Computer shut down for four days - does not run properly now.

Hey All,

I don't feel my issue is malware so I didnt go through the "READ AND RUN THIS FIRST" thread.

I leave my computer on constantly because I am on and off it so much - it can basicly be on for weeks at a time. It will have the occasional restart - in fact I can recall sometimes it will shut down on its own and start back up. Last week I shut it down as I was going out of town. The computer worked fine before this - no issues.

I get back and start it up and noticed that on boot up it got hung up on the "Boot from CD/DVD". I turned off and turned back on. It got past this point and booted up normal but on the Windows XP loading screen it will take a good five mintues before it passes this and loads to the desktop.

Games now freeze and I have to turn the computer off and back on - again waiting five minutes at the Windows XP screen.

I have no non essiantial apps. starting up at the begining - it does not get hung up while loading on the desk top - just getting to the actual desktop. There are no signs of any type of power surge while I was away - no clocks are flashing "12:00" and nothing else is damaged. The computer was not used while I was away and nothing new was loaded before I shut it down nor nothing new loaded right after I started it back up.

Any ideas as to why a computer that ran fine a week ago now is having issues after it was left off for four days? I have taken components out and used compress air to clean out dust - which there was a lot of - but it's still not working.

Should I go through the "Run This First" steps anyways - even if I do not believe it's a virus or spyware? Anything I can use to test certain hardware?

Video card, motherboard, RAM, power supply are all approx two years old. The CD - Rom drive and hard drive however are probably a good eight years old.

Thanks...

 

I would from Windows, My Computer>right-click your OS drive (probably C: ) >Properties>Tools tab>Check for errors>tick both boxes. Let it reboot and run the chkdisk. See if it finds any errors.

 

OK - I started this this morning around 10am and now, at 10:30 PM it's at stage 4 of 5 at 28% - out of curiosity does this mean there is a major issue, it normaly takes this long, or no telling?

 

It shouldn't take more than an hour even on the largest HD. Stage 4 is the longest of the stages but should still take only 20-40 minutes on a healthy drive. I think you should just let it run overnight but it may not actually fix the problem.

If it doesn't fix things, I would find the brand name of your HD and run the manufacturer's diagnostic utility. Get the DOS version that can be written to CD as an image file using imgburn or similar burning software. Run the Long test. Don't worry it won't take 10 hours. These diagnostic utilities can often fix problems that chkdsk can't fix.