your pc horror probs this year?!

magick

well wanted to see what mage probs people had this year, as for me........
its been exploding PSU's im not joking ive gone though 3 in the last 6 months!
Now ur probably thinking im buying crap and you would be right !

currently temps have been rising here (my location) so the psu has been under a lot of stress so finally bought a new psu 2 weeks ago (knock on wood) so far no probs.

on another note i have an older pc my parents use, and every time i open it i manage to cut myself, the inside resembles a slaughter house, i shudder anytime i need to open the case!

godskitchen

I have had nothing quite so explosive.

I had Vista go tits up on me last week, it would boot as far as the Windows logo and then BSOD on me. I could not even get in via any safe mode. I tried to resolve the problem over 2 days but then it gave me an excuse to install Vista 64bit. So thats what I ended up doing!

Nothing hardware related yet this year...........fingers crossed!

Goduznt Xzst

maybe you've got voltage spikes on your line. Have you got it plugged into a surge protector?

Had no problems thus far, but then I haven't really opened my PC much. Only major bummer was I had 2x320GB drives die on me for no reason. I had both of them in a RAID0 before and took them out of retirement for some extra storage, only for both of them to promptly die when I powered them up

TerrorFirmer

Nothing epic for me. An oldish Sata drive died, and as I was ready to bin it I remembered it had a 3 year warranty....got a brand new replacement from Komplett. 650i board also went wonky, but seeing as I bought that from Pixmania there was no hope of a replacement. Other then that it's been a good year...

My only horror 'problem' would be a continuous failure to upgrade....I had dual 8800GS XXX cards, sold them and got a 320mb GTS Superclocked as a backup while I upgraded to a 1GB 4870 a while later, sold that to buy a newer card, ended up needing the money elsewhere and got stuck with yet another 320mb GTS, which I sold to buy another card but once more ended up needing the money elsewhere, and getting stuck with onboard 7050 (playing a lot of Soldier of Fortune 2 and Call of Duty lately, cos nothing else I own works). Then I bought a cheap 8500GT so I could at least play newer games on low settings in the meantime, and ended up agreeing to buy a 640MB 8800GTS Superclocked before I'd even received the 8500GT. Now I'm pondering a GTX260 or a 4850X2 seeing how incredibly cheap they are on Pixmania....

uberpixie

nothing too major:

1) my 4gig of reaper 1066mhz ddr 2 starting to throw a spaz and not work with my asus p35 chipset board: I find out on boards that it is a common enough issue for my board with 1066mhz ram.

Replace the ram with some 800mhz DDR2 crucial ballistics tracer which works fine and has blinky LEDs and is 4gig in only x2 sticks as opposed to x4 sticks if the reaper stuff. http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=380475

Be damned if I was replacing ram I paid an obscene amount for somthing that wasn't a little bling . Granted I don't have a window kit, the ram shines nicely out of the empty top fan slot of my antec P180.

2) replacing my stock cooler on my radeon 4870 512mb turned out to be far fiddlier than I had imagined. (self inflicted to be fair)

Got an arctic cooling fan to replace the stock cooler as the fan was annoying me.
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=101 (accelero twin turbo)

The cooler didn't come with long screws and the screws that came with the original cooler were VERY short. (screws are of course fecking tiny ones I don't have lying around)

Had half an hour wrestling with the fan mount, bending it down very hard with one hand while trying to screw in screws with the other. My mate dug up some a week or so which I must fit at some stage.....

In the end I reckon i have about 1 thread of each screw turned into the fan mount, screws realy are barely in each slot! Then I went to a lan the day after and the new cooler held! (which is bloody suprising).

Now have riva turner installed and have the x2 fans on the cooler running @ 41% constant and it is perfect. The card 60-65 degrees or so under load and I can't hear the fans. Much better than the stock cooler and much lighter..?

Now of course the fan at the back of my case is "loud" so I must swap it out for a 1200 RPM scythe flex fan. (1600 RPM scythe in there atm)...

cherryghost

hmmm if its just this year, my PSU blew about 3 weeks ago when I put a gtx260 into my build (yeah terror, i bought it on Pixmania, the prices dropped that weekend )

Other than that, all is good in the world.

alansweeney100

I had this nightmare
Eventually got it sorted, thanks to all who offered help, actually couldn't bear to look at my PC for a while during that.
Turns out it was a poorly seated cpu /cpu cooler AND a dead hard drive (with my OS on it) simultaneously conspiring to drive me insane.
I completely took it apart and put it back together and got it goin, reinstalled OS and am currently havin nvidia driver problems but not much I can do about them.

Solitaire

I was made redundant a year ago, that counts (aside from lack of teh monies, I worked in PC repair, so double-fail)

More direct horrors? Well, a good one was my last comp failed on me. Started spontaneously switching itself on and off, getting worse and worse until it was unusable. Tried everything, reformats, swapping hardware etc. Built a new rig and forgot about it.

