the pc from hell

[lady cop]

ok, i have had a computer only one year. i am totally computer-illiterate. don't even think of telling me anything technical :dunce: .the pc was given to me by someone at work who was about to take it to the dump. it was corrupt when i got it. well the damn thing has become my obsession and connection to the entire world, i LOVE it. so, now it is so bad that it crashes every 10 minutes, i cannot download ANYTHING, :killpc: i cannot reinstall windows 98, i can't do a damn thing. i still have email and internet. i cannot even imagine the adware and spybots and viruses :pcvirus: i must have. i KNOW i need a new one, can't spend the cash :cash: just now. i figure as long as i have email i can hang in there. so should i just be grateful i've had it this long and go ahead and shoot it? :assault: :break: or take it to the computer doctor to be cleaned out? :hb:

[Socratoad]

Lady cop , chances are that technically there is nothing wrong with your puter , however its probably so loaded down with crap it needs formatting and starting afresh. However I'm of little help, but I know there are many here who actually know tons of good geek knowledge. ya gotta get back to full strength here.

[Socratoad]

Do you have a copy of win98 on cd?

[CARLA]

:computer:Lady Cop,

Wish I was closer I could bring the beast back to life. :whup:

If its that bad, you just buying time till you will have to purchase a new one.. Not knowing how the computer is configured I can't really know what the problems may be. If it was a given to you, but on the way to the DUMP.. You have your answer...IT'S NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD!! :grave:

You can take it to the COMPUTER DOCTOR, but make sure of the charges before doing so. He may charge you to much to tell you what you already know..!! If it's crashing that often, it could be many things..!! Just be aware of the sales pitch, or repair this, to do that crap they will throw at you.!! By the time you get the bill you could have purchased a new one..!! :eek:

Sweetie, there are great deal on computer now that will make your world worry free..!! DELL has some great basic user friendly computer for $400.00 up. They come with incredible free upgrades, printers, Intel P4's, RAM, and huge hard drives.. :D

My boss and I ended up being the Christmas elfs for everyone at work this year. :yup: We ordered computer, laptop, you name it for everyone's kids, husband, teenagers.. moms, dads. We should get a kick back from DELL.. I don't usually promote one brand, or the other. But DELL is a very dependable product, that comes user friendly, and runs forever.. !! We gave up building them at work, and now order DELL can't beat their prices..!! :cool:

Isn't there someone you know that has some skill with the PC, maybe when your sweetie gets here, he can take a look at it..!! :chin: It may just be simply out of gas, no space.. Window98 isn't bad, but it's not user friendly with lots of the new software, or site.. that chew up incredible amounts of space. You may just need to REFORMAT AND RELOAD WIN98, OR HIGHER IF YOU CAN GET IT.. IT'S JUST CHOCKED :doh:

DO YOU USE DSL, CABLE, OR GOD FORBID DIAL-UP..!! :D SORRY I HATE DIALUP, SPEED IS A NEED FOR ME IN THE COMPUTER WORLD.. !! :giggle:

If it were me I would buy a new one, even if I had to break out the old VISA OR MASTER CARD to get it.. :woohoo: :woohoo:

[lady cop]

Do you have a copy of win98 on cd?
yes...my son the "expert" tried to re-install it and it was downhill from there. also...all my addresses have vanished from my email, just *poof* gone. :poof!: :fuming:

[CARLA]

:whup: What did he just reinstall Win98, or did he reformat the hard drive then reinstall.. If he reformatted WHOOPS.. EVERYTHING WENT BYE BYE... If he just reinstalled Win98.. !! Should be there somewhere..!! :yup:

What do you use for ISP (internet service provider) AOL, EARTHLINK, MSN, ??? or through your cable company..?? :chin: :chin:

[lady cop]

Carla, thankyou for your good advice...i will email you if i can find the m-f-ing address...just kidding, i know it. now i told you i was pc-ignorant..is "hard drive" as good as it sounds? :bbed:...oh , i have DSL with bellsouth, my phone co.

