Just a heads up: My computer may shit the bed at any moment. · 3:05pm Feb 17th, 2014
Hey everyone. So recently my computer has started being really, really crappy. It's been slowly degrading over the years -- I got the old boy back in 2009 -- and over the last couple of weeks I've seen a drastic decrease in the reliability of my now-dated machine. I just spent three hours trying to get it to work again. Also, I can't log into half of my frequent websites and Steam and various programs have stopped working entirely. I have no idea why.
The good news is that I have the full list of parts I want to order, and I'm going to use my tax return money here in the next few weeks to build a new gaming rig from the ground up.
We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better. Strong. Faster. Less crash-y.
The bad news is that I'm not sure how long this thing is going to hold out. So if you don't hear from me or get a story update for more than week or two at a time, you'll know the reason. That said, I'm just about done with this next chapter, so if all goes well I'll have it up in a day or so.
Just wanted to make you all aware of the situation. Wish me luck. The time's gonna come, sooner rather than later, when I'll have to take Old Yeller into the back and put him out of his misery. Except this time Old Yeller will be reincarnated as a Robodog, and he'll join 80s Robocop on adventures and fight crime while playing Planetside 2 at 60 frames per second. Yeah. That'll be awesome.
-Dref
You know if my line of work has taught anything it is that when computer start to degrade performance/reliability wise it usually indicates that a HDD is about to explode. So if you don't use a cloud storage (any external mass memory will do) already I recommend you to start using one.
Hopefully your old computer is gonna hold out till you get a new one.
In my experience, almost any problem with a PC can be solved by reinstalling the OS. I obviously can't comment on your case Dref since I haven't seen the machine (and if you can build your own, I assume you're competent enough to troubleshoot your current one and determine if there's a hardware fault), but in the majority of cases I've seen, machines start running slow because of stupid shit users do. Occasionally it is indeed hardware failure, but basic equipment is fairly reliable; it's the cutting edge, high power/temp stuff that is more likely to fail due to the complexity and the relative battering it takes.
I've seen far too many friends and family members ask for new PCs over the years to do basic web browsing, when really they need to stop filling their machine up with crap.
If you haven't already, make backup copies of everything important. Now.
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I've actually reinstalled my OS about three times in the last couple of weeks. The whole shebang is pretty fucked up at this point, and there's only so much I can do with this thing. I only hope it holds out until I can get a new computer built. I need to copy all of the files I don't want to lose (pictures and such, mostly) to another drive, but I'm broke as shit until Thursday.
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I don't use cloud storage, as the only thing I'm really comfortable storing in such a way is game saves and files. Everything else, I prefer it to be on my hard drive itself. It's just gotta last a few more weeks.
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(I plan to)
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Fair enough. As I said, I assumed you're competent enough to do the basic stuff, and if you're running a gaming rig then you're probably using hardware that's more likely to break.
However, can't you just take the old hard drive and put it into a spare slot when you get your new machine set up? The only time this is really a problem is if you're running a laptop with only a single slot. Or you've got RAID, but fuck RAID.
What kind of problems are you having, other than applications not working? Hard drive fault sounds unlikely without further evidence, and you'd probably have noticed a clicking noise if it was the case. Could be silent errors from thermal problems, or bad RAM. Or you know, pretty much anything, with the information you've given.
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I actually have few ideas that could cause the problems, but then again we are speaking of computers so anything can cause the problems that you are having:
First I would check if there is starting problem with the HDD by going to the system logs from My Computer (You can get there by clicking the right mouse button over My Computer and choosing Manage). If you find Iastor, or Disk errors it can indicate that the HDD has started to break down. Those errors look like this on the log:
Iastor:
Description: "The device \Device\Ide\iaStor0 did not respond within timeout period"
Disk:
Description: "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation"
Second If you get a lot of BSoDs that could mean you have bad RAM so running a Memtest software could be a good idea.
Third option I can think of is that your computer has been running too hot, which can lead to a motherboard issues.
As a tech I can try and help if you need it, feel free to drop me a pm anytime.
As Kirby suggested, HDD's are the main cause of alot of issues. If your system is is back from 2009 it may even be a mother board issue. I would check to make sure the capacitors all look fine, capacitors are the little spherical bits sticking out of the motherboard itself. Normally the tops of them should be flat, with a little + sign across them. If they are popped out like a bubble, or are leaking fluid, thats a sign that your motherboard is damaged and you need to replace it.
Im assuming its a desktop, since you said you were ordering more parts. Either way, also consider burning (if you can) a copy of Hirens boot CD, theres an HDD tester on the disk that you can check to see if the Hard Drive is failing.
Like I said earlier, if you want some advice, or are wondering something, feel free to drop me a line.
Cheers!