Computer Troubleshooting Thread

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Ce soir, on va danser.
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As I'm sure many of you know, we have many posters here at Smogon who are very good with computers. And as I'm sure we all know... computers can get pretty screwed up. So this thread is for you to ask any questions you have about problems you've encountered.

And if your question isn't answered right away, be patient. Don't bump the thread.
 
Hi, I have a few computer problems. My PC runs Windows XP SP2 (Build 2600.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158 : Service Pack 2) over a Pentium 4 3 GHz and 512 MB RAM (64 MB shared VRAM). I use an ADSL connection to connect to the internet, and use the RASPPPOE driver set.

1. My computer freezes randomly while I am on the internet. These crashes are often random and out of the blue, however a few activities cause a surefire system freeze, for instance using torrent or P2P clients, or browsing sites with active content like youtube, or using Windows Media Player or Winamp for media playback. During each of the crash, the CPU fan rotation becomes audible, and the system stops showing any response, mouse or keyboard. Also, if I'm playing music when the system has frozen, it gets stuck over a short few-millisecond-long piece that it was playing and repeats it in an irritating buzz. Mostly the downloads active at the moment get wiped off, and sometimes the downloads that had finished successfully before the crash also get deleted. Quite often, a lot of cross links are also reported, which are either fixed or deleted during the startup scan. Very rarely, during such a crash, I get a blue screen of death with the following STOP code:

0x0000008E (OxC0000005, 0x8054A51A, 0xF784BAC8, 0x00000000)

I've tried searching the internet for the relevant STOP code, but to no avail. The pagefile is on a partition other than C:, and thus no memory dump is generated. My other system, a Celeron 500 MHz with 64 MB RAM, which uses the same PPPoE driver, runs Windows 98 and does not show any such problems. Both computers run ZoneAlarm firewall. I cannot install Windows 98 on the faulty PC since the motherboard doesn't support Windows 98 according to my vendor. Help!

2. My computer has a couple of invalid filesystem entries. These entries were formed during one of the crashes I mentioned earlier, and now I can't delete them. They take up around 10 GB of space, which is now virtually unusable. I have tried deleting them from DOS, Windows, used a shredder, all to no avail. The files contain garbled characters which are not allowed as part of file names usually. A directory listing copied from DOS is as under:

07/04/2006 02:03 PM <DIR> .
07/04/2006 02:03 PM <DIR> ..
07/05/2006 01:03 PM 16,384 g
10/04/2030 12:00 AM 2,182,070,272 ╪ vk
10/12/2030 12:03 AM 2,198,994,944 α vk♠
02/03/2034 12:01 AM 2,123,595,776 ╪ vk
07/05/2006 01:19 PM 16,384 ↑
07/05/2006 01:19 PM 16,384 g
10/03/2035 12:03 AM 2,177,908,736 ╪ vk♂
02/03/2034 12:00 AM 2,123,595,776 α vk♣
07/05/2006 01:30 PM 0 ☺
07/05/2006 01:30 PM 0 ♦
10/12/2014 12:00 AM 578,830,336
01/01/1601 05:30 AM 0 hbin
12 File(s) 11,385,044,992 bytes
2 Dir(s) 814,497,792 bytes free

I am in no inclination to format my drive. Is there any other way to get rid of the files? Every form of help would be totally welcome. Thanks in advance.
 
Thanks a lot for the help, Kikuichimonji. I am going to perform the volume check after I take some essential backups; the site advises so. I ran Memtest86, and it detected no error after having run for three passes, thus we might conclude that the problem is not RAM-related. Thanks anyway, please keep me posted if there is any other idea.
 
For problem 1, it is most likely due to shortage of physical RAM. First try increasing Virtual memory and see if it lessens. Also during my four years of using Win XP, I have NEVER got a system freeze. Nope never. Mine is Win XP, no SP.

As for problem 2, this might help. Following is what happened to me roughly 1.5 years ago. This might be a resemblence to your problem Ryu.