[Socratoad]

Hmmm, shutting down every few minutes. Could actually be caused by overheating. Is your fan/fans working?

Being second hand does not necessarily mean its junk. I've never owned a new puter. My old Pentium runs much better than my neighbours damn near brand new one with all the bells and whistles and enough fucking gigabytes to download the entire Internet and still have room for a decent sized herd of elk.

[Socratoad]

:whup: What did he just reinstall Win98, or did he reformat the hard drive then reinstall.. If he reformatted WHOOPS.. EVERYTHING WENT BYE BYE... If he just reinstalled Win98.. !! Should be there somewhere..!! :yup:

What do you use for ISP (internet service provider) AOL, EARTHLINK, MSN, ??? or through your cable company..?? :chin: :chin:


I agree Carla, all the programs are probably still there if he didn't reformat the hard drive.

Actually I'm sure either or both of us could have the damn thing running smoothly in under one hour thirty minutes if either were closer.

Damn polar bears won't let out of the yard.

Oh by the way, Hello Carla, I see that you are already a great asset around here. Love the jokes.

[CARLA]

Socratoad,

Love it, so true it could be something as simple as the fan.. :yup:

LADY COP, can you hear the fan running.. ??? it should be towards the back of the PC ... if its not moving, or clogged that could be the problem..!! :yup:

Hmmm, shutting down every few minutes. Could actually be caused by overheating. Is your fan/fans working?

Being second hand does not necessarily mean its junk. I've never owned a new puter. My old Pentium runs much better than my neighbours damn near brand new one with all the bells and whistles and enough fucking gigabytes to download the entire Internet and still have room for a decent sized herd of elk.

[lady cop]

FAN? i can't hear squat...all those years of deep SCUBA diving, then years on the firing range, i am as deaf as helen keller. i will check however. Toad...trying out the herd of elk...will the polar bears eat them? :elk: :elk: :elk: :elk: :elk: :elk: hey i can't walk out without tripping over a 'gator. :Croc:

[Socratoad]

FAN? i can't hear squat...all those years of deep SCUBA diving, then years on the firing range, i am as deaf as helen keller. i will check however. Toad...trying out the herd of elk...will the polar bears eat them? :elk: :elk: :elk: :elk: :elk: :elk: hey i can't walk out without tripping over a 'gator. :Croc:

:yahoo: :woohoo: :roflmao: :roflmao: :biglaugh: :mocking: :lol:

[Socratoad]

OK, there should be a round semi-screened aperture about the size of a lemon (no pun intended) at the back of your puter. Hod your hand quite near. There should be a slight air flow coming from there. Don't look for monsoon winds, just a slight flow.

[Dingfod]

It could be worse, you could do what I did. I asked the supposed experts at ISC Computers to set up my wireless network, then when they ran into a problem, without asking, they reformated my hard drive and reinstalled Windows 98SE, which is what they found a license for on my hard drive, claiming that my copy of XP was pirated, which was a lie because I purchased the damn thing and had the CD at home. They destroyed everything I had on the computer, from spreadsheets to programs, pictures, games, Norton that I downloaded, and my downloaded TaxCut software for the past 3 years. Thank goodness for backups and the original program CDs. Scum-sucking dirtbags, they are. Watch out for the idiots from that outfit called ISC, sometimes located in the front of Super Walmarts, they are the evil scumsucking dirtbags who won't own up to their mistakes. Fortunately we "negotiated" a very very low price for what they actually did do. Unfortunately, we have since had Cox Communications come in and redo everything, installing their own equipment and software because of compatibility problems.

ladycop, if I had an extra computer lying around, I'd send it to you ready to roll. I've done that for my parents twice and my sister out in Oregon once.

And... the deals at Dell are pretty good. Or... you might wait a bit for the $500 iMac to hit the market.

Oh, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Ignore the man behind the curtain.

[Socratoad]

OH ya, many of those repair shop techies should be forced to wear black masks so that the public can readily identify them.

