Advice appreciated:

Well, I think my computer is going through its death throes. Lately it has randomly turned itself off, usually accompanied by an internal click sound. Often, Windows won't even load up. Last night it took me about 15 tries before it finally turned on. I researched this problem, and it said something about I might have a bad driver. I recently tried to load FF7, which loaded a shitty Yamaha sound driver. Ever since that day is when this problem has occurred. But I removed the Yamaha driver, and it still messes up. Then I noticed my C drive was 100% full. I shuffled some files and freed up about a third of my C drive, and it still messes up. There is no virus problem. My computer is real old (2001--older than some of the people that post on these forums), and it's been through some rough times, it's been through a blizzard, gone to Canada, for about a year I moved it daily across town in the back of my car, it lived through my ffxi phase, and it's died and been brought back to life by a friend's dad, and I raped it once. It's just time for it to die I guess.

So, you guys think it's salvageable?
Also, if I were to buy a computer, I have no idea what to look for. What are some important features to get? My #1 priority is school, but I would like to leave open the possibility of it handling computer games as well. Is it smart to buy a computer at a major retail chain or through small dealers or online?

_________________
RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

I don't know if it's salvageable but if you are to buy a new one I would say go to store and look at the setups they have for business/home use/gaming etc and note down the components and the price.

Then go to newegg.com or whatever and look up the price of buying the stuff individually, will probably be $100+ less. Then this is where you have a computer savvy friend check over what you plan to do to make sure it will all work together, order the bits and entice said friend to assemble it for you, or try it yourself.

_________________

my friend's dad is an expert computer assembler

_________________
RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

mine was doing that a while ago. have you tried switching out each piece to see if thats the problem?

turns out my power supply was bad.

The clicking sound is probably your harddrive. Mine was faulty from the start (Newegg, but they're always really good about replacing shitters, this was just us being lazy lol) and it occasionally goes into clicking fits and locks up for a few seconds.

If its shutting itself down. On its own, it could be the power supply. In instances like that the power box his having trouble supplying full power to the computer. Also check and see the computers temperature. I'm serious lol. I get serious performance hits when my room reaches a certain temp. It could be overheating..

Its also rather old.. So Replacing it is a good choice. I would say replace the whole thing man. I don't think its worth keeping around.

_________________
Job 10: 20
The mikey's have a plan. Djay isn't all powerful.

you guys and some irl friends have suggested it's either the internal power supply or the fan/overheating. gonna check both before i make a decision. thx!

_________________
RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Open up your computer too. And use one of those aerosol cans. Of course disconnect your pc. Once you do that just get rid of all the dust. I mean all of it. Changing the fans also could help.

_________________
Job 10: 20
The mikey's have a plan. Djay isn't all powerful.

ugh.. How old is the HD btw? The harddrive?

_________________
Job 10: 20
The mikey's have a plan. Djay isn't all powerful.

five

_________________
RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

harddrives generally last for 3 -4 years lol. The start having malfunctions. It could also be the HD is on its last leg. Of course it could be different if you didn't really abuse the drive much.

_________________
Job 10: 20
The mikey's have a plan. Djay isn't all powerful.

Its really depressing HDDs don't last longer than that, but its a sad fact. I think I'm going to get a big ass external drive one day and just back alot of my stuff up.

Oh yeah, and technically your supposed to dust out your computer like once a month, especially if you live with pets, lol

_________________
Retired 8/21/06
Don't click this link.

once a month?! lol i didnt do that once in 3 years...

_________________