I've searched high and low determine what the problem is with my computer.
At the moment if I were to try to do "windows update" and start downloading the next update, it would download, and then try to install and then the window would stop responding. ctrl alt delete does not respond, nor does anything else on my screen yet my mouse will move around freely.
same goes for many other programs, what's going on? The actual tests I've ran show that the ram is ok (at least, the basic tests I've ran) and that the hard drive is fine. Processors don't really get problems like this... and so that leaves either a motherboard problem, or some sort of loop that's running and hogging all the resources.
No idea how to go about making sure that my assessment is correct...
ID:277664
 Oct 10 2007, 7:38 pm
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Oct 10 2007, 7:45 pm
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Falacy
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virus?
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Ok so I wiped the hard drive to rule out any possible viral infection. It turns out that that wasn't the problem. Everything was going smooth, and running well and then I tried to install SP2. SP2 freezes the computer at a certain point (some .cab file) and I can still move the mouse, tab between windows, but can't actually click on anything/function and the install bar never moves. I have to then revert back to SP1 and I've tried it three times so far and same thing, same spot.
Then I installed a few older games, they installed fine and ran fine (I left one on over night to make sure). Then I tried installing a third game, and it messed up at the same spot of installation each time. So it appears to me that somehow there is an infinite loop going on locking up all other processes (not even ctrl+alt+del works) or that my motherboard does not work due to some weird problem with it. However, since it doesn't lock up on all installations/processes that kind of defeats the infinite loop idea... and instead points to some sort of hardware problem. How to test a motherboard? I couldn't imagine it being the hard drive since if it was the hard drive it would totally freeze, and nothing would work? | |
Well first rule out the ram.
download ramtest86 and burn it to a cd. let it run overnight and if it has any errors your ram is shot. http://www.memtest86.com/ | |
I actually have multiple sticks of ram, and I removed all of them and tried each individual stick and it would still freeze during install at the exact same point each time.
I'm almost 100% certain it's the hard drive, here's why; I could install lots of stuff, and then once I get a certain amount of things installed (even after reboots, etc which would clear the ram) it would freeze. At the same spot, each time I tried. Then when I wiped my hard drive again, and tried to install those programs that froze... they installed just fine, and the other programs froze during install at the same point. Which is telling me that a certain part of the hard drive is damaged. I should have known that when I installed this hard drive when it was reading at only 150gigs and it's a 300 gig hard drive that something was up. | |