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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Computer help? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Hope this isn't Famous Last Words but the computer has been humming away quietly the whole time I've been on this time, and I've been able to keep posting without a hitch. I had a rocky time GETTING on, went through three bootups, and got frozen out as soon as I got online once. But since I got online this time not a problem at all. Said with all the panache of a faith+works adherant. With the same urgency as I would address one of them. Bail out! Leave it rest as much as you can until the solution comes along.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I now agree with the others that this is probably a hardware problem. I would not go ahead with the reformat, but a reinstalling of the OS wouldn't hurt. Back up everything vital Now! while your computer is running good. Thanks. And thanks to you too Ian for the urgent advice. I'm leaving the whole thing until further notice. Thanks for everyone's help.
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 3941 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
The disk going bad causing problems with paging is actually much more likely than the binaries being corrupted. Good point.
Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 3941 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
You probably are not going to need anything that big so you should be able to get a new disk for under $100. YOu are also going to probably need an ATA drive NOT a SATA drive but whoever you get to replace it should check for you. You can maybe look for yourself. If you open your case and can identify your hard drive, an ATA drive will have a ribbon-like cable attaching it to your motherboard.
My favorite brand of hard drive is Seagate. They tend to be the forefront in reliability although they tend not to be as much of a speedster as other drives which is why some do not like them. I'll take reliability over a 1% speed boost in the part that is the slowest thing in my computer anyway. Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Taz Member (Idle past 3322 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1497 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I know there can sometimes be a problem with the clock in a computer, a battery going bad? That used to be a problem but it isn't anymore. Back in the day, when you turned off your computer, you did so by cutting power at the power supply transformer (if you've looked inside your computer, that's the big metal box near the back that the power cord plugs into.) Since all power to the system was terminated, the motherboard needed a trickle of power to keep the clock running and current. That battery would charge while the computer was on and run while it was off but eventually, like all rechargable batteries, its duty cycle would expire and it would lose the ability to hold a charge. After a while they redefined the specification for motherboards, power supplies, and computer cases to specify that the computer would go "soft-off", that is, the power supply would supply a constant trickle charge to the circuts on the motherboard to run the clock and other components. The other advantage to this was that you could turn your computer off from a software command in Windows (and have it automatically turn on at scheduled times) instead of at a switch on the front panel. So I highly doubt it's a clock battery issue. It's been at least ten years since I heard about a computer where that was an issue.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Faiths computer sounds like its old and going belly up. No point in throwing good money after bad. Got a link (US-side) to cheap new systems complete. She sounds like she doesn't need anything fancy or of the type whose going to go in brandishing a soldering iron (sorry sis). A bit of word/excel/explorer sounds the extent of it.
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Taz Member (Idle past 3322 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
She can get an ATA harddrive for less than 30 bucks with free shipping. If she pays for a plane ticket, I'll be happy to fly there and install it for her.
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 3941 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
I would recommend
Seagate BarraCuda 7200.9 ST3802110A 80GB 7200 RPM 2MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com Not only that drive but also that online store. Newegg is just plain the best.
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nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
I would recommend ...
Just a minute, there. Have you determined that she needs a 3.5 inch drive?
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 3941 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
Umm, I am guessing it is a standard PC configuration so yes.
What is the alternative?
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nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
What is the alternative?
It could be one of the smaller ones (such as used on laptops). I agree 3.5 is more likely, but it is usually a good idea to check.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I use MS Publisher in my work, not Word, and yes "a bit of Excel" says it there. I've got the CDs for Windows XP and Office XP with Publisher which I assume are still usable though they're as old as the computer. Somebody laid a cassette tape eraser (a magnet basically) down on top of them when helping me move, and I can only hope.
I don't know what an ATA or SATA hard drive means. I thought hard drives were a lot more expensive than $30 as gasby said, or less than $100 as Jazzns said.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I have no idea what I need. I guess I'll look inside the box eventually if anyone needs to know. I'm so surprised that a hard drive can be that cheap.
What does "Pentium" refer to? Isn't that the capacity of a hard drive?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Your advice to uncheck all the msconfig boxes seems to have improved things a great deal. I got through a whole day's work with only one freezeup and everything went a lot faster, so thanks.
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