SickBoy
2004-07-26, 10:16 PM
After reading through quite a few of the posts on here, it seems like this would be a pretty good place to ask this....
First, the fan problem:
Recently I moved my computer to a new box (an Antec Lanboy to be exact). My main reason for moving was that it had the 350 watt fan I was looking for, plus an extra fan in the front that sucked air in (my old HP box only had the two in the back). They're the 120mm blue led ones that come with the box.
Everything moved over smoothly and I didn't run into too many issues (except for the hd issue that I'll address later). I've been playing PS and doing my usual stuff on the pc... until this morning. For some reason, the front fan has completely turned off, even though last night (and this last week or so) it has been doing fine. At first I figured it was a loose connection from the fan to the motherboard, but after double checking that I realized it wasn't.
Thinking it might be an outdated bios, I upgraded to the lastest version (American Megatrends Inc. 3.17). I rebooted, and still no success. Then I rebooted again and checked the bios screen, and where it normally shows the fan speed it had a big fat zero (duh).
I've tried everything from updating drives to remaking the box, but nothing seems to work. I checked all the wires and nothing is damaged and both ends are plugged in. The only thing that was iffy about when I first had the fan is that when I checked the speed in the bios, it showed it in red. I'm not sure if that is bad or not (the fan IS a low speed fan, afterall).
Any ideas on how I could fix this?
Now for the hd problem:
As I've said, I just moved my computer. When I moved it, I had two harddrives setup. an 80gb master (it had Windows XP and mostly misc apps on it), and my semi-new 80gb slave (which only contained games. NO operating system, NO normal applications.. just games).
The harddrive was actually installed by people at BestBuy since the harddrive was a gift (this was about 2 months ago). The drive has worked perfectly since then. It's a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, by the way.
When I moved boxes, the first thing I checked was the harddrives. Both were fine. The computer booted normally and nothing was wrong. Both drives were accessible and both were working as usual.
After that, I turned off the pc as usual and went to bed. When I woke up, the computer wouldn't boot. Or rather, it WOULD boot, but it took roughly 15 minutes to do so. When I'd finally get to my desktop, it would slow down incredibly and eventually freeze.
So naturally, I rebooted... which lead nowhere. Then I checked all my connections and whatnot. Which again, lead nowhere. Then I tried starting Windows in SafeMode. Nope, never loaded. All it does is go through the list of loaded things, and then freezes. I tried loading in SafeMode with Command Prompt. Again, not happenin. After that, I restarted again. Thinking it might be my slave drive, I unhooked it. Boom. The computer worked. (minus having a secondary drive). So I rehooked it back up, and restarted the computer.
This time it came up with a "G: drive needs to be checked for consistency" (the G drive is my slave drive). I figured that I might as well let it do its thing. But that too wasn't going to happen. The first of three steps in that process is verifying the files (if I remember correctly). As it went through the drive, TONS and TONS of parts came up as "unreadable". I'd list the numbers it gave, but that would take quite awhile.
After it gets done with that, it freezes (or at least takes forever to do the other steps). I sat at the computer waiting for it to keep going for about an hour, but it never changed. One of my attempts at this DID supposedly finish, but it was one of the tests I did overnight, so I wasn't there to see what the other steps said. All I know is that once that was done, the computer booted to the desktop and froze like before.
I tried downloading the Seagate DiscWizard program to attempt to reinstall the drive, but the program doesn't work (I get a random memory error when it starts).
I WAS just going to format the drive, but unfortunately I can't even get to a command prompt without it freezing (BY THE WAY, when I have the G drive connected, I CANNOT get into the bios screen. I can push F1 to my heart's content, but it doesn't do anything. When I boot with the G drive in, it stalls at the blue HP screen for a LOT longer than normal and then takes forever to actually load Windows.)
I checked Microsoft's site for updates that I might have missed, and downloaded/installed every single one of the optional ones. I also updated every drive I could on my computer. I checked the Seagate site and tried to reinstall the drive. But none of those things helped.
Perhaps the weirdest issue with both of these problems is that they occurred without me changing anything. They BOTH happened after I turned off the computer and went to bed. "Maybe it's the way you're shutting it down" or "Maybe it's because you're shutting down" you might say, but I've shut down the computer MANY times before this... that includes normal shutdowns, and the horrid random-computer-restart problem I have when playing PS for too long. (this is due, I think, to the fact my PC is overheating. I'm not sure what the average temp. of a computer that isn't overclocked is, but when I crash in PS and check the bios when rebooting, the cpu is about 69c.. which I THINK might be high. *shrug*)
If anyone has ANY advice on this I'd very much appreciate it. If I can't get it fixed, I'll probably just save up some extra cash and take it to someplace around here so THEY can mess with it.