I once read a book about repair people con artists. The story that stuck in my mind was about building repair guys. This one guy bragged about how he always operated in upper middle class neighbourhood. He bragged about how him self and a buddy would drive up in their truck and offer to check out roofs for free, yet, if you can believe it. He claimed that many people had been injured by bricks falling off of chimneys, law suits, the whole ball of wax.

Up a ladder he would scramble. work loose a couple of bricks in mere seconds, even if the chimney was in perfect condition, and then slowly and oh so gravely come down the ladder with all the drama befitting a Shakespearian actor., telling the poor smuck (homeowner) just how lucky he was that he (the crook) happened to be in the neighbourhood.

After a quick very shoddy job had been performed , much money was extracted from the mooch (victim).

He especially loved preying on the well educated as they never ever asked questions. So he said.

Oh hell, this ain't getting the puter working

[Socratoad]

Back to ill puters: if ya just don't have the ability to be a good geek, its helpful to have a geek in the family. Failing that covet, befriend and reward your neighbourhood geek. I am very fortunate to have a very talented geek living next door. Over the last few years I've picked his brain enough to be able to repair most computer glitches. I really am quite incapable of understanding the magical intricacies of puters, but have learned intuitively just what may be the problem.
Never panic. Not an easy thing when one is as addicted as I am. Always start by assuming its probably a small thing that is probably the cause. That is why I mentioned the fan. I have seen two cases where many elaborate repairs were undertaken, and still the puter did not work ......overheating.

I know, I know I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. But I'm trying. Some say very very trying.

[Dingfod]

There are reputable firms. Since loudly complaining about the shitty service from ISC, I've heard great things about Geek Rescue (http://www.geekrescue.com/main.html) here in Tulsa. Maybe there is something like that near you.

[Farren]

Ladycop, if it's software related there's a bunch of software that might help sort it out without a re-install. Forgive the minimal instructions but I'm stuffed having had two hours sleep before my first day back at work. If they're inadequate just say and I'll elaborate more tomorrow:

Download, install and run the programs at the following links-
Ad-aware SE Build 1.05 (http://www.tucows.com/preview/236049.html)

Follow the link above, then click the "Win 98" link under the heading "Download" on the right of the page, then select a state in the US, then click the "GO" link next to the state dropdown. Download the installer and run it. Once the program is installed, you can run it by clicking Start->Programs->Lavasoft Ad-aware 6->Ad-aware 6

Adaware is bloody good for removing internet adware and spyware that gets on to your computer via insecure ports, spam mail and vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. Its got a simple Next->Next->Next interface but the only irritant is that on the step where it shows you all the nasty after a scan, you have to explicitly specify what you want it to delete, which is generally everything it lists, so at this point right-click with your mouse so the context menu comes up and click "Select all".

Speaking of IE...

Mozilla Browser (http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/)

Microsoft Internet Explorer is like a big, fat hole in your mosquito net, even if you're secured to the gills. MSIE should be called Microsoft Internet Security Disaster. The shit you get from malicious websites with IE is just amazing.

Mozilla is a far better browser from a point of view of not getting every transmissable disease on the Internet. I would recommend the cutting edge Firefox, also from the same crowd, but IMHO its not entirely stable yet and I wouldn't want to compound any instability your PC has.

In other words download this then stop using IE to browse the World Wide Web.

ZoneAlarm personal firewall (http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp)

The free version of ZoneAlarm is an excellent and simple firewall. What it does is monitors all your internet communication and which programs are initiating that communication. If you only use your browser and email program on the internet, for instance, generally speaking you only want those two programs to be allowed to talk to the internet. Conversely, strange programs trying to talk to your computer without being invited will be blocked from putting stuff on your computer (a web server is invited to send stuf by your browser, which is how you get web pages).

This requires a little understanding. When you use an Internet program for the first time after installing Zonealarm, it will always say "Whoa, you haven't told me if this program can use the Internet. Can it? And do you want to always allow it to?"

