Crazy Gaming Computer

[MiniMe001]

Alright, something is really wrong with my computer. Let me start at the beginning of the problems and work forward.

First, some things wouldn't install right. Funny, because they install fine on another of my computers. So, after a few things goofed, I knew something was wrong.

After playing around with it a lot, I figured out what I thought was either the problem or a symptom of it--compression refused to work. I could take the same zip/rar file to three different computers and it would work fine. But on my gaming computer, it might come up with errors. If it did, it would have the same errors each time. Odd.

So, I formatted the whole thing and started over. Same thing happened again. Changed some things, new BIOS, etc and started over again. Again, same thing. Btw, I tried WinXP Home and Pro.

I ran all sorts of tests. I ran a few programs to test memory and harddrives, I got a program that monitors the power supply, temperatures, and fans. Nothing turned up except for a small glitch in the power supply. What kept happening was that every once in a while (once every few days) it would drop down the tiniest bit and instantly go back up (the log had the drop and gain at the same time, to the second). Don't know if this could do it or not.

Every once in a while, whenever a program would goof and lock up the computer, when I restarted the screen would go glitchy. Tons of colors going in weird directions. Not necessarily random directions, but not exactly in any kind of order. Hard to explain it beyond that. But the colors were only on top of the screens there (the Intel screen that comes up first and then then Windows loading screen). Once windows started, though, it went away. Every once in a while, though, the (generally) same colors would come up right after a game or something crashed.

Recently, I was going to install Fedora Core 2. First, I got Partition Magic to get me a FAT32 partition for file-shareing between Windows and Linux. When I copied the zip file from my cd, though, and tried to extract it--yeah, I got the errors. But, I figured hey: I'll try it from the DVD drive just because. Guess what--it worked! HAH, I thought! I'd figured it out! ...nope...

Anyway, I went ahead and tried to make the FAT32 partition. Weird thing was, it refused to resize the existing NTFS partition there. Tried twice. When I went back into the program, though, I noticed an odd occurance--there was a tiny 8-9mb unallocated space at the end of the harddrive. If the second harddrive wasn't all the way full, I wouldn't have thought anything about it. Kinda weird...
Btw, when I started up this last time--funky colors again...

Well, since Fedora was going on the second harddrive anyway, I proceeded with the installation (now installing just to see if it would even work right on the damned computer). Well, it wouldn't boot from my DVD drive (gaah), so I put it in the CD one (I was just trying anything at this point--pissed beyond belief at the damned thing). Well, when it scanned the cds for errors--I figured it'd give me hell--it came out clean--Clean! Geez. Well, that takes out the CD drive, I figured.

When anaconda (the installer for Fedora) started up, first thing it said was that it couldn't align the partition up right on the first hdd. Said that the last program that formatted it probably goofed. No suprise there.

So, I formatted the second hdd, set my options to install, and hit OK. Three to five seconds into the installation, the screen went psycho. Blue lines everywhere ontop of black. After a few seconds of that, it went to a similar grey static thing. Sonofabitch... Power button didn't work. Hit the power strip button and haven't touched the computer since (this was tonight I tried this, btw).

So.. after that run, any ideas? -_-'

 

[DaRNCaT]

try using a "run from disk" live linux distro, and see if you can get your machine to run from this.
Some of the linux distros around are very good at troubleshooting machine hardware problems, and might give you a better idea whats going on.
The 8-9 mbs unallocated is probably just to do with your cluster size if you are using FAT32 or NTFS, and is common with all machine- nothing to worry about.



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Sometimes, when my code just won't behave, I take it outside and make it listen to britney spears music, and when it comes back it's really well behaved. I wonder if it's suffering from post tramatic stress syndrome now..

 

[MiniMe001]

hmm.. well, I wouldn't think anything about the extra space except for the other two errors that hdd gave me. I have Slax and Knoppix on disc. I'll try Knoppix later. Do you know what I could run to check everything? Kinda new to all linux's features.

 

[MiniMe001]

ok, so much for that. Knoppix didn't load at all. It started to, but quit on me--black screen.

I tried Slax and got it to working. Unfortunetly, I couldn't find and hardware-checking programs. ^^; But when I hit logout, everything crashed again and I got a weird staticy screen. o.o

 

[DaRNCaT]

I can't think of them off the top of my head sorry.
Some come with memtest86 - to test your ram, and just generaly run things, this should give you a better idea of what's wrong with the machine, if it works fine under linux, then it's most likely a driver under windows, or hard drive problem.
(memtest86 runs off a floppy as well I think)
si soft sandra- windows based, if you can get it running under windows, is a good diagnostic tool.

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Sometimes, when my code just won't behave, I take it outside and make it listen to britney spears music, and when it comes back it's really well behaved. I wonder if it's suffering from post tramatic stress syndrome now..

 

[MiniMe001]

I've tried si soft sandra. I'm pretty sure I didn't get any errors with it.

"if it works fine under linux..." nope, it doesn't. I already knew it wasn't a driver, though, as I've tried all sorts of them. :/

"or hard drive problem" When I tried to install Fedora, I never even touched the first hard drive (which was giving me the errors). I seriously doubt both are bad. :/ BUT, weirder things have happened.

"memtest86 - to test your ram" I had another program (don't remember the name of it) that I tested my ram with. It didn't give me any errors. I'll look it up, though.


The only thing I can think of is the graphics card. Think about it--I've tried things on both hard drives and got the same crap. I even got it when trying to run Knoppix and Slax. I've run ram tests, power supply tests, temperature & fan tests, scanned my hard drives (Seagate has a program to test your hard drives with. I used that and didn't get any errors.). I've tried different BIOS, OSs, drivers, etc etc. That doesn't leave much. :/

 

[DaRNCaT]

do you have an alternative graphics card you can try?

If not, get your maotherboard number and the graphics card, and do a google to see if they are compatable, or if there is any reason you beyond a busted card/ MB that would be causing it.

If you don't find documentation on it, I'd say try replacing the graphics card.

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Sometimes, when my code just won't behave, I take it outside and make it listen to britney spears music, and when it comes back it's really well behaved. I wonder if it's suffering from post tramatic stress syndrome now..