Thanks in advance for any advice. :)
First, the fan problem:
Recently I moved my computer to a new box (an Antec Lanboy to be exact). My main reason for moving was that it had the 350 watt fan I was looking for, plus an extra fan in the front that sucked air in (my old HP box only had the two in the back). They're the 120mm blue led ones that come with the box.
Everything moved over smoothly and I didn't run into too many issues (except for the hd issue that I'll address later). I've been playing PS and doing my usual stuff on the pc... until this morning. For some reason, the front fan has completely turned off, even though last night (and this last week or so) it has been doing fine. At first I figured it was a loose connection from the fan to the motherboard, but after double checking that I realized it wasn't.
Thinking it might be an outdated bios, I upgraded to the lastest version (American Megatrends Inc. 3.17). I rebooted, and still no success. Then I rebooted again and checked the bios screen, and where it normally shows the fan speed it had a big fat zero (duh).
I've tried everything from updating drives to remaking the box, but nothing seems to work. I checked all the wires and nothing is damaged and both ends are plugged in. The only thing that was iffy about when I first had the fan is that when I checked the speed in the bios, it showed it in red. I'm not sure if that is bad or not (the fan IS a low speed fan, afterall).
Any ideas on how I could fix this?
Now for the hd problem:
As I've said, I just moved my computer. When I moved it, I had two harddrives setup. an 80gb master (it had Windows XP and mostly misc apps on it), and my semi-new 80gb slave (which only contained games. NO operating system, NO normal applications.. just games).
The harddrive was actually installed by people at BestBuy since the harddrive was a gift (this was about 2 months ago). The drive has worked perfectly since then. It's a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, by the way.
When I moved boxes, the first thing I checked was the harddrives. Both were fine. The computer booted normally and nothing was wrong. Both drives were accessible and both were working as usual.
After that, I turned off the pc as usual and went to bed. When I woke up, the computer wouldn't boot. Or rather, it WOULD boot, but it took roughly 15 minutes to do so. When I'd finally get to my desktop, it would slow down incredibly and eventually freeze.
So naturally, I rebooted... which lead nowhere. Then I checked all my connections and whatnot. Which again, lead nowhere. Then I tried starting Windows in SafeMode. Nope, never loaded. All it does is go through the list of loaded things, and then freezes. I tried loading in SafeMode with Command Prompt. Again, not happenin. After that, I restarted again. Thinking it might be my slave drive, I unhooked it. Boom. The computer worked. (minus having a secondary drive). So I rehooked it back up, and restarted the computer.
This time it came up with a "G: drive needs to be checked for consistency" (the G drive is my slave drive). I figured that I might as well let it do its thing. But that too wasn't going to happen. The first of three steps in that process is verifying the files (if I remember correctly). As it went through the drive, TONS and TONS of parts came up as "unreadable". I'd list the numbers it gave, but that would take quite awhile.
After it gets done with that, it freezes (or at least takes forever to do the other steps). I sat at the computer waiting for it to keep going for about an hour, but it never changed. One of my attempts at this DID supposedly finish, but it was one of the tests I did overnight, so I wasn't there to see what the other steps said. All I know is that once that was done, the computer booted to the desktop and froze like before.
I tried downloading the Seagate DiscWizard program to attempt to reinstall the drive, but the program doesn't work (I get a random memory error when it starts).
I WAS just going to format the drive, but unfortunately I can't even get to a command prompt without it freezing (BY THE WAY, when I have the G drive connected, I CANNOT get into the bios screen. I can push F1 to my heart's content, but it doesn't do anything. When I boot with the G drive in, it stalls at the blue HP screen for a LOT longer than normal and then takes forever to actually load Windows.)
I checked Microsoft's site for updates that I might have missed, and downloaded/installed every single one of the optional ones. I also updated every drive I could on my computer. I checked the Seagate site and tried to reinstall the drive. But none of those things helped.
Perhaps the weirdest issue with both of these problems is that they occurred without me changing anything. They BOTH happened after I turned off the computer and went to bed. "Maybe it's the way you're shutting it down" or "Maybe it's because you're shutting down" you might say, but I've shut down the computer MANY times before this... that includes normal shutdowns, and the horrid random-computer-restart problem I have when playing PS for too long. (this is due, I think, to the fact my PC is overheating. I'm not sure what the average temp. of a computer that isn't overclocked is, but when I crash in PS and check the bios when rebooting, the cpu is about 69c.. which I THINK might be high. *shrug*)
If anyone has ANY advice on this I'd very much appreciate it. If I can't get it fixed, I'll probably just save up some extra cash and take it to someplace around here so THEY can mess with it.
Thanks in advance for any advice. :)