So when you first browse the web, its gonna check if your web browser can use the internet. If its Internet Explorer, I think the actual program name it gives is "IEXPLORE.EXE". At which point you tick the box to say "Always allow this program" (so it won't bother you again when browsing the web), then click "Yes" (or whatever the button is to answer in the affirmative).

Similarly, when you first use email, you've gotta say you mail program can use the web. If its, say Outlook Express, it will ask you if "MSIN.EXE" can access the Internet and you've gotta say "yes"

On my Windows 2000 box you've got to also allow "Services.exe" and "Rundll32.exe" to access the Internet or a lot of other Internet programs won't work.

The beauty of this is that, one you've told it to allow the three or four programs you do use to access the Internet, it will just silently guard the gates in the background henceforth. If, by some means, you get spyware on your computer, Adaware will suddenly pop up and say "Do you wish to allow MaliciousProgramName.EXE to access the Internet?". Now since you know you haven't installed anything recently, you straightaway know somethings snuck onto your PC and is attempting to do evil deeds.

So you just note down the program name, search for it on Google.com and find out how to kill it. In other words you catch most shitty stuff as it sneaks in and have the necessary information to get rid of it.

Clean Disk 2003 (http://www.tucows.com/preview/228463.html)

This program offers a simple interface which helps you clean up rarely used and unused files on your hard drive, increasing your storage space and often, on older machines, your system's response times if its getting reeeeally slow.

SISoftware Sandra 2005 Lite (http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=dload&location=sware_dl_3264&langx=en&a=)

This is really a geek tool not for innocents, but bear with me. When you install it and click on it it shows you a huge array of icons representing every aspect of your computer, like CPU, Video system, hard drives and so on. Double clicking any one of these in turn produces a mass of information about that particular subsystem of your computer. Its use to computer innocents is twofold:

1. When you click on a particular subsystem Sandra will sometimes offer tips on potential problems it sees and their solution, usually labelled "Tip"

2. It provides a pretty comprehensive one stop shop for getting information that you can give to us geeks so that we can help you better.

I hope all of this helps.

[Petra]

Farren rulezz! :bow:


Also, download and install Avast! ( www.avast.com ). It's a free anti-virus software package that beats Norton at doing what it's supposed to do.

When you've got that installed, set it to do a bootscan. As it finds things, you just telll it to delete them. As this is at the boot stage, it picks up on things as they load during the boot process, making it more thorough than a system scan after the pc has booted.

BTW, what are the specs of the pc? What is the processor chip, how much RAM do you have, the size and type of your hard disk/s, etc?

And have you already done a system scan to look for any damaged sectors on your hard drive/s? What were the results?

[Socratoad]

I also highly recommend Everest home addition as well. This remarkable little piece of software gives you just about every tiny scap of information about your puter. Belarc home adviser is also great for providing information, not so much as everest though. I use both, as everest often tells me more than I wish to know. Its a good idea to print copies of the information provided a keep it in a safe place, cuz its not much use to anyone when their puter becomes unconscious and all that great information is unavailable.

I concur very much with the excellent advice given by Farren and Luna. However methinks that all of this good advice, as well as my humble offerings are of little use until you are able to resurrect your puter into at least limping mode, but for dog's sake soon as ya get things running please download and install all the protections offered. You will wonder how the hell your puter managed to limp along without them.

Never ever leave a online computer alone for even a few minutes without the basic protections which includes a firewall and an anti-virus program I have zone alarm and avaste on my puter, plus spybot, adaware, and spywareblaster.

Of course there are those smug people who run Linux. I have Mandrake 10 but in my not so humble opinion the damn thing is just so incomplete and too clunky, plus I'm not intelligent enough to fine tune it.

[wade-w]

Of course there are those smug people who run Linux. I have Mandrake 10 but in my not so humble opinion the damn thing is just so incomplete and too clunky [...]

What's incomplete about it? Linux is far more stable than any version of Windows, and the networking utilities are much more mature. After all, UNIX has been the OS of choice for internet servers since before Micro$haft was even founded.

