Computer Help Time Again-A plethora of problems!

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biglou

Alrighty, time for some more PC help. After 16 months of near flawless operation, the old Dell has started to get squirrelly on me.

System: Dell Dimension 8250, XP Home Vers 2002 Serv Pack 1, P4 2.4gig, 256meg ram.

FYI-All of these symptoms seemed to show up around the same time:

First thing I noticed was one day my resolution had reset to 600x800 or something, and my refresh rate had changed, causing very jerky scrolling, and kind of irritating my eyes the way the lighter colors seemed to pulse. I reset the resolution with no problems, but when I went to change the refresh rate for the video, I found that only a default was available, and no other rates were shown-not even grayed out. This was not how it was when I first set this PC up, so I investigated further. Found a yellow "!" for my video card under device manager, clicked buttons to reinstall drivers and all was well again, I was able to see multiple refresh rate choices again and bumped it up which solved that issue.

Second issue that came up a couple weeks ago was my sounds. I have some .wav files loaded in my Media folder that I had chosen as my critical stop sound, new mail arrival, etc. You know, sounds like Homer's "DOH!", etc. One day, I noticed my new mail sound had reset, along with several others, to their original default sounds. When I browsed to reset the sounds to the custom ones I had installed, I noticed the font on some of the file names had changed from black to blue. WTF? Also, I could install the sounds, but when I would highlight a sound, I would get an error popup that said something to the effect of "Windows cannot locate the file" or "File doesnt exist".

Lastly, anytime I go to either shut down and then start up, or just click "Restart", the computer will hang or lock up. Usually, I get the "Saving your personal settings" screen, then "Windows is shutting down", then the monitor goes black (not off, just black), and that's where things stop. I have to hold the power button in, and then on restart, I get the "Windows did not start normally" message in the very DOS-like white font on black background, and I have to use the arrow keys to choose from several choices like starting in safe mode, or going back to last known good settings-which is the one I choose, and it starts normally with all settings and sounds as I have set them up.

I knew these wouldn't help, but I have run disk cleanup and defrag to no avail. I've also run a virus scan of all files with McAfee and nothing shows up.

Any ideas? Need more info? Thanks.
 

KelvinKDX

LIFETIME SPONSOR
Aug 25, 2000
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Lou - does your pc have a seperate sound card or are you just running from the on-board sound? I know that you have a video card from your past ordeals. You may want to try to remove your sound and video cards - set the system up without them (using the mb's resources) and then add them again. I don't know why they would go bad like that unless you inadvertently had a new program change things when you added loaded it on to your system.

Is your system been continually updated with MS Windows Update? Have you ever ran Spybot-Search&Destroy? I've found this utility useful in finding and getting rid of unwanted pesky programs that mess with your system and can really slow it down (especially on a PC with a slow proccessor - which you do not have).

Keep in mind that i only claim to know what i am talking about.
 

BSWIFT

Sponsoring Member
N. Texas SP
LIFETIME SPONSOR
Nov 25, 1999
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Lou, it sounds like you have a worm. Have you tried a System Restore to a date 6 months back? Just save the important stuff and do a restore. Helped me, I'm running XP Pro.
 
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biglou

Do I have to save all files (pictures, vid clips, etc.) saved in the last 6 months on a disc or will they be there if I do a system restore to 6 months back?
 

sfc crash

Human Blowtorch
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Jun 26, 2001
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yeh , what they said. i was getting pretty buggy on the home pc, P4-2G, 1G DDR ram, xp home. i was getting hamertered with the worms. obviously you guys know this, but i did not. you gotta patch the hole or the worm comes back, regardless of your protection. so i got my first error message and followed the report to MS and got the stinger and ran it, that helped, then i downloaded Mcaffe and have auto update, that helped, then i ran pc bug doctor, pc booster, spybot/w auto update and fixdisk, in that order, seemed to help. btw, MS auto update helps too. good luck dude. seems like the better these confusers get the easier the get buggy.
 

Jaybird

Apprentice Goon
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Mar 16, 2001
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Charlestown, IN
Spybot Search&Destroy is a must. Virus scans won't detect some things as a problem.
Adaware is another similar, but seems to have issues with virus scans. (shrug)

It may amaze you what these programs will find.

Are you using a bought version of McAfee? Get the whole set including virus scan, personal firewall, spam protector, etc.. It will update anytime there is an update available and you are online.

And...Stay away form those porn sites! :)
 

BSWIFT

Sponsoring Member
N. Texas SP
LIFETIME SPONSOR
Nov 25, 1999
7,926
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biglou said:
Do I have to save all files (pictures, vid clips, etc.) saved in the last 6 months on a disc or will they be there if I do a system restore to 6 months back?
Just save them in Folders that you can scan after the restore. You can always restore "back" to the current date if no real change is noticeable. You will be able to get to all of your files.
 

Jamir

I come and go
Aug 7, 2001
1,939
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Did this all happen to start just after that night I was on your computer? You know that I carry bad juju everywhere I go, right?
 

Flying Scot

LIFETIME SPONSOR
Oct 13, 2002
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Since I'm not an expert on computers and I have many people that play with mine ( computer that is - family and friends ) I payed close attention 2 years ago to COMDEX when Valt-X announced their new hardware firewall. Since then they have improved it dramatically and support SATA drives as well. They no longer require you to piggy back the hard drive on to their unit and use a 5 1/4 drive bay. Vast improvement.
The best thing about this is once you have configured this system then anytime anyone messes with your sytem Virus or unwanted changes that you did, you just select restore and all changes since your previous backup are erased. That's the quick explanation but I find it a lot quicker and trustworthy than a software backup. also when I had problems installing on my new system in March with XP they were readily available on the phone, fax and e-mail. Check them out if you want to feel safe like me Lou. :thumb:
 
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