Unhappy Computer Mark II

[lindiril]

On Saturday I eventually managed to fix my computer by vacuuming it out and reinstalling Windows (now that it no longer crashed in the Windows installer). Or so I thought

Comments

[kiminari]

dang.....its too bad I'm not in Waterloo right now else I'd try and get the old 2 gig HD from the computer I'm slowly building and let you use that (I realize that its tiny, but at least you could've used it to hold the OS, since I'm pretty sure that there's nothing wrong with it, plus it'd probably let you know if its the HD or the RAM thats all mucked up) Also, you could try taking out individual RAM sticks if Toronto has more than one. As for what to do, it really depends on what your end use is going to be, if you simply want a computer to work on, then go ahead and pick up one of the prebuilt machines they sell at places like futureshop, but if you have any specific purpose, I'd suggest simply building one from bottom up. As for getting a new HD for it, unless you plan on switching it eventually to a different machine, I think its probably not worth it quite yet simply to revive a computer which seems to be in various stages of death. Still, just something to think about.

[lindiril]

I'm kind of with you and sort of leaning toward just replacing the goddamn thing altogether, but on the other hand if the HD is the whole problem, then replacing it will fix my problems. Decisions, decisions.

[quatch]

go find memtest, its a bootable cd that will check your ram, like chkdsk.

[lindiril]

I've already run that. First time, yesterday before vacuuming out the computer, it crashed. Today, it ran fine and got through one pass just fine.