Computers and Related Hardware/Software

bmwracer wrote:
I think most of the name brands are fine and Seagate is one of the best, I think.

It *shouldn't* have a problem with your Dell, but you never can tell with some Dell products *not a fan of Dell*....

It's always hit or miss, but having your input is better than without. :victory:

Kijinnmaru wrote:It's always hit or miss, but having your input is better than without. :victory:

Good luck! :victory:

ralphm1999 wrote:

I had that problem once after putting in a ram stick incorrectly... not completely seated before I turned it on. It fizzled for a moment then nothing.... waited 15 minutes ... tried to turn it on... nothing. Finally I read the manual... It actually had that problem in there. The resolution, unplug from wall.... wait for a while. Plug back into wall and computer had a new life. I suppose there is some capacitor that can't release it's energy until all power sources are removed. :bonk:

I tried that, but sadly it didn't work :( Off to the shop it goes...

Anime Dad wrote:I tried that, but sadly it didn't work :( Off to the shop it goes...

Might not be worth repairing if it's over say, $100... :sweat:

My computer is fuggin' up on startup....it boots and when gets to the windows desktop enviroment it freezes/locks up/hangs and sometimes the screen freaks out and i see all these diagonal lines instead of the proper image. I've been using a new graphics card with no problem for 2 weeks and this problem just started happening. Sometimes I can get past it and then the computer works fine, but everytime I boot or re-boot the above problem occurs....I noticed that my video card requires a min. 350W power supply but I only have 300W power supply...I think that's what is causing the problems....

Computer problems suck.

Tu_triky wrote:My computer is fuggin' up on startup....it boots and when gets to the windows desktop enviroment it freezes/locks up/hangs and sometimes the screen freaks out and i see all these diagonal lines instead of the proper image. I've been using a new graphics card with no problem for 2 weeks and this problem just started happening. Sometimes I can get past it and then the computer works fine, but everytime I boot or re-boot the above problem occurs....I noticed that my video card requires a min. 350W power supply but I only have 300W power supply...I think that's what is causing the problems....

Computer problems suck.

If the video card required a 350W supply two weeks ago and it worked fine, it's inexplicable that it would suddenly decide that 300W ain't enough...

If it's any consolation, power supplies are relatively easy to change out... :)

If possible, disconnect some hardware and see if it helps... :sweat:

bmwracer wrote:
If the video card required a 350W supply two weeks ago and it worked fine, it's inexplicable that it would suddenly decide that 300W ain't enough...

Yeah I thought of that...but maybe 300W is barely cuttin' it, since it's below the min. recommended 350W. Can't say for sure that's the problem though.

If possible, disconnect some hardware and see if it helps... :sweat:

Yeah it might come to that but I really don't have much on this comp...just 2 optical drives 2 hard drives, a sound card, and the video card. Nothing fancy.

I'm thinking maybe because I didn't disable the onboard graphics on the mobo it might be causing a conflict of sort...I guess I gotta get into the BIOS maybe.

Tu_triky wrote:Yeah I thought of that...but maybe 300W is barely cuttin' it, since it's below the min. recommended 350W. Can't say for sure that's the problem though.

You might also plug in the the old video card and see if the problem goes away... If not, there might be some other problem not related to the video card-power supply combination.

bmwracer wrote:
If the video card required a 350W supply two weeks ago and it worked fine, it's inexplicable that it would suddenly decide that 300W ain't enough...

If it's any consolation, power supplies are relatively easy to change out... :)

If possible, disconnect some hardware and see if it helps... :sweat:

I had that problem a few years back. It was drawing too much power, but didn't know that was the problem at the time; it would be ok until the power supply would get too hot then weird things started happening. The time it took varied depending on what I was doing which added to the difficulty tracking it down. If I was writing a letter, it would be fine all day. Gaming was another issue. It would lock or spontaneously reboot. I finally realized it wasn't a software/driver issue when it rebooted during the POST messages. I opened up the case and realized it was way too hot. A new power supply later and everything's been fine since.

