Computer advice needed

[Alram]

The computer froze last night, and now Windows won't boot up. I can get into the BIOS. I can use my Windows xp disk and get to the recovery console--once I am there I have no idea what to type in. Any advice?

[Merlinios]

What happens if you just turn it on and let it proceed by itself? Blank screen? Error message?

--me

[Alram]

What happens if you just turn it on and let it proceed by itself? Blank screen? Error message?

--me

Disc boot failure, insert system disk and press enter

[kandrathe]

Disc boot failure, insert system disk and press enter

You lost your boot partition. You could try to put in your OS disk and select the repair option. It might work, and then you might just have to reinstall your applications.

[Alram]

All right! I went back into the BIOS and checked the "boot priority." There are 2 hard drives on my computer. One has all the system and program files and the other is only for storage. The storage drive was designated in the BIOS as the #1 in the boot process. I switched them around and my machine booted up with no trouble. This leads me to a question. Why or how did the BIOS boot priority get switched around, or if it was always like that, how come it always worked before? And why did the computer freeze?

[DeeBye]

All right! I went back into the BIOS and checked the "boot priority." There are 2 hard drives on my computer. One has all the system and program files and the other is only for storage. The storage drive was designated in the BIOS as the #1 in the boot process. I switched them around and my machine booted up with no trouble. This leads me to a question. Why or how did the BIOS boot priority get switched around, or if it was always like that, how come it always worked before? And why did the computer freeze?

Did you get drunk and fall asleep on your keyboard? That happened to me once, with a similar result.

No, I will not explain further.

[Urza-DSF]

Not to thread hijack, but I've been pulling my hair out trying to fix this damn crash problem I've been getting. When playing WoW or even NWN, or even while watching something on YouTube or a reguar windows video/DVD I'll just crash for absolutly no reason. When the Disk Check does run, it says the size of the file 0970NAV~.TMP is incorect and the entry has been trundicated, or something like that. The file is buried inside of Program Files/Norton Internet Security/Norton Antivirus/Savrt

And the pisser is that i cant get Norton Tech Support to help *or* World of Warcraft tech support. I've done everything I could think of. Installed AGP and other motherboard drivers that I hadnt, running disk checks, malware/adware checks and all I can think of is that norton is screwing me over.

Thoughts?

Edit: Apparantly Norton isnt to blame, since I uninstalled it and promptly crashed not a minute into WoW. I'm now at my wits end.

[roguebanshee]

Thoughts?

Edit: Apparantly Norton isnt to blame, since I uninstalled it and promptly crashed not a minute into WoW. I'm now at my wits end.

Did you reboot after unstalling NAV and before starting WoW?

It may also be CPU/GPU temperature that causes the crashes, I had that problem in my old apartment in the summer period (CPU got above 60C fast if I didn't use an external fan). Frequent crashes in 3D games was a common experience.

[Urza-DSF]

Did you reboot after unstalling NAV and before starting WoW?

It may also be CPU/GPU temperature that causes the crashes, I had that problem in my old apartment in the summer period (CPU got above 60C fast if I didn't use an external fan). Frequent crashes in 3D games was a common experience.

I've got... 4 external fans along with the heatsink fan going on the processor. Currently run at ~40C when on the desktop, not sure what I'm running while playing WoW. And apparantly Blizzs advice is for nothing, since I just crashed without any blue screen or anything else.

[Wyrm]

Not sure if this will help, but maybe you have a bad spot on the HD? With my last HD, I wound up with a bad sector or something in the area Windows was installed and it would take forever to boot and could crash at random times. It's just a hunch (and not a very well thought out one at that), but it sounds like you might have a bad spot around where the Windows page file is.

[kandrathe]

Not to thread hijack, but I've been pulling my hair out trying to fix this damn crash problem I've been getting. When playing WoW or even NWN, or even while watching something on YouTube or a reguar windows video/DVD I'll just crash for absolutly no reason. When the Disk Check does run, it says the size of the file 0970NAV~.TMP is incorect and the entry has been trundicated, or something like that. The file is buried inside of Program Files/Norton Internet Security/Norton Antivirus/Savrt

And the pisser is that i cant get Norton Tech Support to help *or* World of Warcraft tech support. I've done everything I could think of. Installed AGP and other motherboard drivers that I hadnt, running disk checks, malware/adware checks and all I can think of is that norton is screwing me over.

Thoughts?

