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Dude, I feel your pain. This install has been runnig good on me since last July; little crashes here
and there, mostly caused by program errors, nothing big. But, this weekend, it got worse. Saturday, I
was playing a little NFS: Most Wanted, and the game crashed. Ok, it's done that to me before, nothing
big. I was thinking of rebooting but didn't feel like it, so I was just browsing my hard drives, looking
for something to do, when Explorer suddenly crashed. I was going to reboot now, except, I couldn't.
Windows start systematcally crashing every program that was running — I was no longer in control — things were
crashing faster than I could hit the OK button. So, I took things into my own hands and yanked the power plug
(this is NOT recommended, as you can easily damage data and/or your hardware — if do if shutting down or restarting
does seem to work — for some reason my computer never reboots when I hit my reset button, so I dont' know
what's up with that). Ok, so I waited a little bit, turned it back on, and like Colvin, was in a constant
state of rebooting, didn't even want to go into safe mode. Finally after like 6 times, it ran checkdisk,
twice, and Windows finally started. Problem solved, or so I thought. . .
Sunday, I was working a
little in Maya, got finished with what I needed, saved, and closed the program. A few seconds after that,
Explorer crashed again. This time, I was trying to reboot as fast as I could, but as soon as I hit 'Start
— Shut Down', this dialog box with nothing but gibberish popped up, taking up half the screen. And
Windows started crashing everything again. So, I did the manual powerdown again. Powered it up again,
this time checkdisk ran the first time, and found all kinds of damaged and orphened files. I wasn't the
least bit happy at this point. Once Windows booted, it I got a message right away saying my current copy of
the registry was damaged, so a copy was loaded from a backup. I was a little worried, but everything seemed to
be working fine; until I loaded Photoshop. Once PS loaded, I got an error message saying that PS's font
reader was corrupt. And later, I found a few of my smaller programs weren't even loading. Now
I'm mad.
So, I've spent the last couple of days reinstalling things and trying to locate the
source of the problem, as this has never happened before, and I did nothing Saturday that I haven't done 10,000
times before. I've been running Norton Antivirus, Spybot, and Adware 3 or 4 times a day, just to make
sure it's not an infection of some type. Nothing so far. I almost believe it has something to do
with all the junk that the school makes us run, just so we can get 'net acess, like Cisco Clean Access Agent
(which is a completely buggy, worthless program).
What I really need to do is format and reinstall, but I
don't have time here at school, so my advice is that if you get stuck in a college dorm, which makes you
install junk cuz the IT guys thinks this stuff keeps their networks safe, get yourself a spare hard drive, make an
image of your install before you go to school, and if crap like this happens, just ghost it, and your back on your
way (unless you feel like spending a weekend reloading when you have a buttload of homework you need to get done on
top of that).
This is exactly why I reload about every six months. Just to avoid issues like this. Im very
familiar with some of the IT networking junkies who think software is the answer to all of their problems. I
have found after much experimentation that in order to prevent a system from getting bombarded with crap, you need
to do the following.
Install Firefox – I know there are a lot of people out there who are hooked on IE
and dont want to switch. However, in this case, its absolutely incredible how much better your computer will
run by using Firefox. There is a handy extension that you can get called Adblock, which works in addition to
the popup blocker written into Firefox. Whatever the popup blocker doesnt catch, adblock will. The only
disadvantage to running firefox in my opinion is the fact that you have to install several plugins in order to get
some things working, such as the Flash plugin and the java plugin. However, this also has to be done with IE,
so its really not a disadvantage. The tabbed web browsing experience is so much better in my opinion because
you only have to have one browser open instead of three or four. This reduces memory usage by half, if not
more by having a tabbed browser.
A good firewall – and by good firewall, Im not talking about the
Windows Firewall that comes with SP2. Im talking about a third party firewall such as Zone Alarm.
I've been running Zone Alarm for about 4 years and it can be a bit tricky to learn to use, but the advantages
outweigh the disadvantages in my opinion. Plus, Zone Alarm comes with an anti-spyware featureset that is a
good addition to any spyware solution. It updates automatically, and can be configured to scan on up to a
daily basis, if thats what you're looking for. Having a firewall that has been properly configured will
definitely prevent unwanted services and programs, such as viruses, from getting into your computer, unless you
allow it to do so.
Spyware Blocker – This is incredibly important. It doesnt really matter which
spyware blocker you have. I have noticed that no spyware blocker removes 100% of spyware. Ive seen
Spybot get rid of spyware that Ad-aware could not remove, and vice-versa. However, not that Im against spybot,
because I think its a good program, but in my configuration, I always run Ad-Aware Professional, which comes with
Ad-Watch. Leave Ad-watch running in conjunction to running your other spyware tools. It will pick up any
activity to the system and ask the user if they wish to allow a change to the system.
Diligent
maintenance and monitoring – This is the most important. It is a poor assumption to think that just because
you have all of these wonderful tools installed on your system that you are 100% safe. This is not the
case. Some of these tools allow for user intervention that may cause a problem because the user bypassed their
security. Make it a point to watch where you go on the internet, and especially what you download to your
computer.
Warning: This is just a configuration that has worked for me. I have
configured this on other systems with some success, but you really need to find what works for you. There are
a lot of people who run different configurations with as much success as Ive had with mine. This is not to say
they're wrong, just different. Thats ok, as long as you find a configuration that prevents any of that
garbage from getting into your computer and totally screwing it up.
