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Unexplainable Computer Failures
Zyre
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
A wizard did it. Honestly, that's the only thing I can think of. The things that have been going on this week...
1. Noticed a $207.05 fraudlent charge on my debit card to some website I've never heard of. Have since reinforced security on my computer and am in process of getting it resolved with bank.
2. Computer video card has crashed multiple times last several days (it's about 1-2 months old, ATI Raedon 1950XT) Usually I'll load a game and right after loading up it'll run for a few seconds and then boom. I reboot the computer and I get a hardware failure message saying that the power cord to my video card is unplugged. (WTF?) So I wiggle the cord, reseat the card, and it works fine on next boot. Done this twice now. Then when I load up a game, I can HEAR my video card rendering. Loudly. It'll do this for awhile until everything gets buffered and put into memory and then my video card goes quiet and runs like normal, until the next failure.
3. Wireless keyboard stopped functioning. It was working all evening fine and dandy, nothing wrong, it's been running fine for the last 2 years. It's a wireless logitech. My roomate runs CB (Citizen's Band) radio with some pretty powerful amplifiers and such, when he uses his equipment, it kills all my wireless stuff when he keys up to talk. I regain control after he's done. Sometimes I can find a frequency on my receiver that doesn't get any interference from him, but most of the time I have to switch to wired stuff when he uses his stuff. Well a few nights ago, was using my PC, he was keying up and killing my signal, so I decided to switch keyboard frequencies, and ever since then my keyboard has been dead. Will not function at all. The mouse which shares the same receiver works perfectly, however the keyboard is gone. I have tried numerous fixes, unplugging and replugging cables, changing freqencies (the Connect button on the back of the keyboard still functions and still says my keyboard is connected) - Infact, the extrenuious keys on the board still work, all the stuff I never use, the media keys, messenger key, email key etc at the top of the keyboard all work, however all the main keys, function keys (f1 - f12) and below do not do anything. I cannot for the life of me figure out what happened. It was just working!!
4. Latest failure - Trillian remembers nothing. I came home from work today and booted up my PC to find out that all of my Trillian messenger info has been erased or forgotten rather. Trillian did not remember any of my account log ins for my services, so I manually re-put them in, and when I did that, it loaded up all my contacts with defaults. None of my custom changes are known to trillian. (I rename EVERYONE on my contact list so I know who they are and now everyone is their own usernames, I dont even know who half these people are anymore)
This is SO aggrivating and frustrating, like you wouldn't believe. I do not understand how the hell any of this crap is happening. WTF is going on. It's like every day my computer does something new to totally irritate the ever living shit out of me. Anyone have any ideas at all of what might be going on??
1. Noticed a $207.05 fraudlent charge on my debit card to some website I've never heard of. Have since reinforced security on my computer and am in process of getting it resolved with bank.
2. Computer video card has crashed multiple times last several days (it's about 1-2 months old, ATI Raedon 1950XT) Usually I'll load a game and right after loading up it'll run for a few seconds and then boom. I reboot the computer and I get a hardware failure message saying that the power cord to my video card is unplugged. (WTF?) So I wiggle the cord, reseat the card, and it works fine on next boot. Done this twice now. Then when I load up a game, I can HEAR my video card rendering. Loudly. It'll do this for awhile until everything gets buffered and put into memory and then my video card goes quiet and runs like normal, until the next failure.
3. Wireless keyboard stopped functioning. It was working all evening fine and dandy, nothing wrong, it's been running fine for the last 2 years. It's a wireless logitech. My roomate runs CB (Citizen's Band) radio with some pretty powerful amplifiers and such, when he uses his equipment, it kills all my wireless stuff when he keys up to talk. I regain control after he's done. Sometimes I can find a frequency on my receiver that doesn't get any interference from him, but most of the time I have to switch to wired stuff when he uses his stuff. Well a few nights ago, was using my PC, he was keying up and killing my signal, so I decided to switch keyboard frequencies, and ever since then my keyboard has been dead. Will not function at all. The mouse which shares the same receiver works perfectly, however the keyboard is gone. I have tried numerous fixes, unplugging and replugging cables, changing freqencies (the Connect button on the back of the keyboard still functions and still says my keyboard is connected) - Infact, the extrenuious keys on the board still work, all the stuff I never use, the media keys, messenger key, email key etc at the top of the keyboard all work, however all the main keys, function keys (f1 - f12) and below do not do anything. I cannot for the life of me figure out what happened. It was just working!!
4. Latest failure - Trillian remembers nothing. I came home from work today and booted up my PC to find out that all of my Trillian messenger info has been erased or forgotten rather. Trillian did not remember any of my account log ins for my services, so I manually re-put them in, and when I did that, it loaded up all my contacts with defaults. None of my custom changes are known to trillian. (I rename EVERYONE on my contact list so I know who they are and now everyone is their own usernames, I dont even know who half these people are anymore)
This is SO aggrivating and frustrating, like you wouldn't believe. I do not understand how the hell any of this crap is happening. WTF is going on. It's like every day my computer does something new to totally irritate the ever living shit out of me. Anyone have any ideas at all of what might be going on??
Zyre on
0
Posts
I like to blame weird shit on alpha particle radiation.
Your vid card is probably overheating or your PSU is dying/under strain. The rest of your problems aren't related to eachother, except maybe for Trillian forgetting contacts on a hard crash.
Are you sure that it's your video card? Like, the fan gets louder? Or is it your hard-drive making these noises?
With fails from something 1-2 months old, I would RMA it back to where-ever you bought it from to fix the issues.
High pitched, buzzy sound? Capacitors can make noise. It doesn't always mean they're bad, but you might wanna look for any bulging or leaking caps on the card. Might explain your crashes.
If it's only a couple months old, I'd RMA it either way.
It might be the HD I am hearing making noise. But I will look at the card tonight for damaged capacitors.
So it could be the PSU deciding to die as well.
Worth checking to see what wattage your PSU is (300/350/400+) - if it's several years old, it could be that the addition of a video card that needs to be powered also is just taxing it a bit more than it can take.
For the debit thing and the Trillian thing, I ask an obligatory question: how's the security on your computer set up?