Let me tell you I have a crap UPS. One day I was shutting down my PC when the power went off which is very common. I was not in front of my pc. I thought UPS would give at least 10 minutes back-up, there was no reason not to, it was fully charged. So I came back after a minute when the UPS suddenly stopped giving power and pc went off just when it was saving. I later found out, UPS' battery had leaked. Anyway power came back and I started my pc. It came to the Windows XP screen boot up. Then suddenly showed some garbled characters and the system restarted. It came to the boot up screen again, then gave a System Cannot be Started message, use Last Config menu. I selected Last Config, didn't work. It restarted again. I got a WIn98 boot up floppr from a friend and went into the DOS mode to see what happened. I found there on the D: partition (my OS was on C:) around 32768 files each of size 32678. All having files names starting with A repeating I don't know how many times. I called up my pc supplier. He tried his best to correct the problem but didn't work. In the end he had to format the whole pc and put OS back again. Yup I lost all data.

Hope I helped.
 
I have been having trouble shutting off my computer correctly lately. I give it the order to shut down, the windows xp window appears ("Your computer is shutting down" etc.) but lately the window just disappears in a completely black screen, with only the mouse cursor staying visible. When this happens I always have to turn it off via the button :(

Also I'd like to share here the weirdest computer thing that ever happened to me. I shut down the computer. It shut down completely, EXCEPT for one thing: the fan on the back. The computer was completely shut off, but the fan just kept on running. I had to click the universal O/I button on the back for it to stop. I'm pretty sure there's some really simple explanation for this for I gotta admit i was freaked when it happened, lol
 
For problem 1, it is most likely due to shortage of physical RAM. First try increasing Virtual memory and see if it lessens. Also during my four years of using Win XP, I have NEVER got a system freeze. Nope never. Mine is Win XP, no SP.

As for problem 2, this might help. Following is what happened to me roughly 1.5 years ago. This might be a resemblence to your problem Ryu.

Let me tell you I have a crap UPS. One day I was shutting down my PC when the power went off which is very common. I was not in front of my pc. I thought UPS would give at least 10 minutes back-up, there was no reason not to, it was fully charged. So I came back after a minute when the UPS suddenly stopped giving power and pc went off just when it was saving. I later found out, UPS' battery had leaked. Anyway power came back and I started my pc. It came to the Windows XP screen boot up. Then suddenly showed some garbled characters and the system restarted. It came to the boot up screen again, then gave a System Cannot be Started message, use Last Config menu. I selected Last Config, didn't work. It restarted again. I got a WIn98 boot up floppr from a friend and went into the DOS mode to see what happened. I found there on the D: partition (my OS was on C:) around 32768 files each of size 32678. All having files names starting with A repeating I don't know how many times. I called up my pc supplier. He tried his best to correct the problem but didn't work. In the end he had to format the whole pc and put OS back again. Yup I lost all data.

Hope I helped.
Thanks CN. Regarding the first problem, I already have six GB of virtual memory allocated across two partitions, plus the minimum 450-something that I allocated on C:\ in order to generate memory dump the next time I get a blue screen.

Thanks for your take on the second problem, I feel the two problems are quite similar, and that nothing except a format would help. I am not in a state to perform one now, so I would still leave that problem open.
 
ryubahamut, another thing I thought of regarding your first problem: is your machine adequately cooled? Several times my laptop crashed in the same manner that you described when the processor overheated, although I've never had this happen in a desktop using a commercial case.
 
Kiku the temperature seems to be alright, I just checked up. 45 degrees temperature in a 28 degrees ambience is acceptable I guess.

Regardless, that still doesn't explain why the computer hangs only while I'm on the internet. I'm able to do everything offline without a hitch.
 
I have a problem with my other computer.
When you boot up your computer, there's this "beep" sound at the very beginning, you know?
Well, if I want to boot my computer, it justs keep repeating the "beep" sound for an infinite amount of time and it won't boot, the screen justs stays black and all i can do is remove the plug.
You guys got any ideas what could be wrong?
 