Keep in mind that Linux is a UNIX clone. UNIX was designed at Bell Labs by a couple of computer wizards for their own use. As such, it is not and was never intended to be "easy to use." It is intended to be extremely powerful and flexible once you do learn it.

As for "clunky," I suspect it's more that it doesn't work the same way as Windows. The philosophy behind UNIX is quite different, so someone who is unfamiliar with it and used to the way things work in Windows may feel uncomfortable with the interface at first. In my professional opinion, it's windows that is "clunky" and incomplete.

[Socratoad]

Of course there are those smug people who run Linux. I have Mandrake 10 but in my not so humble opinion the damn thing is just so incomplete and too clunky [...]

What's incomplete about it? Linux is far more stable than any version of Windows, and the networking utilities are much more mature. After all, UNIX has been the OS of choice for internet servers since before Micro$haft was even founded.

Keep in mind that Linux is a UNIX clone. UNIX was designed at Bell Labs by a couple of computer wizards for their own use. As such, it is not and was never intended to be "easy to use." It is intended to be extremely powerful and flexible once you do learn it.

As for "clunky," I suspect it's more that it doesn't work the same way as Windows. The philosophy behind UNIX is quite different, so someone who is unfamiliar with it and used to the way things work in Windows may feel uncomfortable with the interface at first. In my professional opinion, it's windows that is "clunky" and incomplete.

Oh dammit wade I knew someone would call me on my incomplete/ inaccurate description of Linux. As I mentioned I really no very little regarding the various systems. I, of course know about UNIX, etc

By using the term "clunky" I mean in my perception of things. For instance on windows I cannot give up using Maxthon, thr front end for IE explorer. Even though I know that firefox is safer, it still seems clunky to me in comparison.

Certainly I should mave made clear that my observations were subjective, but in my defense I'm a one-fingered typist with a slight arthritic condition in my fingers and so often my thoughts/postings must of nesessity be incomplete.

Plus I'm certainly old enough to know that there are none so loyal as Linux fans. If truth be told I really have been quite incapable of understand any system since dos. I knew that system inside out and loved it, but life moves on. I was even a pretty damed fair programmer in ancient basic or whatever its called.
I can't even access my Mandrake Linux because some windows program overwrote the piece that allows for double booting.

In short: I use windows because it works for me, not because I think its a great system.

What Linux are you using?

[wade-w]

Well, as far as that goes, I don't know how loyal I am to Linux specifically. I'm certainly not a fanatic about it. I'm typing this post on a system running Win98 as a matter of fact, since my other computer has hardware problems that I have not gotten around to fixing (I have to put in a new motherboard). I also do not recommend Linux to new users.

My preferred Linux distribution is Slackware.

[Socratoad]

Sorry about my presumptions regarding your devoltion, and /or fanaticism regarding Linux. One or at least me tends to transfer (not the correct term) my experiences with my neighbours plus a few other Linux users I know to all. Ya probably know the type I know, those that hate Bill gates so fucking much that they use his photo for dart practice.

I really would like to use Linux just because I'm a rebel (well I do my best) and I really have not a hell of a lot of respect for monopolies or those enen semi so.
Slackware ..... hmm. I must look into that. I have thought of downloading Knoppix or some such small system and working with it until I become more familiar and comfortable with Linux. I've read so damn many conflicting reviews about Knoppix that it made my head spin. My idea is to try to install a tiny basic Linux system, either on my hard disk or perhaps one That will run from a CD.
I hope you don't mind me picking your brain. Have you had any experience with Knoppix regarding learning curve, etc? Or is Slack ware just such a small system.. Mandrake is huge, relatively speaking.

[Ray]

In addition to Farren's list, you'll want to pick up StartupMonitor (http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml). It will tell you whenever a program tries to register itself to start automatically when you boot the system, so you can block it if you don't want it doing so. 95% of the time, you won't want it starting automatically; even if it isn't malicious, it will take up system resources when it's running. This program combined with ZoneAlarm should keep you pretty safe from new viruses and spyware, as long as the programs you do allow to access the internet are reasonably secure.

