So back when 3.1 came out I came to you guys for Help! - Computer where my power supply and a stick of RAM had died.

Warning: This is really long!


Last Tuesday evening, the day 3.2 launched, I was in-game and the entire computer froze up. Restarted, re-logged and boom, frozen again. A restart gets a black screen with the error: "A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart." Which of course, ends up with no result.

So research online tells me that my hard drive has crashed/is crashing/is just having problems being the bootable drive and will work okay as a secondary. Okay, no sweat, I can copy my files off and use my secondary drive as the primary. And this was no big surprise, I'd been having freezing issues for a few months while using Vista, although they'd gone away for a bit after installing Windows 7 (so I hadn't been sure yet whether it was Vista's fault or just the drive).

After Disk Checking (and it finding errors and fixing them) with it plugged into Euler's computer, we were able to System Restore it back to Sunday which worked just long enough for me to get all my stuff off onto my second drive, but then it froze/errored again while I was trying to use the Repair Tool on WoW (because the system restore going back to before the patch broke it). Or I did the Repair Tool first and it crashed then System Restored again and copied stuff, I can't remember the order.

(Insert long weekend with family.)

Sunday/Monday we copied all my files onto an external drive in preparation to format the secondary drive and install Windows 7 onto it.

Today we go and plug it into my computer and start the Install process like normal, it completes and I go and install Windows updates (including graphics and audio cards), Firefox, Logitech stuff for my keyboard and mouse, and turn off the User Account Control. It completes with a minor error with Logitech not starting when I double click on it (but I just assumed that it was because UAC hadn't been completely turned off yet). So I tell it to restart to finish installing updates, walk away and go watch Euler play Disgaea.

Come back a bit later and it's completely off. But I had told it to restart...

So begins a wonderful series of errors. Basically, we've re-installed, formatted, and restarted a ton because of it freezing or it turning itself off at various stages. Furthest we got this time was a freeze at the "Preparing your Desktop" portion, which when restarted from there we ended up with an old-school windows interface and right clicking and selecting any option results in an "EXPLORER.EXE failed to load" (or something, not sure exact) error.


The side of my case hasn't been on my computer for months, and I often have a floor fan turned on to help cool it (and it was throughout the entire latter portion of problems). Nothing ever really feels super hot in there other than the video card's heat sink, but is overheating? We can't tell. My case isn't the best in regards to vents as far as I can tell, but it's not horribad.


Now we've plugged it into Euler's computer again and used his DVD ROM to try the format & reinstall option again. Successful, no freezes, updated the minimal stuff. Put it back into my case and it froze up almost immediately on the Starting Windows screen. So it's not the HD, DVD, DVD ROM, or HD cord that might be the issue, it's something in my case.

Ran the Windows RAM Checker-
1st attempt with all 3 sticks in: Got to pass 2 of 2, between 25-50% and the computer shut off. RAM was extremely hot, but computer made no sounds.

2nd attempt with the two newer sticks in (oldest removed): RAM Checker finished, went to Windows Error Recovery screen (assuming from the shut off) - Start Up Windows Normally resulted in it turning off. Back to Windows Error Recovery screen - chose Launch Repair, partway through it shuts off and restarts, then shuts off again at the Starting Windows screen. Then tried to start in Safe Mode - restarted... >.>

By this point the entire case and everything in it is completely cool, so nothing's overheating for sure as far as I can tell.

Switched my video card with his: No change, Starting Windows screen and it auto-restarted.

Replaced my video card back, took out another piece of RAM and the sound card: No change.

Switching RAM pieces and trying a different slot: No change.

At this point all we've got in there is a HD, one piece of RAM, video card, motherboard, processor and power supply. Attempting Startup Repair again.
Could not repair:
Problem Signature 01 & 02: 6.1.7100.0
Other Problem Signatures included: unknown, BadPatch, 2

Last thing he tried was unplugging my HD and plugging in his, but it wasn't working (the Master/Slave stuff) and he has to go to bed now.


Is RAM dead? Is the second HD dead too? Is the Motherboard dead? Is the processor dead?

How can you even tell if the Motherboard or processor dies?

Any suggestions are welcome.

Sounds to me like an overheating problem, and my money would be on the culprit being the CPU, but it could also be the RAM (If it's overclocked), or the motherboard (again, only if it's overclocked).

Typically, if a computer works for a few seconds (minutes) and then dies pretty consistently, it's going to be heat related.

Is it the stock cooling on the processor? If so, is it lint-free, clean, and the fan spinning?

You didn't mention it so I'm going to assume you/Euler did not try to overclock the board, right?

Stock cooling, yes. All fans on everything are spinning.

No, no overclocking. Not really sure how and don't think I need/would use it anyway.

My computer is ridiculously clean. No lint or dust anywhere, I blow it out with compressed air fairly often. You should see it compared to Euler's, mine's got cords neatly shoved out of the way with easy to see everything and clean while his has stuff everywhere and dust all over. Yet his has had zero issues!

Theres the problem. Computers run on chaos theory, the more chaotic the situation is, the better it runs. The best quick solution is to leave food/drink residue all around the table. Sure, this may seem unsanitary, but I assure you its the best thing for your computer.

It sure sounds like either

A) You've got some wicked bad power spikes/surges at your house (or bad wiring) with no surge protector on the PC,

or

B ) There's something wrong with the motherboard

Power Supplies do go bad, and so does RAM, but it's not terribly common - especially on the same computer at the same time. And now, for there to be more wonkyness (Yes, I said wonky)... It really seems like there's a more serious problem somewhere.

Regarding your current problem, it has to be either the processor, the ram, or something weird in the BIOS like conflicting IRQ ports, or bios options from add-on PCI cards. But you didn't mention recently installing any new hardware, so you can probably cross off bios issues as the cause.

If you know of someone with a spare processor kicking around that would fit in your board, I'd swap them out and see what happens (I mean, who DOESN'T have spare CPUs sitting in their drawer?).

Check to see if there's a BIOS update available;

Honestly though, I think you should just win the lottery and throw that one in the garbage.

1) Always, always plugged into a surge protector. (The one time I didn't it fried my monitor from a spark before I even got to do anything, but that was a long time ago.)

2) I think it might be time to recruit a friend of a friend that works at a repair shop and see if he might have the extra CPU or any other ideas or stuff to test with.

The whole thing's only a year and a half old! And the video card, RAM, power supply, and one of the HD's are less than a year.