Plee for help - Seriously p***ed off with 2k

[Steg]

Ive just formated & reinstalled to try and get rid of a long list of annoying problems, which is a fairly normal thing to do when using windows.
However, not ONE of them has gone away. So here is a little list of them. If anyone can offer any suggestions that would be greatly apprecated before i just chuck the damn thing out the window (how ironic :S).

• Problems
• Windows update - go to the windows update site - click 'yes' when it asks if i want to install the windows update control thing from microsoft - for then on in everytime i go to the windows update site IE hangs.
• UT2004 - install fine, run it first time, the splash screen comes up and then nothing happens - at alll
• Far Cry - wont install - the 'Preparing windows installer' screen comes up with the scroll bar - when thats finished its minimized and stays there - its been there about half and hour so far and dont nothing - works fine on other machines
• Ground Control 2 Demo - click the shortcut to start it and nothing happens - it appears in the processes list but does nothing - works fine on other machines
• Random reboots - no more detail needed - totally random
• Esceeding slowness - there are times when it is just slow....so slow

The odd thing here is that other windows installer packages work, and other unreal engined games work (Lineage, Thief 3). Steam and all the games it comes with also work fine. So i now have NO IDEA WHAT THE **** I SHOULD DO WITH IT.

Software detailing :
Windows 2k SP4 imbeded
IE6 SP1 installed
Mozilla Firefox latest build as off 09/06 installed
nvidia nforce 4.24 drivers
nvidia forceware beta 61.40 - i also tried the latest offical to see if they would make any difference - they didnt

Ran a memtest - in 13 passes only two errors showed up and those were on pass 3 - never showed before on since - this cant be the problem as two errors have ALWAYS showed up - in difference places each time - the ram is fine

Can someone please offer me some ideas? In the mean time im going to see if i can get half an hours lineageing in before it reboots.

Steg

 

[Nodsu]

The memory errors may also mean a flaky mobo/PSU/CPU and they definenlty can't be ruled out as the cause of your problems. A single bit gone to the dark side can wreak real havoc in your system.

You should try another RAM stick. Also, try turning down the memory speed settings in CMOS setup.

 

[Steg]

Memory timing could be the problem - but unless a problem has recently occured then it should be fine - everything has worked fine with this set up before.

I will lower the timing them now to see if it helps - im not sure if i can locate any more ram but i will try.

Any other suggestions are also welcome

Steg

 

[Nic]

Could be a flaky hard drive. Try doing a surface scan.

There isn't much else you can do, except observe and try out different things until you start seeing a pattern to the problem.

 

[Steg]

Hard drive - that is something i hadnt thought of

I will surface scan tonight and see what happens.

Steg

 

[StormBringer]

random reboots and game failures sounds to me like corrupt video drivers. I'd try removing and reinstalling the drivers, especially if you have updated them without removing the old ones.

 

[Rick]

There's going to be a lot of different opinions on this one...

But I might try a fresh installation of Windows 2000 on a second hard drive or seperate partition and see if these problems still exist.

Will help you rule out software as the cause.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Stop overclocking your graphics card (as per your profile). You may have an overheating problem there.
See if that solves (some of) your problems.

Also, did you install the mobo-drivers from its CD?

 

[Nodsu]

Overclocking? This is the first thing to blame for every problem! Remove all overclocks before going to "fix" anything else (or asking for help for that matter ).

 

[Steg]

Heh, i only installed windows yesterday.

Motherboard drivers are the 4.24 - lastest version from the nvidia website

I havnt actually thought of overclocking my graphics card since I reinstalled - it sure isnt that - i might reoverclock if i ever get the damn thing to work again - but until then it will remain at stock. (However it isnt an overheating problem @ 550mhz under full load it only just hits 50 degrees - unlike a friends 5600 the comes up to about 70)

Video drivers - I put 61.40 after the fresh install but the problem still persisted. Removed properly and tried the 56.72 which didnt help anything

I am now thinking that the HDD isnt the problem - chkdsk found nothing but that doesnt mean there is no problem. Nothing has worked correctly since I tried to repartition to install fedora and totally f****d the partition table up. Had to force it to use LBA mode in the bios just to get it see the windows partition after that - and that was after multiple repartions....

I will see if i can find another hdd to install windows on and see what happens - it cant do any more harm

Seeing as a 80gig SATA drive is only £40 I might just get me one of them - it might be easiest - ive needed some more space for a whille.

Steg

 

[sicarius]

Are you staying connected to the net through all of this formatting and reloading? I have worked on several machines that contracted a virus as soon as they were connected to a lan connection. The random reboots and the halting of the windows update process is what makes me think of it. I dont hook anything up at the shop to broadband until I have nortons on it and updated to the newest def files. Then when I know everything is clean do I do the updates etc.


S>

 

[Steg]

Yes, connected to the interweb 24/7. I did i full virus scan from another machine on the network and that showed nothing. I might get round to installing it on mine just in case - i dont install virus scanners normally as they are incredebly annoying and slow the system down like anything....they also eat ram aswell.
Thanks for the idea.

Windows update webbased locks up but the auto update thing appears to work fine.....stupid windows

Steg

 

[sicarius]

Random reboots - no more detail needed - totally random
Not mostly in a web browser. Your problem sounds so much like one I had that was a virus.

Your computer may reboot for no apparent reason, and without any prior warning.

This is the default behavior when Windows XP encounters a System failure. This behavior can be changed by going to the System applet in Control Panel, select the Advanced tab and click the Settings button under the Startup and Recovery heading. Under System failure, un-check Automatically restart.



To check why your system had a failure, check the Event logs for any error messages. You can find the Event Viewer in the Administrative Tools, or by typing eventvwr in the Open box from the Run command.

S>

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Maybe your graphics card got damaged from the previous OCing. Try and use another card if you have one.

 

[poertner_1274]

ALso a good practice is when you format to unplug from the net, and install a firewall and antivirus, then hook up to the net and go directly to windows update and get all the relevant updates. Then update your AV, and you should be all patched up and up to date with a lot fewer problems.

 

[Steg]

Problem solved.

The problems started when I repartitioned (using partiton magic) to install Linux and didn't let the process complete properly, for some reason. So, install HDD in a different machine and using Partition magic delete current partition and create new primary partition - and leave for a few hours to work. Return to my computer and install windows are there are NO problems - all the problems listed above appear to have gone.

So - these odd problems all stem from a badly partitioned hard drive. If you ever have a weird unexplainable problem that started after you destroy your partition table - repartition - you know it makes sense.

I can't believe I did not think of this earlier. The windows installer is obviously not a particularly good piece of partitioning software.

The only thing I can say is that the 61.40 drivers dont agree with either the GC2 demo or Far Cry - everything has very dense blue fog over it in Far Cry - with or without an overclocked card. The next WHQL set (and the next Far Cry patch) are due out soon though I believe which will solve these problems I hope.

Steg