I have a problem with my other computer.
When you boot up your computer, there's this "beep" sound at the very beginning, you know?
Well, if I want to boot my computer, it justs keep repeating the "beep" sound for an infinite amount of time and it won't boot, the screen justs stays black and all i can do is remove the plug.
You guys got any ideas what could be wrong?
If the beeps are all even-lengthed, the problem is with the RAM being loose. Open the cabinet and tighten the RAM sticks. They're the long cards which are short in height and have eight-ish black chips on them, in case you have not done so before. While you're at it, also tighten the display card in case you have a separate display adapter.

If the beeps have different length, that might mean different things depending on the BIOS version. Check your motherboard guide or post your motherboard model here.

Cheers.
 
The beeps are even-lengthed, first you can hear the beep 8 times, then there is a pause for about 2 seconds, then it beeps again 8 times, and so on.

I checked the RAM, it was not lose. Any other idea?
 
Ah. In that case, if your BIOS is American Megatrends, the problem is with the system unable to write to the Video RAM. In case you don't have integrated graphics, remove the display card, clean the port, clean contacts and plug it back in. If it's integrated, or if your BIOS is from Award, try replacing your RAM stick with another. It might be a problem with the RAM.

Just for the reference, http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm
 
Yea....... I recently changed my sid for some personal reasons ( I guess you guys should know why ) but after I changed it and finish with it, I decided to change it back.
I set a system restore point before the whole process but when i tried restoring it, the task completes but now it wont let me access my documents ( it says access denied ).
The only answer i can think of my self is that the folder's sid does not match the ones I have therefore, it wont let me open it.
 
My computer randomly shuts down (and auto-restarts) while I'm using it (or not using it, I came back from the bathroom once to find it at the login screen)... it happens at totally random times, ie: this morning I was reading some topic in firebot, and I was scrolling down the page and the computer just suddenly shut down and started rebooting itself... Very strange...

Also it would be much appreciated if you avoid complex terms... I really have no experience with the physical aspect of computers...
 
A lot of times this happens is due to some STOP error and Windows is set to automatically restart when that happens. Do this:

1. Windows+PauseBreak or right click My Computer and select Properties to bring up the System Properties dialog box.
2. Advanced Tab, click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery.
3. Uncheck the box that says Automatically Restart.

If the computer still restarts after you do this, run a virus check. Check if your power supply is stable. If it does not, you should start getting a blue screen of death. Post the error code you get there.
 
- That box was already unchecked
- I've run Norton full scan several times already and found nothing
- How would I go about checking my power supply?
 
Lamest question ever, and probably won't need much thinking. I recently got a really shit virus that occasionally screws up my msn by sending links of the virus to everyone online. I ran Spybot, and Internet virus checker and McAfee, deleted a file saying TinyPic (Part of the name of the link) and it's still around. Any advice?
 
@Silver Shadow

Check your UPS. It might be possible that your UPS battery has leaked and thus when you get power fluctuations, UPS doesn't give backup for that instant and when power comes back to normal the system restarts. Has happened to me quite a few times.

Additionally, after the system restarts automatically, Disk checker should activate. What does it show?

@Krul

What is the exact name of the file/virus? TinyPic is a hosting service and the virus might be hosted through it. Don't post the link here, just the name.
 
EDIT: It seems to have fixed itself for the moment. If it persists, I'll probably just trade in this computer for a new one. Oh well.
 
@Silver Shadow

Check your UPS. It might be possible that your UPS battery has leaked and thus when you get power fluctuations, UPS doesn't give backup for that instant and when power comes back to normal the system restarts. Has happened to me quite a few times.

Additionally, after the system restarts automatically, Disk checker should activate. What does it show?
Disk Checker doesn't activate, it just restarts and turns back on like nothing happened... you lost me with the UPS thing though -_-
 

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