Very Strange Computer Problem

GirlPants

A few days ago I made a thread about having corruption on many files on my hard drive. I figured that it was just going bad so I RMA'ed it back to the manufacturer. Well they send me a new HD and upon installing it, I am having the exact same problems.

Symptoms: corruption in files upon downloading and installing, corruption of files getting worse and affecting more and more programs as time goes by. The last HD eventually failed to even start.

The only thing I can think is maybe my memory is going bad. I will run Memtest to check that tonight. Other than that I'm clueless. If anyone can shoot some theories at me that would be great.


*See posts for updates.

harvest

Besides memory, the other things that can cause this are bad cables (happens, but pretty rare) and bad Northbridge chip. If you've got a spare motherboard nearby try that.

1ddqd

harvest wrote: »

Besides memory, the other things that can cause this are bad cables (happens, but pretty rare) and bad Northbridge chip. If you've got a spare motherboard nearby try that.

Well, tbh, I'd try a new cable first, MUCH simpler to test :P

GirlPants

Well now most programs are ceasing to work again. I switched the Sata cable on the HD but that did nothing. It's a home built PC so I'm wondering if I plugged something in wrong or something. I also don't know how to test the north bridge chip.

So things that can cause corruption are: Mother board, Memory, HD.

It's not the HD.

On existing programs I'm getting a "failed to initialize" message. I am so dumbfounded on this it is scary.

.kbf?

Maybe the copy of windows your installing is corrupted? If you can get your hands on another XP disk I'd suggest a clean install before ousting any hardware.(Especially a mobo change which is a major pain)

GirlPants

Well I tried downloading memtest86 but i cannot figure out how to use it. It says I need to burn the ISO file to a disk or CD ROM. I don't know which file is the ISO... Can anyone tell me how to use this program???

.kbf?

GirlPants wrote: »

Well I tried downloading memtest86 but i cannot figure out how to use it. It says I need to burn the ISO file to a disk or CD ROM. I don't know which file is the ISO... Can anyone tell me how to use this program???

easiest way to do it is drop it on a floppy. Go into bios and change boot priority so Floppy is first then pop it in the drive and start as normal.

voodoospork

.kbf? wrote: »

GirlPants wrote: »

Well I tried downloading memtest86 but i cannot figure out how to use it. It says I need to burn the ISO file to a disk or CD ROM. I don't know which file is the ISO... Can anyone tell me how to use this program???

easiest way to do it is drop it on a floppy. Go into bios and change boot priority so Floppy is first then pop it in the drive and start as normal.

Man, you know that computer doesn't have any legacy drives.

acidlacedpenguin

the iso file will either be "xxx.iso" or "xxx.bin"

if you've got something like nero, alcohol 120%, or daemon tools, you should be able to burn a cd "from disc image" proving the iso or bin to the wizard.

Then it should just be a matter of putting the CD in your drive and restarting your computer, then boot off the cd/dvd.

*you might have to go into your bios, change the boot order so that it tries to boot from cd/dvd before it tries the hdd.

GirlPants

I thought I should mention something else that is strange. Every now and then windows will crash to a blue screen. But it's not the standard blue screen of death. It's got a bunch of error codes and stuff on it. It only flashes for a second then restarts the PC so I have never been able to read what it says. But I believe if I could it would have some indication of the problem.

.kbf?

GirlPants wrote: »

I thought I should mention something else that is strange. Every now and then windows will crash to a blue screen. But it's not the standard blue screen of death. It's got a bunch of error codes and stuff on it. It only flashes for a second then restarts the PC so I have never been able to read what it says. But I believe if I could it would have some indication of the problem.

Last year I was having a very similar problem and it turned out the be the PSU.

Deicist

Is this PC overclocked?

Most likely culprits are Memory (as already said) or overheating.

Memtest is the best bet for checking your Memory.

To check your CPU temperatures you've probably got some utility software that came with your motherboard.

Edit: also, if you go into your BIOS there'll be an option there that says something like 'Restart on error'. If you turn that off, your blue screen will stay on screen so you can read what it says.

ProPatriaMori

Not the BIOS. Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery Settings -> Uncheck "automatically restart" under "System Failure" if you want to read the BSOD.

Alternatively, it should be putting what was there in the system log, which you can find under Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer.

GirlPants

I cannot get memtest to work. I've burned two cds using an ISO image writer. One had the memtest.bin file on it and the other had the rawrite.exe file on it. If anyone could tell me exactly what files need to be burned onto a disk for it to work that would be awesome.

If this doesn't work I suppose I'll be forced to purchase a floppy drive.

GirlPants

I'm going to bump this back up to the top instead of creating a new thread.

I finally got Memtest86 to work. And here is what happened:

I have 4 sticks of 512mb Crucial Ballistix ram.

2 of the sticks I bought at the same time I built the PC. The other two were added later. Upon testing each stick individually, the two originals came back with no errors. The other two would not test because upon starting the second or third test it would say "Unexpected Interrupt - Halting", and would give a bunch of codes and stuff. I am going to assume this is some kind of error with the memory. Well ok that narrowed it down to there being a problem with those sticks in some way. But no.... I reinserted one of the sticks that were purchased with the pc and it started to run memtest again. Well a few seconds in it tells me there are errors with it. Then every time I try to run it again it does that halting thing again. This is the most frustrating thing I've ever done. Could it be a problem with all the sticks? Or the memory slots themselves? Any ideas H/A?

eternalbl

Wait, so you're saying you run the same test on the same configuration and it fails sometimes and passes others?

If its passing and failing (or halting) with different sticks and the slot isn't consistent your mobo is probably f'ed.

If they only fail with a certain slot, your mobo is still kinda f'ed

If the 2 good sticks always pass, those other 2 pieces of ram are f'ed.

1ddqd

Here's how I would test:

1) Label all 4 sticks.
2) Test all 4 sticks in the same slot.
3) Test all 4 sticks in the next slot.
4) Test all 4 sticks in the next slot.
5) Test all 4 sticks in the next slot.

You really only need to run the quick test. OR - memory is REALLY cheap, you could just buy 2GB for $50 on special somewhere and be done with this. Is it worth your time when you can replace it all for cheap?

GirlPants

1ddqd wrote: »

Here's how I would test:

1) Label all 4 sticks.
2) Test all 4 sticks in the same slot.
3) Test all 4 sticks in the next slot.
4) Test all 4 sticks in the next slot.
5) Test all 4 sticks in the next slot.

You really only need to run the quick test. OR - memory is REALLY cheap, you could just buy 2GB for $50 on special somewhere and be done with this. Is it worth your time when you can replace it all for cheap?

I guess I'll do this...

I really hope it's not my MB... The funny thing is that I might actually be able to RMA just about everything in my PC. If I can I may just do that and call it a day.