What the....?

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MarkC

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Another thrilling episode in the story of my possessed computer.
Today, it froze up again, after many days of trouble-free(but slow) operation.
It's the famous Frankenstein cobbled together(but free) beast running Windows ME.
Today, after it froze, I uplugged it and restarted, as usual, but this time it rebooted into something like the Safe mode; same screen, etc, but no cursor, no way to control anything.
I tried System Restore, but there were no restore points to use.
I finally used a startup disk and ran Scandisk, which found and fixed several things. Eventually, I got it started again, but the screen saver picture, as well as the background color is different. Other than that, everything is apparently working again.
Anybody have a clue what's going on inside this thing? It is ancient and slow, but this is pretty weird.
confused.gif
 
Mark, my computer locked up all the time with Windows ME. I had the software replaced with Windows XP, and have never had a problem since. You have to get rid of the ME, trust me, Joe
 
ME is .......well enough said. We have XP (Pro and Home)on both computers and never a problem. Get XP SP2 for a clean install and use Microsoft Update to keep everything updated.
 
ME never crashes for me. Been running it for 6 years.

Don't waste your money on XP unless you are getting a new PC.

You need to just clear all the non-essentials off your hard drive. Clean it up and get it off it you don't use it. Don't use a background and turn off the silly screen saver.

Then reboot and see what loads. What is running?

First do the ctrl-alt-del to see.

Next select run then type "msconfig" and see what starts by selecting the "start-up" tab. Turn off the useless crap.

Believe me all windows sucks, it's just XP is worse.
 
I, too, have heard nothing but bad things about ME. My dad had a lot of problems with it on his PC - freezes and BSODs. All is well since he switched to XP though.
 
quote:
I have a copy of Windows 2000 on disk, but I hear that one's not much of an improvement.
Click to expand...
You heard wrong. Windows 2000 is a mature, well build operating system with very few problems and is very stable.
 
Actually, I remember the ME used to work OK for my dad until one day he started applying patches from the Microsoft website (mostly security-related). It all went downhill from there. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess.
smile.gif
 
Sounds like you either got a virus or some real nasty spyware. While ME is not the best OS around, if you 'keep it clean' it will run fine. Like Pablo, I have had very few problems running ME. But Spyware wil kill it in a heartbeat. The fact that you have no restore point tends to lead me in that direction. Install a good spyware program like Ad-aware or EWIDO (if your really serious about it), and I am willing to bet you'll get a hit.
 
I run Ad-Aware every day, and it usually only finds a few low-risk items. ZoneLabs firewall/anti-spyware found a couple more, and quarantined them.
My NAV (free) has expired and i'm trying to decide which one to try now.
 
windows 2000 is the greatest OS out there. XP pro isnt bad, but I like 2000 better from a stability standpoint.

Unfortunately if you bought a lowest bidder el cheapo special computer, then (a) the hardware may in itself contribute to much instability and (b) some may not be compatible with win2k, even in an uncertified driver form.

(a) is the reason why sometimes people can have great succes with a crappy OS, and why others have terrible times with a great OS.

JMH
 
Hmmm... this summer after much wonder and brainer it turned out that four big transistors of the mainboard were leaked. It just appeared like a usual win-OS problem (since all of them are usual anyways).

Of course, I discoverd this five months after the warranty. Why so soon? Why so cheap-er transistors which are cheap already... I thought Epox was one of the best for AMD. I think there is no great mainboards for AMD. I probably go with Intel mainboard and cpu this time.
 
If they leaked, they're capacitors, not transistors. It's a common problem, caused by incorrectly forumulated electrolyte. The most expensive piece of equipment that I am aware of having suffered from this problem is an $8000 Mackie digital mixter.

http://www.badcaps.net/ has more info about the problem.
 
quote:
So what's involved in uninstalling ME and installing 2000? Remember that I am in no way 'good' at computer stuff...
My computer is old and slow, I think its speed is something like a blazing 450mHz.
It has a 12G hard drive.
Click to expand...
Assuming you have everything backed up, stick the Windows 2000 disk in and follow the instructions. Do a format and reinstall, NOT an upgrade. Make sure you have drivers for at least your NIC (or modem if you're on dial up) because you may need to go to the manufacturers website and get new drivers for Winows 2000. Then restore your files and reload programs. Make sure you service pack and update the OS and get antivirus software on it right after the installation.
 
brian,
we had some precipitator controllers that started to fail ($15k each).

Sent one back to sweden, and $1,000 later it was repaired.

Then more started failing.

One of our electricians did some exploratory surgery, and there was a single dud capacitor in each.

He ended up fixing them for a few buck.
 
So what's involved in uninstalling ME and installing 2000? Remember that I am in no way 'good' at computer stuff...
My computer is old and slow, I think its speed is something like a blazing 450mHz.
It has a 12G hard drive.
 
I've heard of numerous problems with Windows Me, a.k.a. Crash-O-Matic.

The "ME" may stand for "Massive Excedrin" too!

I agree that Win2000 would be a large improvement, XP is OK...

But I'm running Linux now and it's FREE!
 
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