Went back to it while working out if I could "donate" a PC to my sister, fiddled with it a bit and realised the one thing I hadn't swapped: the case. Turns out the source of all the madness were failed/shorting contacts within the power switch itself :eek::o McGyver'd it and the comp still works to this day at my sister's :rolleyes:

Problems since New Year are mercifully few; most annoying issue by far was my 4GB Platinum PC8500 playing the hokey-cokey. Turns out I would be the latest victim of a (now) well-known issue: stinky OCZ RAM chips really don't like running on P35 chipsets :mad: I've got mine running fairly close to rated spec at 2.1V, but that's because I followed advice and have my northbridge lit up like a feckin' christams tree, its so overvolted :rolleyes: Thanks OCZ!

Mac daddy

Bought a brand new Asus P6T poxy motherboard worked for ONE day then it decided not to post anymore.
Three weeks waiting for my RMA to be cleared and replacement to be shipped...

Nothing worse then having spent a small fortune on a complete i7 rig and the motherboard dies a day later.

Anti

ive had absolutley none yet...

toco123

Computer BIOs restored automatically=
Broken motherboard!
Lots of problems!
Windows Vista needs to be re-registered or something!

Logitech Z5500 Control Pod has a bust backlight!
Logitech is out of Control Pods!!

Relising that the Thermaltake Armor hates everything that isn't of standard size!!
Relising that modular power supplies dont help in the slightest!!!

toco123

godskitchen wrote: »

I have had nothing quite so explosive.

I had Vista go tits up on me last week, it would boot as far as the Windows logo and then BSOD on me. I could not even get in via any safe mode. I tried to resolve the problem over 2 days but then it gave me an excuse to install Vista 64bit. So thats what I ended up doing!

Nothing hardware related yet this year...........fingers crossed!

Mines doing the same thing at the moment as well :L:L

AlmightyCushion

My idiot of a brother unplugged the pc when it was installing updates (You'd think after seeing the message saying "Installing updates. Do not turn off the computer." he would realise it might not be such a good idea) and fúcked up the windows install.

Krieg

Ordered my sister a comp and the PSU exploded as soon as it was turned on.
After it was returned from repairs, plugged it in and no dice. Turned out a sata cable had come loose. You really do get what you pay for I guess.

No probs on my own comp apart from mystery files appearing and disappearing. Oh and the temps seem to be steadily increasing despite regular dusting. Time for a new CPU cooler me thinks

game4it70

About a week before last christmas my kids pc stopped booting with no power at all going to fan so i presumed it was the generic psu.I swapped it with a spare psu i had and when i turned it on sparks and a bang from my psu
I still dont know what caused it but i wasn't gonna rish another psu.
I bought a new mobo and psu and was all good until i tried onboard sound.I couldn't get it to work at all.This was two days before xmas eve at this stage and the kids needed sound for there new mp3 players so i was forced to pay 30euro for a Pcline piece of cr@p from Pcworld.
I still feel dirty and abused from having to shop there:mad:

tazire

nothing major. i also built new i7 with p6t and cant for luv nor money get raid to work on it at all. seems to be a driver issue im gettin. actually any1 have any perls of wisdom would be greatly appreciated. im a bit of a noob to raid but i read up on it and tried everything i could think of.

Run_to_da_hills

So far this year I have plugged a cheap imported PSU plug into a laptop with the polarity reversed sending the MB up in smoke and only recently bent and snapped off pins in another MB when I plugged a graphics cable in ars*ways. Learned expensive lessons. :mad:

On the plus side a mate of mine gave me an Inspiron 9400 that had a pint of beer spilled over it, Replaced the MB, Keyboard with one from Ebay and had myself a nice cheap upgrade.

TerrorFirmer

game4it70 wrote: »

About a week before last christmas my kids pc stopped booting with no power at all going to fan so i presumed it was the generic psu.I swapped it with a spare psu i had and when i turned it on sparks and a bang from my psu
I still dont know what caused it but i wasn't gonna rish another psu.
I bought a new mobo and psu and was all good until i tried onboard sound.I couldn't get it to work at all.This was two days before xmas eve at this stage and the kids needed sound for there new mp3 players so i was forced to pay 30euro for a Pcline piece of cr@p from Pcworld.
I still feel dirty and abused from having to shop there:mad:

That's a strange one re: PC Line 5.1 Card, it was 11.99 for....well, forever. Then one day I went in and it had sprung up to 29.99 - you do realise, that if you're gonna pay over the odds they have actual Creative Audigy for that price? Still not a stellar price but you're getting a product twice the quality at least. I really don't get how it went up about 160% in price though. That PC Line card (I bought it for 11.99) is truly such a piece of crap....I remember anytime I turned on EAX I got this bizarre 'windy' noise...at first I was like wow, holy crap - the wind noise in BF2 is so realistic with EAX turned on. Then when it started happening in other games I realised it was just a remarkable co-incidence and the damn card was giving me this wind noise in everything...I also had dreadful problems trying to output 5.1 itself working in the first place.

game4it70

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

That's a strange one re: PC Line 5.1 Card, it was 11.99 for....well, forever. Then one day I went in and it had sprung up to 29.99 - you do realise, that if you're gonna pay over the odds they have actual Creative Audigy for that price? Still not a stellar price but you're getting a product twice the quality at least. I really don't get how it went up about 160% in price though. That PC Line card (I bought it for 11.99) is truly such a piece of crap....I remember anytime I turned on EAX I got this bizarre 'windy' noise...at first I was like wow, holy crap - the wind noise in BF2 is so realistic with EAX turned on. Then when it started happening in other games I realised it was just a remarkable co-incidence and the damn card was giving me this wind noise in everything...I also had dreadful problems trying to output 5.1 itself working in the first place.