Edit: Apparantly Norton isnt to blame, since I uninstalled it and promptly crashed not a minute into WoW. I'm now at my wits end.

What is the crash info's? Try the usual stuff like shutting off hardware acceleration in DXDIAG for your sound card.

[kandrathe]

I'm having trouble with this link.

[Urza-DSF]

Update: after 16 hours of running MemTest86, I have found that I don't have any problems with my memory, so its either my video card (likely, since thats the only time I get the error) or something else I cant figure out. Any ideas for what I should do to check out my vid card?

[roguebanshee]

Any ideas for what I should do to check out my vid card?

First thing would be to run DxDiag and see what it says. It may be a conflict between your audio and graphics drivers.

It may also be an otherwise beneficial background job such as defragmentation that is set to run at low CPU usage. If such a job starts while you're actually using the computer then it can cause trouble. Have you checked that yet?

[Walkiry]

First thing would be to run DxDiag and see what it says. It may be a conflict between your audio and graphics drivers.

It may also be an otherwise beneficial background job such as defragmentation that is set to run at low CPU usage. If such a job starts while you're actually using the computer then it can cause trouble. Have you checked that yet?

Actually the very first thing would be to check that it's sitting properly in the motherboard slot. I've had it before when a yank on the monitor cable unseated the card slightly, and it worked fine in Windows but gave problems as soon as 3D started.

Fast to check and worth it ;-)

[Urza-DSF]

Just ran a torture test on my processor and RAM, no problems there, and I already ran DxDiag so I know I dont have any conflicts. Going to check to see if its properly installed though.

Edit: just checked, vid card seems to be in perfectly, though one of my RAMs seemed to be crooked in its slot. Going to see what happens, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that perhaps my power supply cant handle the high-end graphics card, sound card, wireless mouse with charger and LCD backlit gaming keyboard.

EditEdit: Now i cant spend even a few seconds in WoW, crashed at the character select screen. Either the power supply, the vidcard, or both are kaput. Think I'm just going to go and buy new ones today.

[Urza-DSF]

Fun times! the 600 watt power supply I purchaced apparfantly burned out my old processor or motherboard, so now I just purchaced a a new pair: nforce4 mainboard with an atathlon 64 processor. the kicker is that the board dosent support AGP vid cards, so I had to buy a PCI express card as well-_- Now I cant get the damn thing to boot from floppy so I can delete my harddrive and re-install windows.

edit: got my system to boot, and re-downloaded the data lifeguard tools that let me format my HD, so a quick format and XP-reinstall and I'll be up and running with my brand new, tiny god.

Question though: when a motherboard has Dual-Channel DDR does that mean you can put two same-gig ram sticks and gain additional performance from them?

[kandrathe]

Fun times! the 600 watt power supply I purchaced apparfantly burned out my old processor or motherboard, so now I just purchaced a a new pair: nforce4 mainboard with an atathlon 64 processor. the kicker is that the board dosent support AGP vid cards, so I had to buy a PCI express card as well-_- Now I cant get the damn thing to boot from floppy so I can delete my harddrive and re-install windows.

edit: got my system to boot, and re-downloaded the data lifeguard tools that let me format my HD, so a quick format and XP-reinstall and I'll be up and running with my brand new, tiny god.

Question though: when a motherboard has Dual-Channel DDR does that mean you can put two same-gig ram sticks and gain additional performance from them?

Oh gosh. Sounds like my kitchen or bathroom projects. They usually start with a leaky gasket and end with new appliances, counters, cabinets, tile, light fixtures and paint.

[Walkiry]

Fun times! the 600 watt power supply I purchaced apparfantly burned out my old processor or motherboard, so now I just purchaced a a new pair: nforce4 mainboard with an atathlon 64 processor. the kicker is that the board dosent support AGP vid cards, so I had to buy a PCI express card as well-_- Now I cant get the damn thing to boot from floppy so I can delete my harddrive and re-install windows.

edit: got my system to boot, and re-downloaded the data lifeguard tools that let me format my HD, so a quick format and XP-reinstall and I'll be up and running with my brand new, tiny god.

Question though: when a motherboard has Dual-Channel DDR does that mean you can put two same-gig ram sticks and gain additional performance from them?

It may be too late, but I usually found that the Repair install of Windows XP works very very well, has worked in 2 upgrades so far.

As far as dual-channel, that's the idea. Paired DIMMS with the same specs, and you'll gain some extra performance.