As BMW-sempai said, it took about ten minutes to take the old one out and put the new one in and connect everything.

Madoka wrote:As BMW-sempai said, it took about ten minutes to take the old one out and put the new one in and connect everything.

If you do decide to swap out power supplies, now would be a good time to vacuum and use compressed air on the computer's innards. :)

bmwracer wrote:
You might also plug in the the old video card and see if the problem goes away... If not, there might be some other problem not related to the video card-power supply combination.

Good advice...but the old card was busted so I chucked...my only option would be to plug the monitor into the onboard graphics connector on the mobo....I guess I should try that.

Madoka wrote:

I had that problem a few years back. It was drawing too much power, but didn't know that was the problem at the time; it would be ok until the power supply would get too hot then weird things started happening. The time it took varied depending on what I was doing which added to the difficulty tracking it down. If I was writing a letter, it would be fine all day. Gaming was another issue. It would lock or spontaneously reboot. I finally realized it wasn't a software/driver issue when it rebooted during the POST messages. I opened up the case and realized it was way too hot. A new power supply later and everything's been fine since.

As BMW-sempai said, it took about ten minutes to take the old one out and put the new one in and connect everything.

Thanks for adding the to the discussion, I appreciate your insight. I really think I need to get a new power supply...given the specs on the card.
Your story seems to coroborate might inclination as well.

bmwracer wrote:
If you do decide to swap out power supplies, now would be a good time to vacuum and use compressed air on the computer's innards. :)

Thing is the computer is clean...I just had that power supply replaced because the only one died...and the guy who replaced it cleaned out the computer of the massive dust contamination while he was at it.

The thing is the new power supply was put in before I go the graphics card so there was no knowing that I'd need a min. 350W PSU...my old graphics card was a 128MB card so power supply wasn't an issue.

Tu_triky wrote:Good advice...but the old card was busted so I chucked...my only option would be to plug the monitor into the onboard graphics connector on the mobo....I guess I should try that.

Yup.

Should be a relatively painless exercise. :)

bmwracer wrote:
Yup.

Should be a relatively painless exercise. :)

Hope so, man! :fingerscrossed:

I fixed it!!!!

Your intuition was right, 'racer....it was not the power supply...I started the comp in safe mode and everything seemed to be okay without all the drivers and services running normally..so i tried to add them back a little at a time...and lo and behold for some f*cked up reason the nVidia control panel utiltiy that starts up automatically in the system tray was causing the computer to freeze/crash...how LAME is that?

thing was everytime I disabled it in msconfig it was still loading up notwithstanding my wishes....but finally i got spybot search and destroy, my anti-spyware software, to blacklist it from loading on start up....and now the machine doesn't crash anymore upon entering the windows environment after a cold boot or re-booting...

weird thing is this nvidia control panel has been loading up every since I downloaded the latest drivers after I installed the card.....i wonder why it would cause a problem now....maybe it got corrupted or some shiet....

i've re-learned an old lesson...LESS shiet on Startup is MORE.

Just wanted to say thanks again to bmwracer and madoka for chiming in on my tech issue. I appreciate the advice. :mrgreen:

Tu_triky wrote:i've re-learned an old lesson...LESS shiet on Startup is MORE.

Could you explain this one to me? I am confused since I always try to minimize startup processes and it leads to faster boot times, for me atleast.

bmwracer wrote:
Might not be worth repairing if it's over say, $100... :sweat:

Hmmm. I don't know about that... it's not new, but it's a Celeron 3.06G so it's not exactly ancient. Plus, I can't afford a new comp....

atskv9 wrote:
Could you explain this one to me? I am confused since I always try to minimize startup processes and it leads to faster boot times, for me atleast.

I was just saying that the fewer processes you have loading upon startup the fewer problems you tend to have with your computer. I used the msconfig system configuration utility to disable certain programs from loading up and sure enough one of them, the nvidia control panel, was the source of my problems.