On that note, if you're using Outlook Express, get rid of it. Its security is bad enough to make Internet Explorer's look good. There are plenty of other email clients. I use the one integrated into the Opera (http://www.opera.com) web browser, and Mozilla has one, too. It doesn't really matter which one you choose, as long as it doesn't allow scripts to execute in messages.

[wade-w]

Sorry about my presumptions regarding your devoltion, and /or fanaticism regarding Linux. One or at least me tends to transfer (not the correct term) my experiences with my neighbours plus a few other Linux users I know to all. Ya probably know the type I know, those that hate Bill gates so fucking much that they use his photo for dart practice.


Yes, I know the type. I make a concerted effort to avoid fanaticism in all things. In the computer world such divisions are common; PC vs Mac, Linux vs Windows, etc. Even within the UNIX world, there is a long standing feud over which is the One True Text Editor, vi or emacs.Several years ago, I was on the conference committee for a Network Administration conference held in San Jose, California. Towards the end of the conference, the sponsors held a luncheon for the committee members. At this lunch, the inevitable vi vs emacs debate started. I shocked everyone there by taking the stance that it depends on what you're doing.


I really would like to use Linux just because I'm a rebel (well I do my best) and I really have not a hell of a lot of respect for monopolies or those enen semi so.
Slackware ..... hmm. I must look into that. I have thought of downloading Knoppix or some such small system and working with it until I become more familiar and comfortable with Linux. I've read so damn many conflicting reviews about Knoppix that it made my head spin. My idea is to try to install a tiny basic Linux system, either on my hard disk or perhaps one That will run from a CD.

I hope you don't mind me picking your brain. Have you had any experience with Knoppix regarding learning curve, etc? Or is Slack ware just such a small system.. Mandrake is huge, relatively speaking.

Keep in mind that any given Linux distribution is not just the operating system. It's the OS, and a large amount of software. You're getting several office suites, and multiple relational databases, and 3 or 4 or more web browsers and e-mail clients, and compilers or interpreters and other tools for every common and a few not so common programming languages and much more. In other words, if it was all commercial, you're getting several thousand dollars worth of software.

I don't mind at all giving you any advice you might want, but may I suggest we take it to PM or e-mail? Or maybe a new thread; we've derailed this one enough, I think. All my fault, of course.

[Socratoad]

Actually its probably my fault.. Especially since my illness. I have a helluva time keeping on topic.

Concerning this particular thread though I don't think straying is too crucial, albeit bad form. Lady cop's true love is arriving from jolly old England either tonight or tomorrow and so she told me via email that she would more than likely be missing from the board for a few days.

Could point about starting a new thread though wade. If its all the same to you, lets wait for a little while as in retrospect I'm really not well enough at present to participate in a meaningful way, let alone absorb very much. That said you couls start one anyway and I can just tag along. I'm sure others besides just me would love such a thread.

And why do I post so much if I'm not well? Simply because I'm scared that my diminishing mental acuity will fail me altogether if I don't keep trying.

Use it or lose it. :yup:

[CARLA]

Socratoad,

Yes, LADY COP is looking forward to her sweetie's arrival tomorrow..!! :affection: :serenade: :snogging: She also sent an email, and said that she took the BEAST to the PC doctor..!! :whup: Probably won't hear from her till around the 12th..!! :bgirl: :bgirl:

Concerning this particular thread though I don't think straying is too crucial, albeit bad form. Lady cop's true love is arriving from jolly old England either tonight or tomorrow and so she told me via email that she would more than likely be missing from the board for a few days. :D

[Socratoad]

Thanks Carla, I bet a whole battalion of plastic surgeons would be incapable of wiping the grins off their faces. :D :D

[livius drusus]

Thanks for the update, Carla. I actually emailed lady cop a couple of days ago just to be sure all was well, so it's good to know she's taken the beast in for a tune up. And I don't mean the Brit, either. :giggle: