Author Topic: Help!! I have a computer problem :( (Read 8505 times)

BlackNMild2k1 · « **on:** March 08, 2007, 05:04:49 AM »

I tried to watch the HOME trailer (direct link) on gamevideos.com yesterday night when my screen went all crazy. 80% of the screen went black and what was visible at the top of the screen was moving very fast across from left to right(I could still see the mouse cursor on any part of the screen). Then the screen went completely black and the mouse was no longer visible, so I restarted my computer. Everything seemed to be fine until it started to load Windows XP and in was displayed sideways.

what happened and how do I fix it?

UltimatePartyBear · « **Reply #1 on:** March 08, 2007, 05:08:52 AM »

You could always set your monitor on its side. I'd try changing your display settings first. Try changing the resolution to something else and then back again. If that has no effect, uninstall the video card driver and reinstall it.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #2 on:** March 08, 2007, 05:50:54 AM »

Actually I posted the same problem on a different forum an the problem has been solved.

Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow rotated my screen till it was right side up. Thanks for the response though.

matt oz · « **Reply #3 on:** March 08, 2007, 06:44:00 AM »

That happened to my sister when her cat walked on her keyboard.

UltimatePartyBear · « **Reply #4 on:** March 08, 2007, 07:22:06 AM »

I've never heard of Ctrl+Alt+Down arrow before. Is that specific to your video card?

Ceric · « **Reply #5 on:** March 08, 2007, 08:57:29 AM »

Let me guess you have an Intel Graphic Set. I was going to respond the same way.

Artimus · « **Reply #6 on:** March 08, 2007, 01:47:06 PM »

If the down arrow thing won't work you can fix it in your monitor settings (under displays).

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #7 on:** April 22, 2007, 08:44:03 PM »

Guess what, I have a whole new computer problem! Its so bad that right now I'm not even on my computer.

The Problem: My computer is in an endless reboot cycle and won't boot from the CD drive no matter how many times I tell it to.
As soon as its about to load windows, it reboots.

How it happened: I recently upgraded my computer to try and get around other computer problems that I had been having. After the upgrade, I kept ketting blue screen errors that cause the computer to restart. I downloaded some stuff and the problem went away.... sort of. Everything seemed to be working fine, but at start-up I would get 2 windows errors, one that said I need to either update my video drivers for the new motherboard and/or take off all hardware graphic acceleration, the other was some random window file "www.ocra.windows.blahblahblahwhateverthismay-be.itsjustsomereallylongnametoafileillneverfind." couldn't be found. Not to mention that the computer would also do random restarts.

So I upgraded the driver from the Intel site that the board is from(just took the newest driver for a range of board series) and turned off all HW acceleration, and then the errors would still show up. So I backrolled the driver back to the original one and installed the latest one specifically made for my board. Now I couldn't display anything above 4bit color at 640x480. *Sometimes when I tried to change the monitor support or the resolution the computer would do a random restart.*

I tried everything in the Help pages, and decide that I should try a System Restore after none of it works. Which is what leads us to the current problem. The endless reboot cycle.

Solution: I should have bought a Dell.

Shift Key · « **Reply #8 on:** April 22, 2007, 09:22:11 PM »

First off, how far into the Windows process does it get before you have to reboot? Do you see the Windows logo at all?

I can't see why you can't boot from a CD if you are able to start booting Windows, but obviously I'm only going by what you're telling me.

Normally pressing Del when you are starting up (well before you boot Windows) should get you into the BIOS - from there you can tell the BIOS to boot from CD first, then Windows.

Secondly, how valuable is the stuff on the Windows partition?

You've got a few choices that vary in terms of the work and luck required.

1. Boot into Safe Mode (F8 when you see the Windows screen, then a bunch of startup options appear). This will give you some debugging and load a minimal Windows environment so you can isolate the source. Perhaps the resets will still occur, but perhaps you'll get to actually read the error message.

The other choices depend on booting from a CD. Not sure why you can't get into the BIOS and change the boot order as it always starts up before Windows does.
Anyway:

2. Reinstall Windows on the old partition - replaces the contents of C:/Windows with all the Windows-related files - including the registry - which means you will need to reinstall everything, but you won't lose any data outside of the Windows directory. This may fix the problem or it may not, but it could give you the time to backup your stuff and reformat.

3. Wipe the partition (Windows install CD or your average Linux live CD can help you with this) and reinstall Windows - clears everything on that partition. All the stuff that is on there will be gone, but the problem will be gone.

What concerns me is the error message. Do you have the original CD for the motherboard drivers? What often happens is that Windows installs the best match it can find for a piece of hardware, which may work fine, but is hardly foolproof. The best thing to install is the driver on the CD, as that is what the manufacturer recommends you use. If there is an updated version of that driver it would appear in Windows Update, but aside from that (unless you're using Vista - for example the nVidia drivers have some bugs which are affecting some games in Vista and Vista only) that the CD drivers are sufficient.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #9 on:** April 22, 2007, 10:02:50 PM »

I already went into the bios and re-ordered the boot-up to strart on either CD/DVD drive. The Windows CD was in the drive, but it would skip over the CD drives and attempt to boot windows. As soon as the windows logo would appear, the screen will go black cause the computer just did another random reboot. I've tried hitting F8(even though the option never appeared) and nothing happened other than a reboot.

I've been stressing alot over getting this computer to work over the last week and frankly I'm just fed up with it right now. There is nothing on the primarey HDD that I care to keep(I have two HDD's) and have already wiped everything off it (a week ago)inorder to get it working in the first place. I just don't want to deal with that computer tonite. I will probably open it up and do another clean install again tomorrow. or maybe I'll pack up all my new parts (motherboard, fan & ram) back in their boxes and ship them back to where the came from* and follow my original solution.

*I've invested too much time and energy now though to just give up, and I was doing this upgrade as a learning experience anyway. So I will play with it for another week and see if I can get this P.O.S. working right. Personally I think the case I have it in is cursed and this computer will never work right(which is why I upgraded in the 1st place), but that could just be my imagination.

If you think you can help me fix it, I will be forever grateful. Thanx for the reply.

Shift Key · « **Reply #10 on:** April 22, 2007, 10:10:59 PM »

How old is the motherboard? I'd see if I could get it replaced because it doesn't seem to be working right. You didn't do anything out of the ordinary like "flash" the BIOS or give it a nice surge of electricity, did you?

Yeah, sounds like a terrible situation to be in.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #11 on:** April 22, 2007, 10:28:11 PM »

flashing the BIOS is bad?
They had a BIOS upgrade on the INTEL site, but I don't think I installed it, though I did download it.
It was right before I wiped my HDD and did a clean install of windows, so I'm not sure how to check.
There was alot of installing stuff going on at that point in time, and I was getting the "blue screen" errors that were restarting my computer at that time too.

Oh, I got the motherboard about a 10 days ago.
Intel 946GZIS Express, it came with a 3.2ghz processor for about $150 ($75/$75 split)
You think I should return the motherboard and get a new one? I could afford a better/newer one, but I didn't think it would be necessary.

Shift Key · « **Reply #12 on:** April 22, 2007, 10:47:08 PM »

Flashing a BIOS (rewriting the EEPROM memory that comes with a motherboard) is a pretty tricky thing to do normally, and if you do it wrong it pretty much renders your motherboard useless. I've only had to do it once to support hard drives above a certain size on old motherboards (and that was a pretty rare case) so I don't think its something that should be done unless absolutely necessary.

That's what I thought you did but considering it persistently boots to Windows (while you can access the BIOS menu normally) then I think its a hardware problem.

Yes, definitely replace it. I'm 99% sure that's the source of the problem.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #13 on:** April 22, 2007, 11:21:38 PM »

Alright, cause even if I did flash the BIOS, the computer worked fine for the last 7 days, up until tonite, when the video driver thing took place. The thing about it not booting up from the CD drive might simply be that the CD drives aren't hooked straight into the motherboard. I think I have to unhook one of the HDDs and hook up one of the CD drives instead, thats what I had to do b4. I just really didn't want to be bothered with all of that again tonite.

Shift Key · « **Reply #14 on:** April 22, 2007, 11:24:49 PM »

Yeah, just double check everything before you post it away for a replacement. It could be something as simple as a connection not being quite in (the BIOS messages will tell you what drives are connected, pay attention!)

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #15 on:** April 22, 2007, 11:41:25 PM »

Everything is plugged in, its just that the board only has one IDE plug and I used it for the HDD's. I had to buy an IDE card to hook up the CD drives cause the board is set up for SATA and my CD drives aren't compatible with that. Thats why I have to disconnect one of the HDDs in favor of one of the CD drives atleast until I get windows up and running again.

*I woulda posted abou the IDE/SATA thing before, but I couldn't remember what they were called.*

Shift Key · « **Reply #16 on:** April 23, 2007, 01:18:08 AM »

Wow, only one IDE connection. That sucks! I guess SATA is the way of the future!

You can plug a hard drive and a CD drive into the same IDE connection. The only problem is that IDE only allows devices to run as fast as the slowest device on the cable. In that case, it'll be the CD and both drives will run at ATA33, that is 33MB/s. So its not something you'll want to do regularly.

Smash_Brother · « **Reply #17 on:** April 23, 2007, 02:03:33 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: BlackNMild2k1 Solution: I should have bought a Mac.

Fixed.

Ceric · « **Reply #18 on:** April 23, 2007, 03:34:11 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
Quote
Originally posted by: BlackNMild2k1 Solution: I should have bought a Mac.

Fixed.

But my parsing program is a windows app. I'm lazy and I don't want to recode it with the Google Webkit, Java, Python, or figure out the funny Gelatinous Cube for a Cocoa app. I guess I could just rig it to compile with Mono and call it day though...

KDR_11k · « **Reply #19 on:** April 23, 2007, 04:22:17 AM »

While we're talking about Macs, which key executes the file you have selected with the cursor keys? That CG comp lab has only those retarded one button mice and the lack of a scrollwheel is a severe pain in the rear so I'm using keyboard navigation. Except I can't find the key that acts like a doubleclick on the selected file. Also there was something about the end key that annoyed me to no end but I don't remember what it was (I think it didn't work on single line fields or always jumped to the end of the file instead of the line or something).

UltimatePartyBear · « **Reply #20 on:** April 23, 2007, 04:46:34 AM »

You may be a victim of Intel's cost saving measures. There was a discussion on Slashdot recently about problems related to IDE support on new Intel motherboards. You might find it helpful.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #21 on:** April 23, 2007, 06:32:27 AM »

Thats a little different than my situation. They have IDE plug that don't allow bootable CD roms, I only have one hardwared (on motherboard)IDE plug and had to use it for the HDD's and buy an IDE controller to hook up the 2 CD/DVD drives. The IDE controller is not bootable, cause there are drivers for it that have to be read, and that apparently doesn't happen until windows is started(even though the BIOS can see the drives b4 windows loads). I had to unplug the secondary HDD to hook up one of my CD drives so that the XP CD I have would be bootable. from there hopefully I should be able to boot in safe mode, do a system repair or just perform another clean install of Windows.

Ceric · « **Reply #22 on:** April 23, 2007, 07:53:22 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
While we're talking about Macs, which key executes the file you have selected with the cursor keys? That CG comp lab has only those retarded one button mice and the lack of a scrollwheel is a severe pain in the rear so I'm using keyboard navigation. Except I can't find the key that acts like a doubleclick on the selected file. Also there was something about the end key that annoyed me to no end but I don't remember what it was (I think it didn't work on single line fields or always jumped to the end of the file instead of the line or something).

Apple+O will open a file. Which I think is stupid because every other OS in existance "enter" is almost always execute. In general one of things I found most annoying when I started using a Mac was the lack of Keyboard shortcuts comparitively speaking. The whole Apple Speil for the one-button mice was that it was more ergonomic to use the keyboard primarily. I was expecting shortcuts out the Wazoo. I was sadly mistaken.

Smash_Brother · « **Reply #23 on:** April 24, 2007, 05:24:34 AM »

Their "one button mouse" fad needs to die in a fire.

Luckily, they have a 2-button now with a scroll ball in the middle, but it's touch based and lacks the tactile "click" that I know and love.

I'll stick with my logitech. OSX is built from the ground up to use a 2-button mouse so it doesn't matter.

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #24 on:** August 19, 2007, 09:59:11 AM »

I just wanted everyone to know that I finally got my computer back up and running again.
Yes it took me this many months to finally get it to work flawlessly.
I got a another new mother board(3rd one) and I'm about to get more ram(1 RAM chip went bad), I got a new HDD (my 2nd one. it = 500gb), I bought a new case(cause I think the last one was cursed), and a got a new power supply(just because).

Now everything is working good and fast and my computer no longer freezes up on me anymore.
The nitemare is finally over.

News:

Author Topic: Help!! I have a computer problem :( (Read 8505 times)