Computer woes, fixed - for now
There is ONE silver lining to all this futzing with the ol' PC, a 6 year old nearly one at that. Though the motherboard was replaced in 2011, I think with an outside brand, eVGA, and it's a very, very nice one at that, and it's actually server grade too, thanks to the x58 chipset from Intel (now at end of life, sadly). However, after the snafu with being virused and malwared big time, I finally reinstalled Windows and still have graphics card issues. One of the issues was initially, the graphics card driver disappearing. I would then have to reinstall it and things would be well and then, poof, garbage again, and a lost driver/software.
Now once the OS was reinstalled, all was fine there, though the issue kept reappearing after cleaning up the C partition. Turned out that when I took the computer to the kitchen table to brush it out of dust, removing the graphics card to clean it good and brush out the slots etc, one of the things I had to do was disconnect the actual power cable to the card itself.
Well, after reinstalling it, I somehow didn't get the connector quite all the way on, and whadda ya know, the issue came back periodically, and running the performance test would cause it to crash as it tried to run the aro scheme, which is graphics intensive. So last night after at least two of these crashes, I was taking a look-see, and noted the plug wasn't quite all the way in, and pushed it in. The PC seemed to run just fine and just minutes ago, ran the performance test to refresh, it passed it with flying colors, and still reads a full5.9 in all areas, the max for Vista 64, even though that old graphics card is old by today's standards. I say that's doing quite well for a graphics card that gets rather toasty pretty easily.
So as long as the issue stays away for a few more months, I think I'll be OK until probably this fall and simply replace with its more modern version in a similar class, to keep this baby going for a while longer.
So next is to finish reinstalling all the rest of the software and then be fully back up to speed again and then be able to update my blog again.
However, I still have to figure out how much to split the rent, pay something on the credit card, and not worry about the Century link account this coming month as I paid it up this month and begin to pay down the electric bill, post haste, and really buckle down on the house hunt now that the PC is functioning fine again as we get further into spring and hopefully snag a little house for me to move to.
Next up, though, is dinner.
Now once the OS was reinstalled, all was fine there, though the issue kept reappearing after cleaning up the C partition. Turned out that when I took the computer to the kitchen table to brush it out of dust, removing the graphics card to clean it good and brush out the slots etc, one of the things I had to do was disconnect the actual power cable to the card itself.
Well, after reinstalling it, I somehow didn't get the connector quite all the way on, and whadda ya know, the issue came back periodically, and running the performance test would cause it to crash as it tried to run the aro scheme, which is graphics intensive. So last night after at least two of these crashes, I was taking a look-see, and noted the plug wasn't quite all the way in, and pushed it in. The PC seemed to run just fine and just minutes ago, ran the performance test to refresh, it passed it with flying colors, and still reads a full5.9 in all areas, the max for Vista 64, even though that old graphics card is old by today's standards. I say that's doing quite well for a graphics card that gets rather toasty pretty easily.
So as long as the issue stays away for a few more months, I think I'll be OK until probably this fall and simply replace with its more modern version in a similar class, to keep this baby going for a while longer.
So next is to finish reinstalling all the rest of the software and then be fully back up to speed again and then be able to update my blog again.
However, I still have to figure out how much to split the rent, pay something on the credit card, and not worry about the Century link account this coming month as I paid it up this month and begin to pay down the electric bill, post haste, and really buckle down on the house hunt now that the PC is functioning fine again as we get further into spring and hopefully snag a little house for me to move to.
Next up, though, is dinner.