One other point, before installing
anything on your system, unless you're familiar with the software, talk to someone you feel comfortable with
and is knowledgeable about such types of software. Do not take one person's opinion about software
either. Make sure you get an unbiased review on your software prior to installation. The only exception
to this would be if you're experimenting with software on a regular basis and can rebuild your own system, or
know someone willing to do it for you. Just be careful.
Iv never had super serious computer problems like both of you seem to get multiple times every year.
Once my hard drive died and once a cd exploded in the drive while I was playing a game, thats about it. The
only odd computer thing I have now is the zombie case fan, a case fan iv never heard before suddenly came groaning
to life, every once in a while it will stop but it always comes back to life, it's strange.
I'm happy to say I have yet to crack the seal on my case since I got this computer in early summer. Wow
alienware makes some great computers, it's a crime against humanity that dell bought them out.
Well, that sucks, Dell will more than likely ruin them. Colvin and I have always had strange issues,
I think in part cuz we dig deeper into our systems further than most people dare to go (I'm always optimizing
Windows to make it run faster, every little bit helps). My problem this year is all this junk I have to have
installed so I can just get on the internet, it's not nice and easy like it was at SCAD where you just put in
your ID number and password. Here, we have to run this login program called Cisco Clean Access Agent, which
doesn't do much but slow your system and it's access to the internet (on top of the fact it always has an
'error 87', which no one knows, the IT guys, and Cisco themselves, what it means). Then we have to
run Mircosoft's anit-spyware program (which doesn't catch anything, nothing, and anyone out there
who's running it thinking it's awesome, run something else like Spybot or Adaware, and then see if you
think the same about it after one of those 2 programs catches thousand's of things MS's
didn't). Windows firewall HAS to be turned on (like Colvin said, it's not a real firewall, and all
it does is hog resources). And on top of all that, everytime a new update or patch for XP comes out, we have
to update, and 99% of the time, that's the cause of most problems (the other thing, only computer's
running XP have net access here, Linux, Macs, or any O/S other than XP can't get on).
Colvin has a
great outline posted above. I agree, Firefox is the best thing to happen to the internet, since the
internet. I normally don't have these kinds of software problems (other than the reload thing, but Tim
and I have proven that most systems do require a reinstall every 6 months to stay in top shape), until I got here at
this school. I've always had bad luck with hardware, but that's a different topic in of itself.
well, in my opinion, better Dell than Gateway or HP. At least Dell is somewhat respectable in the
retail field. Im just really concerned about the quality of the systems. Dell does make some hellasweet
gaming systems, so hopefully their gaming systems will improve with the acquisition of Alienware.
So the other night my computer crashed. Now I didnt think anything of it when it froze, primarily
because I was too tired to care. However, last night when I went to boot my computer up, I was given a nice
surprise, a continuous loop of rebooting. So I took the drive out and had my neighbor try to get the data off
of it. Windows wouldnt even recognize the drive. However, after sitting around being mad for about 2
hours (Most users think that these sorts of things dont happen to those who work on them, but I got news for anyone
reading this who doesnt think our computers crash, our crashes are usually worse because we can usually pinpoint
what the problem is faster than we can resolve the problem by waiting on parts or the computer to process), I
decided to give Knoppix a try. For those who havent been schooled in LiveCD's yet, Knoppix is a version
of Linux that comes entirely on a CD. You can boot your computer with the CD in the drive and it will boot to
a linux environment, with a ton of tools at your disposal. The upside to this type of software is that, if you
need a certain set of tools that you know are going to be on this CD, it may just save your life. Last night,
Knoppix did that for me. I had some data on that hard drive that I was unable to retrieve until I booted
Knoppix. Knoppix recognized the drive right away, and allowed me to navigate to the folders I needed and burn
them to CD. The CD burning was a little tricky, but after a few minutes, I was able to do it with no
problem. Backing the data up was a huge relief. Now onto restoration of the drive.
The first
thing I tried was just a plain old format through Windows XP. The format process got about 80% through and
then failed. So rather than call Dell, because I hate talking on the phone unless I absolutely have to,
especially to tech support guys who cant even tie their own shoe, let alone even say the word shoe in English, I
decided to start looking for some tools to low level format the drive. A low level format will basically
NULLIFY the entire drive, making it so it has no data on it whatsoever. This is different from a basic format,
as it just removes all of the pointers to data on the drive. This is how data retrieval is done, as long as a
low level format hasnt taken place, there's always the possibility of getting your data back. So I
searched for a low level format utility from Seagate. Now, I dont use too much Seagate hardware, as Ive had
some issues with it in the past. But I have to give props to Seagate for the awesome disk wizard tool. I
ran the low level format overnight last night, and it said it was successful this morning when I got up. I did
a quick format on the hard drive, which was successful. Now just to install Windows!
Several things
stick out in my mind about this process. 1) Always back up your data! Usually Im pretty good about
keeping anything that I really want to have on my external hard drive. 2) Always have a neighbor close who has
similar hardware. This proves to be quite handy if yours fails. Just have them slap it in their computer
and see if they can at least get your data off. 3) Get the tools from the manufacturer now, even if you're not
using them. You never know when you may need them. 4) If you're saavy enough, keep a Linux Live CD
around. Never know when it might come in handy.
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