had an Athlon 64 3200+ at home for a while, and it was marginally fast. But you have to understand too, that EQ2 is a different game today than it was when it came out (I know, I bought the collector's edition tin at the time).

Rebooting a PC once a year isn't a prelude to failure. I leave my desktop PC turned on 24/7 at home.

You can get more information from the system logs, or you can simply watch the screen the next time a BSOD occurs. To keep the system from rebooting automatically, disable the automatic restart on system failure option.

Click Start, Control Panel.
Go to System
Click advanced tab (or advanced system settings and then advanced tab in Windows Vista/7)
click the settings button under Startup and Recovery
Uncheck the box for "Automatically Restart" and click OK/Close

Also, run some tests on the hardware. Download a copy of MemTest x86 here: Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool and run that on the system for a minimum of 3 passes (it will tell you at the bottom)

I'd also perform a full disk check (right click the Disk icon in My Computer/Computer and choose properties, then tools tab, then check disk for errors, put a check in both boxes)

Lastly, after the disk check, perform a full file check by going to start, clicking RUN and typing sfc /scannow and let it do its thing.

If any issues continue, or you find out what the error code on the BSOD is, we can take it from there.
 
Oy. My guild leader on wow has that same video card. Utter shite for what you guys are asking it to do. :(

Works for me... Whcih one, the x1550 or the 9600 pro?

I'll have to do some talking to even get my hands near my sisters comp... -.-
but when i do ill have some answers...
 
Both in all honesty. There are far faster solutions out there today, but you'd have to upgrade the systems too, to take full advantage of them.
 
Actually, I have a different plan, It is to upgrade her new computer, after seeing it has a 6150 SE *SUCKY GRAPHICS ALERT*, I have an Idea:

I remember when we bought her new computer at an auction, for $75, I opened up the case, thinking it was to be my computer, I did a quick scan around it to see possible upgrades, had a 2gb stick, 1 slot for ddr2 open, a pcie slot, and a monster 305W psu (for a home system, anyways). I have another Gig of DDr2 800 and a MSI Geforce 8500GT laying around. I could possibly throw those in there, for a little... em, price... Anyone who has been folowing my posts knows what I want, and Intend to make the best of it from what I have, seeing as a XP 3000+ is neering the top of the upgrade mountain for this old and tired HP Pavilion.


I have already looked it up.
Im going to buy a 3300+, which has the top 754 cpu ratings as far as i can tell, put the 1gb from my pc in there for a total of 3gb, and move the old hdd to her new pc. But of course only after I fix its, er problems, which starts with dissassembling the whole mess and ever so carfully start the ever so slow task of cleaning it all the way out.


Look at me, this started with a simple *major* ear irritation and is *supposed* to end with a good birthday gift and a even faster pc.

EDIT- Actually, 2 gifts lmao, so dad can actually use his laptop once in a millenium. March 27 isnt that far off is it xP

Now for my last question before the gears start turning; does a visiontek radeon x1550 have shader model 3 by any chance??? :DDDDDDD
 
I hope by "Monster 305W psu" you mean a brand name, because 305 watts isn't going to get you anywhere when you upgrade. It could actually be causing the issues currently, as well.

You're painfully unaware of how old the hardware you're looking at is supposed to work. Socket 754 is dead. No support for it, CPUs are single core only. You need to move beyond the old hardware if you want to get something truly fast and capable without piecemealing it together. I'm all for recycling old hardware, but you're going to ultimately spend more in the short term than you will in the long term if you just scrap things as they are and build up a new very fast dual core, or moderately fast quad core system.

As for the Radeon x1550, don't make me laugh. That GPU is almost 6 years old. 6 years old in video card years is the same as being 101 years old in real life. Scrap the parts, start over. It'll be less of a headache.
 
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