My computer has issues! :(

I've been having some problems with my computer lately, and I'm wondering if it's not ready to die, and I should just get a new one. I have an hp that I got in 2001, so it's fairly old. At first, it froze a couple of times, which shocked me, because it had never done that before. Now, it's not really freezing, but if I leave it on (which I often do), when I come back, I can't get the screen to go from screensaver (which is just a black screen) to normal. I also can't shut it down at all. It's like I can hear that it's on, but it acts like it's off. I can't press the windows button and pull up the start menu to shut it down, - none of the mouse or keyboard buttons work, and if I press the power button it won't power off. I keep having to just unplug it, so I have had it off now for a few days, since most of the time I am at work and on the computer there anyway, and I don't want to keep unplugging it like that. Today, I had some free time, so I powered the computer up, and was doing some stuff on it, and all of a sudden, it just turned off. It was like the power went out, but the power didn't go out, it was just the computer. No warning or anything.

So, in your geeky professional opinion, do you think it's about to break, or do I just need to clean out the dust/make sure the memory is in tightly? My husband and I have a bunch of guests right now, so I haven't opened the case up to see what is in there, but it seems weird that it would have been working and now it suddenly is doing this. Any help is greatly appreciated! I love my computer - old as it is! I would be so sad to see it go, but if it's about to die, I really want to know so that I can be sure I have stuff backed up and get everything off of it that I really want.

Thanks again, Major Geeks!

Abby :heart

 

Well If it was me, I would go through and do a couple things to see if there is a easy cause to the problems, run a very complete virus/spyware scan, you know the one that looks in all the files. Then I would get the demo version of diskkeeper and run it to check for any problems in the MFT, and boot sector, then I would get something to look at your registry make sure it's all good, after that it could be a number of things, and kinda sounds like a power supply starting to go, and thats just a guess with the info you gave, could as easily be a processor or motherboard, or a stick of RAM going bad, or.....????
You said you got it in 2001 and 5 years is a lot of age for a computer! Think about it, when your computer was new Major Geeks was only a Sargent!!

 

Cleaning one up never hurts (done properly)
Is that harddrive as old as the tower?, if so its definetly time to replace it.
How long has it been since you reinstalled fresh OS on a clean formated drive(windows degrades over long periods).
Remember to back up all important info b4 you do anything further(preferably to a cd/dv not the hd)

run the following to cleanup(NOTICE-some of the cleaning programs can erase stored info-like saved screen names,passwords bookmarks etc(wite them down b4 running programs.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4191.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Advanced_WindowsCare_v2_Personal_d4991.html

then install spybot search and destroy
http://www.majorgeeks.com/SpyBot-Search_&_Destroy_Tools_d5396.html

that should speed things up a bit

 

Thanks, but if I had a dollar for every time I did the spyware scan bs, I would just buy a new cmputer and forget about this one. Ugh. I have not formatted, but I have XP and used to have ME (long story about that...). Anyway, I do have the same hard drive, but I also have a second one in there. My husband told me to just keep it that way - I tried asking him if I should transfer everything over to the other one, but he did not advise that. It would be a bitch, but would give me more confidence.

DAKz, I have no idea what you just said. "You know the one that looks in all the files?" No, I don't. What is diskkeeper? What is a MFT? Boot sector? Remember, if I knew all that, I wouldn't be here.

Thanks, guys!

Abby

 

Why I know all that and I'm here??

On most of your sweepers, (virus and spyware) they usually don't check every file amd every folder, they usually skim over the usual places that these bad things are found, the options or settings, or even custom scan gives you the choice of where to scan.
Diskkeeper and perfect disk are deframentation tools, lets face it the defrag tool in windows is horrible, anyhow these give you the ability to scan your MFT (Master File Table) and the boot sector of your hard drive, the boot sector is where all the booting info for Windows, these looks in there and sees if it is fragmented, and if it is offers the option of a boot time defrag, which will solve a lot of problems. All I am suggesting is a good hard look at everything before you do anything drastic, and as mentioned above if this does not solve your problems then before going to buy a new computer I would try to reinstall Windows XP, maybe a repair install that way if it is a registry problem, etc you can fix it without having to delete anything. This is a simple process reboot with your windows cd in the drive it will boot to the drive, go through setup till it looks for previous versions of windows, there it will give you the option of repairing the windows thats installed by pressing "R", the first repair option you will see is a repair console, you want the nest one...if all these fail then it may be time to look at a change in hardware.