Ok... so my comp has finally bumped into some show stopping problems, leaving me unable to do a few things like... watching video (some times) and playing WoW.
It's been having assortments of problems but nothing too severe over the last week or so, but last night, having it sit with the power on, but otherwise doing nothing (but downloading bittorrents), it was frozen when I woke up and got on. The only other times it would freeze was during WoW, and only occassionally.
Recently, I've upgraded my RAM, from 2*256 sticks to 2*512 sticks, a couple of cheap ones at that... worked well, in so far as they made all the framerate/loading problems in WoW go away, but maybe was the start of the computer starting to freeze a bit (only started a few days after I got the RAM).
My hard drive, WD JB 80gig... I've had for a couple years now; a month or so ago it started giving me trouble, not detecting during boot up, requiring a couple resets to get it running. But once it got into windows, it was running fine.
Similarly, my DVD-ROM, seems like it's on the fritz... returning errors installing some games, only to have those same games work fine with my CDRW.
Today, after the comp had its heart attack, or whatever (I can't seem to figure the source of the problem), I initially suspected it was the RAM causing the problem; swapping the RAM in and out, first one stick, then the other, then changing their locations on the mobo, and finally swapping in my old RAM (which worked fine, but were just small and slow). In all configurations, problems with loading windows persisted, requiring several attempts to get into desktop proper; the loading would be stuck at different points, including the initial Windows loading screen, the screen after that ('Starting up Windows') and the 'Welcome' message immediately after that.
The times I could succesfully get into desktop, I booted up WoW, only to have strange clicks and buzzing and stuttering from my sound occasionally... until it froze completely. Alot of the times it just froze right before getting into the actual game, during the loading screen, and twice it froze before loading up all the models at the AH.
In addition to this, tried to play AVIs of a DVD, which caused the comp the lock up and freeze in the same manner as WoW; attempted twice, locked up twice within 2 minutes of running. After that, copied the AVIs to my second hard drive, and ran it off there; which worked perfectly.
Something also makes a buzzing sound during startup... not the RAM, sounds like the hard drive.
----
So from reading that, does anyone have any idea which part of my comp is dead/dying? I'll need to replace that part I guess, and the sooner the better.
My guess is the primary (boot/windows/everything but media) hard drive is the faulty component.
It's been having assortments of problems but nothing too severe over the last week or so, but last night, having it sit with the power on, but otherwise doing nothing (but downloading bittorrents), it was frozen when I woke up and got on. The only other times it would freeze was during WoW, and only occassionally.
Recently, I've upgraded my RAM, from 2*256 sticks to 2*512 sticks, a couple of cheap ones at that... worked well, in so far as they made all the framerate/loading problems in WoW go away, but maybe was the start of the computer starting to freeze a bit (only started a few days after I got the RAM).
My hard drive, WD JB 80gig... I've had for a couple years now; a month or so ago it started giving me trouble, not detecting during boot up, requiring a couple resets to get it running. But once it got into windows, it was running fine.
Similarly, my DVD-ROM, seems like it's on the fritz... returning errors installing some games, only to have those same games work fine with my CDRW.
Today, after the comp had its heart attack, or whatever (I can't seem to figure the source of the problem), I initially suspected it was the RAM causing the problem; swapping the RAM in and out, first one stick, then the other, then changing their locations on the mobo, and finally swapping in my old RAM (which worked fine, but were just small and slow). In all configurations, problems with loading windows persisted, requiring several attempts to get into desktop proper; the loading would be stuck at different points, including the initial Windows loading screen, the screen after that ('Starting up Windows') and the 'Welcome' message immediately after that.
The times I could succesfully get into desktop, I booted up WoW, only to have strange clicks and buzzing and stuttering from my sound occasionally... until it froze completely. Alot of the times it just froze right before getting into the actual game, during the loading screen, and twice it froze before loading up all the models at the AH.
In addition to this, tried to play AVIs of a DVD, which caused the comp the lock up and freeze in the same manner as WoW; attempted twice, locked up twice within 2 minutes of running. After that, copied the AVIs to my second hard drive, and ran it off there; which worked perfectly.
Something also makes a buzzing sound during startup... not the RAM, sounds like the hard drive.
----
So from reading that, does anyone have any idea which part of my comp is dead/dying? I'll need to replace that part I guess, and the sooner the better.
My guess is the primary (boot/windows/everything but media) hard drive is the faulty component.
I can return it if its not the hard drive... but hopefully it is.