Off Topic - General PC Problem

cff

cff

Kilk'dymga'qith laq Ik'vikvi
Ok, this isn't WC tech support I ask for, but a general one. My PC is acting extremely strange lately and I wonder if any of you have any idea what is going on.

Thing is when I try to turn on the PC in the morning int boots into Window. Usually after being in Windows for about 30 seconds it crashes or reboots. In either case the computer is comlpetely whacko then. It haltst while rebooting and doesn't show a picture. When I turn it off wait a while and turn it on again I can get to various stages of crashing (crashing while detecting the drives in the POST check, crashing while installing the SCSI BIOS, crashing while veryfying ESCD, crashing while scanning the drives with scandisk, crashing while initializing the graphic cards, crashing while in Windows for some seconds). Ok, that sounds extremely nasty doesn't it?

Now the catch is if I reboot and reboot and reboot the PC will finally come up (after 20-30 tries) and runs absolutely rock stable?! It also reboots fine after that.

Anyone that has any ideas what might be going on? I have the suspicion that some sort of battery might be gone and it is loosing some info every night???

PS: I did not change any hardware before this began and it worked with the exact same stuff for at least 6 months.
 
cff said:
...the computer is comlpetely whacko then. It haltst while rebooting and doesn't show a picture. When I turn it off wait a while and turn it on again I can get to various stages of crashing (crashing while detecting the drives in the POST check, crashing while installing the SCSI BIOS, crashing while veryfying ESCD, crashing while scanning the drives with scandisk, crashing while initializing the graphic cards, crashing while in Windows for some seconds). Ok, that sounds extremely nasty doesn't it?...
Click to expand...
Your PC is displaying its versatility, here, it seems...

...Lemme guess: R you runnin' Windows ME?...

(BWAHAHAHAHAH!...)

Other possibilities:
- A nasty virus
- A munged-up BIOS (esp. if you tried to flash it recently)
- A bad power supply
- The warranty on your machine just ran out
- Demonic possession
 
My machine is indeed showing its versatility, and no I am not using ME. Win98 SE for me. IMHO the best of the windows bunch (if you ignore security).

Regarding your points at the end:
I have 3 up to date virus scanners. I 'd be extremely glad if it were a virus, but the chances are slim and I never heared about such a beast...

No, I didn't flash my bios ever.

The power supply is 1/2 year old and is 300W IIRC, which might be at the lower end for my machine.

The warrant on my machine ran out more then a year ago ;)

I'll go for the posessed theory I guess ;-P
 
cff said:
...and no I am not using ME. Win98 SE for me. IMHO the best of the windows bunch (if you ignore security).

...The warrant on my machine ran out more then a year ago ;)

I'll go for the posessed theory I guess ;-P
Click to expand...
...Or the warranty thing.

btw, to run Windows (pretty much any version) IS to ignore security. They go hand in hand, sadly.
:D
 
It could be power supply.. it could be any of a number of things burning out and failing along those lines I suppose. If you have extra power supplies I'd try those, and if you have multiple ram chips I'd alternate those and see if one is perhaps doing something weird to stability. CPU as well if you have an alternate. It's pretty damn hot in Seattle right now.. is it hot in Austria? Could something weather related be doing it?
 
Hotness I'd rule out. For one it would have to be worse the longer the machine runs. Also I finally got airconditioning for my room this year, so it is colder then ever actually...
 
Any sort of electrical surges lately? When I worked for a certain computer-fixing establishment near me, we constantly had to replace modems. Perhaps lightning or something similar has sent your computer into some wierd form of schizophrenia?
 
I had pretty much this exact problem last week -- ended up being a bad power supply.

Watch the power management in the BIOS -- that's how I figured it out... it wasn't getting a steady +5V or whatnot.
 
overmortal said:
Any sort of electrical surges lately? When I worked for a certain computer-fixing establishment near me, we constantly had to replace modems. Perhaps lightning or something similar has sent your computer into some wierd form of schizophrenia?
Click to expand...

Lately? No. About 9 months ago. A bit late for an after-effect IMHO.
 
Ah, you never know . . . sometimes these things take time to surface . . .

Perhaps . . ah, nevermind. That'd be to close to a joke for the Tech Help.

The only thing besides power supply that I could think of is that maybe your harddrive is doing what mine does. Mine randomly corrupts files (and they don't always stay corrupted), and I sometimes have to boot a few times to get it to work right.
 
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