WIN XP Issues

[Razorbacx]

It seems like my PC is simply falling apart. This all started when I dl'ed one of microsofts security fixes that screwed up my sound. I could not recover, so I reinstalled win xp. All was well for a brief period of time and then my HD went down, although I believe that microsoft secretly hacked into my system and purposedfully killed it, but I have no real proof of that. So, I installed win xp on my secondary drive...for the third straight time in the past two weeks that is. Now, my video card, a Leadtek 7800GS, has died, so I dropped in my old 4400 card. Now my boot times are anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes. I've spent hours and hours on the phone with India, otherwise known as microsoft's new tech support center. Has anyone else tried to contact microsoft tech support lately? If so, then you know what I mean when I say that they are worthless. But, I'm a die hard and so I sat there and listened as they read from a prepared script and after maybe 6 - 8 hours they have determined that I have a hardware conflict. This is nonething short of, "I have no freakin' idea what's wrong and the cards don't tell me what to do next" give up line. So, I'm stuck and I'm hoping that one of you can advise me as to how to fix my problem.

Any help will be much appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Razorbacx

ABIT AV8 Mobo
AMD 3500 Venice Core
BenQ DVD
WD 80GB EIDE HD
4GB PC2700 DDR333 Ram
GeForce 4400 Video Card...until I my warranty replacement back
win xp service pack 2

[stev]

RB,

You're timing is interesting about the M$ security fixes. My machine DL'ed one of those two weeks ago and now the LAN card will not respond. I switched in a "new" LAN card and it's still a no go. So, just like you did, I reinstalled XP fresh without any updates. Still nothing works.

The LAN card is a PCItype. I've tried other PCI cards like a modem and USB in the machine and they all work. The MOBO no longer works with LAN cards.

Due to a M$ update and reboot, the machine has no LAN ability.

I'm to the point of not dealing with these M$ automatic updates anymore.

I may need to get a new MOBO now.

Your statement of, "...although I believe that microsoft secretly hacked into my system and purposedfully killed it, but I have no real proof of that." really perks my interest too. Updates for XP to kill your machine so as to fork over money to get M$ Vista. Bow down to the mighty Vole

I'm not a thrilled user now of automatic updates from any source now. http://billpstudios.blogspot.com/2007/0 ... rs-in.html

[Razorbacx]

Stev,

Have you tried to flash your bios? I did with the hope that if there was a hardware conflict that doing so would resolve my issue and although it failed to do so, there still may hope of correcting yours.

I've not, at least from the last time that I checked, been able to recover my sound fully after that February Security Fix. I can get audio from a music CD, but nonething from a DVD. Video playback was fine, however I had no sound. I could stream in video from the net and everything worked, but now when I use my DVD drive all I get is video with no sound. Gotta place the blame squarely on microsoft's shoulders on this one.

What kills me about this whole thing is just a few weeks ago my pc was running ever so smoothly. I had no indication that my HD was on its last leg or that al-microsoft was planning a terrorist attack on my box. I was actually satisfied, and now I can hardly look at that black box under my desk without discontent.... At this point I have tried everything that I know to do and am . So, if any of you super geniuses out there can help me fix my computer you'll have my vote for Man or Woman of the Year (your choice).

Regards,

Razorbacx

[Razorbacx]

I hate to ask again, but I'm in real need of some help here as I have attempted everything that I possibly know how to do to diagnose the problem that I am having with my boot up. So nobody has to go back and re-read this thread here is my problem:

HD died, so I replaced it with my secondary drive and reinstalled WIN XP.
Upon boot up I get my ABIT Splash screen to either hit TAB to enter setup or to hit DEL to enter into my CMOS.
After a few seconds the ABIT screen goes away and then another screen pops up with a bunch of text and at the very bottom it says that it is verifying DMI.
Screen goes away after a few seconds and then I go to an all black screen for a minute or two.
I then get a segmented gray bar at the bottom of my screen with a solid bar slowly (about 5 minutes) filling across the segmented bar from left to right.
Windows spalsh screen appears for about 10 seconds and then WIN XP is up and running with absolutely no problems whatsoever.

Outside of my HD crapping out my video card decided to take a dump as well (the fan was giving out). The video card is still under warranty and will be replaced, so in the meantime I have dropped in an old GeForce MX4400 video card as my mobo does not have onboard video to keep things up and running. I've used this same video card in my rig once before when my video card took a dump and I had to send it off to be replaced. BTW, this is the third card in the past 18 months that has died on me...LEADTEK quality stinks! So, being that I've used this video card in my current configuration then I doubt there would be any hardware incapatiblities. My secondary HD was already installed as a slave for extra storage prior to becoming my new primary and I've had the same RAM for the past 3-4 months now. I changed out the onboard battery thinking that maybe it was dying on me and causing my BIOS to load more slowly and still the problem exists. I've flashed my BIOS as well and checked my Device Manager to see if there were any problems with the current drivers, although I have not updated any of those...yet.

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcomed as I am stumped.

Thanks,

Razorbacx

[dicecca112]

what are you using for a PSU, sounds like something killing everything, and I think your boards next

[Razorbacx]

I have an ANTEC NEO Power 480W PSU. I was using a different PSU when my first video card died and bought this one off of FZ1. It's been perfect and I haven't seen anything to point to a PSU problem. The cards have all failed for different reasons with the most recent being a fan failure. It started squealing intermittently until I finally figured out that it was the video card and pulled it.

My wife just called me and told me that when booting up the computer, upon going to the second screen with the Verifying DMI Pool, it's now hanging up there and giving a boot disk error. No way I have a second HD failure! It's got to be the OS...right? Help, anyone, pleeeeeaaassseee!

[stev]

Well, I reloaded the OS and got a third LAN card. The machine is finally running strong again.

I've now turned off that automatic update feature for windows.

On another note, today my Gateway Select 750 would suddenly turn on run a few minuets and then turn off. It keep doing this all night from what I was able to detect. The PSU is fine, the other components are fine, but the MOBO was getting wacky. The machine lasted a good 9 years of mostly good service with much enhancements and upgrades to XP. I had 640Mb of memory in that machine when 512Mb was the norm a few years back.

So, yes, these gremlins are getting into our boxes. Whether or not they are from M$ is another story.

As for your issues, is the machine running cool? Heat can kill equipment over a short period of time. What adds to heat are dust bunnies too. When both are present, look out. A failure is one a short time away.

[Razorbacx]

Glad to hear that you were able to resolve one of your issues and sorry to hear bout your new one. When it rains it pours.

Well, I generally keep my box fairly clean, although I cannot account for every speck of dust I do a fair job of keep the dust bunnies or ghost terds as we used to call'em in the Marine Corps out of my box.

I was able to get my pc up and running. I reseated my HD and all the cabling, but it's still taking at least 10 minutes for windose to get up and running. Call it frustration, but at this point, I just don't care anymore. I think that this will be my last build and that I'll just buy the preconfigured crap from now on. The Dell that my Father-in-law bought 10 years ago is still up and running and I've had my custom built box for less than two years and am having multiple failures, both hardware and sotware.

Razorbacx