Tbh i had no choice as i needed a soundcard asap.I do agree that its useless and i was robbed on the price.I must see what its like tomorrow with bf2 compared to my soundcard.Luckily the kids are to young to tell difference.

Solitaire

game4it70 wrote:

I bought a new mobo and psu and was all good until i tried onboard sound

The fun I've had with integrated audio and their drivers over the years... :rolleyes: You'll eventually randomly find the right driver variant to get the onboard working again after all and after a short bout of murderous rage I don't doubt your house will be covered in little pieces of PC Line sound card

toco123 wrote:

Relising that the Thermaltake Armor hates everything that isn't of standard size!!
Relising that modular power supplies dont help in the slightest!!!

:P

Mac daddy wrote:

Bought a brand new Asus P6T poxy motherboard worked for ONE day then it decided not to post anymore.
Three weeks waiting for my RMA to be cleared and replacement to be shipped...

Nothing worse then having spent a small fortune on a complete i7 rig and the motherboard dies a day later.

Owww. Burn.

ColonelCarnage

uberpixie wrote: »

nothing too major:

1) my 4gig of reaper 1066mhz ddr 2 starting to throw a spaz and not work with my asus p35 chipset board: I find out on boards that it is a common enough issue for my board with 1066mhz ram.

My brother had a similair problem as you: he got the same 4gb reaper 1066 memory aswell as a replacement p35 board from gigabyte and it would only recognise of of the memory modules at a time! Which kind of sucked!

Aswell as that I had my fatalaty headset cord snap twice but managed to solder it back together both times.

I also had to fight tha hardest battle of my life: GETTING BIOSHOCK TO PLAY! IT KILLED MY PC TWICE! Got it for my brother for his birthday and he let me isntall it on my rig aswell! It crashed several times before I got my first wrench and broke vista altogether! Re-install with a fully formatted vista drive and a check for all physical hardware problems. Installed again and it proceeded to **** up vista at a healthy pace including breaking video ogg software that plays game cutscenes for all my games! Tried to buy the PS3 version and it wont work in my ps3! return it and gave up doomed never to play the game!

Funny part is my brother is to scared to bother installing it on his pc after seeing what it did to mine! :pac:

magick

toco123 wrote: »

Relising that the Thermaltake Armor hates everything that isn't of standard size!!
Relising that modular power supplies dont help in the slightest!!!

Really that bad?! only wondering cos a friend of mine has one of those cases and has the standard stuff, but since things are changing wil he probs in the future?

cian1500ww

A fully watercooled 780i's memory controller going meaning butchering the pc completely

Solitaire

I think toco has some good material for this thread now - not every day you need to call an exorcist to deal with a possessed DVD burner :pac:

toco123

Solitaire wrote: »

I think toco has some good material for this thread now - not every day you need to call an exorcist to deal with a possessed DVD burner :pac:

Toco123 wrote:

Okay I have been having problems with my rig recently so I took it apart and placed the system on anti static bags using only the basics along with the HDD and DVD drive..
So I choose Boot from CD/DVD after the Gigabyte splashcreen and then!!!
It goes **** crazy! the DVD drive started to roar and jump!! I hadn't got a clue what to do so I switched off the power and using a pin, i was able to take the DVD out...

The Windows OEM DVD is covered in an abudance of deep scars and i'm guessing the DVD drive is wrote off
And I still have a bust rig after that :(

Any ideas what to do for a new Windows OEM?

Second post in this thread!! :pac:

I think im winning!! Is there a prize?

toco123

Krieg wrote: »

Ordered my sister a comp and the PSU exploded as soon as it was turned on.
After it was returned from repairs, plugged it in and no dice. Turned out a sata cable had come loose. You really do get what you pay for I guess.

Could it be possibly the power supply was set at the wrong voltage??

Rattlehead_ie

Currently having a nightmare with faulty RAM and now what looks like mobo failed too, add to that OcUK / ASUS RMA experience ahhhhhhhhhhh! :mad::(

toco123

Sound Module/ Inverter fried this morning...

Third Post

toco123

Fourth Post :pac:

Rang microsoft for support to help me!!!
The only way I can fix the computer is by paying them €72 or paying €80 for a new hard drive :(

ColonelCarnage

Awh Toco man thats sounds ****e! If those are truly your only two option I would go with the new HDD. 80-90 euros will get you a 7200rpm 1TB Spinpoint F1 or something of equal specs.

toco123

^ Just bought the spinpoint!!

New problems!!

Matrix Orbital GX is not working at all.
Wireless Lan Card isnt been picked up by Device Manager yet green light goes on??
Windows 7 is a waste of time.
Logitech still havent picked up the speakers.

Running out of money (€1600 on upgrading spent in last month :S)