How reliable is your computer?

5240 Views 69 Replies 23 Participants Last post by RaptorUK, Dec 14, 2010

blue harbour

Discussion Starter · Apr 16, 2006

As above- how reliable is your comp in term's- how long you can go without it crashing/locking/freezing up?, and is there any one thing that seems to reliably cause your comp to lock- or switch itself off effectivley due to supposed "fatal errors!"

Mine is patchy at best!- sometimes it can go for day's without hassle- other time's it will fall down/crash maybe 1-3 times per night! :sad:

One thing that does cause it to spaz out and freeze up within about 5 mins without fail is if im playing- even the most basic games online- or indeed- a mate o mine lent me tiger woods 2006, and that would'nt play for more than about 3 mins at a time without causing my comp to crash!, and the ONLY way round each time it happens is to turn the comp off at the power button- and restart it! :bh

Anyone else have problems like this? -or is it just me!????????

I've only been trying to play a simple 2d puzzle game as o latley- but as i say- i can't play it for more than 5 mins without the comp crashing/locking up! :bh :bh :bh :bh :bh :bh

I can see the comp suffering death by shotgun/sledgehammer & fire if this keeps up!- it's nearly been out the window a few time's- i can tell ya! :frust

Computers! :sad: - great WHEN there working- a royal pain in the arris when there not! :bh :bh :bh

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Parsec

· #2 · Apr 16, 2006

My computer has never once crashed or locked up!

It's a P4 3.0GHz, 1GB of RAM, basic Nvidia FX5200 graphics card.

It only gets used for web surfing, development work and MP3 encoding though.

I think it's the games that's the problem! It's probably your graphics drivers to be specific - they are one of the few things that sit at such a low level that if they screw up they will take out the whole operating system.

Dave V6

· #3 · Apr 16, 2006

ours has the odd spazzy moment but its very rare fortunatley ,keyboard went other night ,turned out to be frequency was wrong between that and reciever as its wireless,how the hell it changed though i dunno.

blue harbour

Discussion Starter · #4 · Apr 16, 2006

Well all i know is- as soon as i can afford it- this computer will die in an unpleasnat manner after all the hassle it's caused me since having it! :bh

Boy am i glad that time n tiny are no-longer (they were one n the same anyway like!), but still- atleast they can't go around ripping folk of with their s***e anymore!

Stu

· #5 · Apr 16, 2006

If you have the original disks, or recovery disks I would suggest you rebuild it with a fresh copy of the OS. Once complete, patch it and get the drivers up to date and you may find the issues go away.

All of mine only ever get rebooted when a patch requires it.

Gas-Axe

· #6 · Apr 16, 2006 (Edited)

My new 64bit 3200 PC only gave trouble when the fan on my Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card seized up - causing random reboots.

One arctic cooler fan kit fitted, job's a good 'un!

Rob Cavell

· #7 · Apr 17, 2006

Parsec said:
My computer has never once crashed or locked up!.........................................I think it's the games that's the problem!

My current computer (about two or three years) has never let me down either.....Compaq 6000 AMD 3.2. and the first one running XP.
All previous ones have been a bit of a pain at times.
I too only use mine for surfing, word processing, spreadsheets, autocad etc.,
never games or simulators I do other things to stave off boredom.
Like, toy aeroplanes....sad ain't I ..!!!! :MG:

blue harbour

Discussion Starter · #8 · Apr 17, 2006

So what do i garner from knowing all of this?????

a) mine is a randomly unreliable comp, and i should'nt take it as read that these thing's are generally trouble!

b) computer's do & will crash- that's just all part of it!

nOw2

· #9 · Apr 17, 2006

blue harbour said:
b) computer's do & will crash- that's just all part of it!

If you want to spend some money, then you can have a computer that will run forever..

OS is easy, and free. Run a BSD.

Hardware - well, you can get a bit of old heavy iron with hotswap everything from eBay for next to nothing. All you have to do then is power it through a power cut. A 200 quid UPS might give you an hour, but go for a diesel generator if you want to go on after the end of civilisation.

At home, my current Athlon 3800x2 desktop has never crashed, though it has done earlier in it's life as an Athlon 1400 when I had some dodgy memory in it. I have a gateway/firewall machine which is a different matter and bombs out more than once a week at the moment - being built from scraps of real stone age PC kit: CyrixM2, a 1MB PCI graphics card, etc... swapped the RAM on it this morning which I hope has sorted it.

PaulW

· #10 · Apr 17, 2006

The biggest single problem with modern machines today are the number of crashes caused by bugs in the software that runs the graphics chip. This is most often manifest when playing games because they are using the power of the chip to the max. This is one of the advantages of Windows Vista. With Windows Vista most of the graphics stuff runs in user mode so if it crashes it will terminate the game and not the whole system - as happens now where the graphics driver runs is kernel mode. I think this is another reason for the comparative stability of Linux - there are not as many graphics intensive applications for it.

blue harbour

Discussion Starter · #11 · Apr 17, 2006

Sorry guy's, but im a real layman when it comes to computer's- so recommending building one from this n that is a no no for me! :blush

What i would say/ask though!- is, is there a amke brand of ready made computer - like say one i could buy from my local pc world, that can be said to generally relible & trouble free- or is it not that simple!??????

I do know that this particular machine that im currently using has supposedly had two seperate memory fault's with it!- one when it was practically new, and another a few months down the line!

From the engineer's report that i got from the 1st repair- the memory was completley swapped out, but as to what they did the 2nd time- who knows??????

I don't generally play games on my pc at all, but it'd be nice to know that if i wanted to- i could do so without it causing the ruddy thing to crash like it does!

Infact last night i was defragging the comp- and it even crashed doing that! :bh

And if i let my spyware prog run a FULL scan- that can regularly ****** it up too! (running windows defender at mo!)

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Parsec

· #12 · Apr 17, 2006

PaulW said:
The biggest single problem with modern machines today are the number of crashes caused by bugs in the software that runs the graphics chip. This is most often manifest when playing games because they are using the power of the chip to the max. This is one of the advantages of Windows Vista. With Windows Vista most of the graphics stuff runs in user mode so if it crashes it will terminate the game and not the whole system - as happens now where the graphics driver runs is kernel mode.

Are you sure - the graphics driver actually used to run in user mode but the performance hit made them move it to kernel mode in Windows NT 4.0. The classic benchmarch was the Windows Pinball game, in NT3.51 it ran like ****, in NT4.0 it ran fine.

If they're going back to user mode for the graphics drivers in NT I'd love to know how they got round the performance problems - time for a bit of reading up :beerchug

Anyway harbs, back on topic - I'd recommend Dell as they're good solid reliable machines. Just be careful which one you buy, the lower range models might seem like a good deal but tend to be hobbled on upgradeability and graphics. The better models are great. And they're cheap! If you do want one I'm happy to help pick a decent one from the range.

Rob Cavell

· #13 · Apr 18, 2006

Parsec said:
Anyway harbs....I'd recommend Dell as they're good solid reliable machines. Just be careful which one you buy, the lower range models might seem like a good deal but tend to be hobbled on upgradeability and graphics. The better models are great. And they're cheap! If you do want one I'm happy to help pick a decent one from the range.

Take him up on that harbs you won't go far wrong. :MG:

blue harbour

Discussion Starter · #14 · Apr 18, 2006

Hmm- when the time come's (and i've got the available & necesary money needed!)- i'll prob take you up on that offer- cheer's dorian! :beerchug

Not be for a good while yet though- as other thing's need to come 1st! :beerchug

blue harbour

Discussion Starter · #15 · Apr 19, 2006

Right! :frust - coming to the end of my tether now with this honk o junk! :frust :bh :bh :bh :bh

Can anyone advise (in basic layman's terms!)- if my comp is either completley knackered- or has a virus that i don't know about (which im sure it has'nt btw!)

Over the past few day's the unreliability has been getting beyond a joke!

Indeed- the ruddy thing has now crashed about 15 times in the last 4 day's!, and tonight!- just as i was typing somet on here- it decided to turn itself off altogether- and restart- with no prompting from me either! :bh :bh :bh :bh :bh

I can't take much more o this! :bh :bh - if this continues- then i swear the useless piece o junk will go out of the window! :bh :bh :bh :bh

Anyone???- need any advice to be real layman's terms stuff, as any tech talk (where computers is concerned!)- is beyond me!

Cheers- Matt! :beerchug

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blue harbour

Discussion Starter · #16 · Apr 19, 2006

Make that 16 times in 4 day's! :bh

It's just crashed again! :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust :frust

Stu

· #17 · Apr 19, 2006

Where abouts are you.

Happily take a look if you are localish.

blue harbour

Discussion Starter · #18 · Apr 19, 2006

err im not local!

Derbyshire! :lol:

Cheers anyway! :beerchug

Stu

· #19 · Apr 19, 2006

No worries.

Maybe someone else can assist.

nOw2

· #20 · Apr 20, 2006

The symptoms sound like maybe bad RAM or a failed/choked fan but basically it could be anything - there's not much that can be done without seeing it directly.

Take it along to a local computer shop. Most will do something similar to a service we do for front shop customers - a basic check of the hardware, OS, drivers and update to latest patches etc., for a fixed fee.

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