Well this sucks

[Solos]

So i come downstairs this morning, turn my laptop and the TV on. The Windows loading screen comes up, then i catch a second of blue and it restarts itself. This time i get that screen asking if I want to start in safe mode, same thing happens again. Last known configuration, same again. Safe mode, don't even get to the Windows screen. By this point i'm getting rather annoyed so I decide to watch the film i recorded last night. The harddrive in the digital tuner has wiped as well.

Am I just unlucky or did some ******* set off an EMP in my living room last night?

Also how am I meant to reformat the laptop if it doesn't give me the option of going to the BIOS?

[thebluecanary]

So i come downstairs this morning, turn my laptop and the TV on. The Windows loading screen comes up, then i catch a second of blue and it restarts itself. This time i get that screen asking if I want to start in safe mode, same thing happens again. Last known configuration, same again. Safe mode, don't even get to the Windows screen. By this point i'm getting rather annoyed so I decide to watch the film i recorded last night. The harddrive in the digital tuner has wiped as well.

Am I just unlucky or did some ******* set off an EMP in my living room last night?

Also how am I meant to reformat the laptop if it doesn't give me the option of going to the BIOS?

Boot CD is your only hope.

[Solos]

Boot CD is your only hope.

Well it apparantly has a restore to factory settings partition because putting a CD in the tray is too complicated. Only problem is it is either not working or takes hours to load the menu.

[suburbanhell]

If some ******* set off an EMP in your living room, none of your electronic devices would even have powered up.

[RedSwitchblade]

If some ******* set off an EMP in your living room, none of your electronic devices would even have powered up.

*Snickers* I almost wanted to reply "Yeah, we learned that in primary school".

Sounds like you had an overheat or a hardware failure last night, probably hard drive failure in my opinion based on blue-screens and restarts and slow loads. That or the RAM is overheating. If you computer restarts with NO warning, then either your processor or video card are overheating.

[Solos]

If some ******* set off an EMP in your living room, none of your electronic devices would even have powered up.

I didn't really think someone brought an EMP into my house.:p


I was planning on getting a new desktop anyway, this is just another reason. This is what i've sort of decided on. I haven't kept up with hardware since i built my last desktop 3 years ago so any input is appreciated.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-146-IN)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-061-GI)
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-029-EA)
Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C5 Dual Channel Kit (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-084-CR)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 400GB ST3400620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-083-SE)
Samsung SH-S183ABEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter (Black) (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-086-SA)
Sony Floppy Drive - Black (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-001-OK)
Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case - EarthWatts 500W PSU (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-073-AN)
Hyundai ImageQuest N91W 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-049-HY)
Logitech Deluxe Keyboard (Black) - OEM (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=KB-088-LG)

(I already have a mouse)

I'm not sure what cables i'll need for it. I remember needing to buy a special power cable for the SATA harddrive i got last time separate, do they still not include that?
Also what about the monitor? I've never bought an LCD monitor before so i wasn't really sure on this.
I think i have some 3 year old Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste somewhere. Does it settle or go off or anything or will this be ok to use?



EDIT:
*Snickers* I almost wanted to reply "Yeah, we learned that in primary school".

Sounds like you had an overheat or a hardware failure last night, probably hard drive failure in my opinion based on blue-screens and restarts and slow loads. That or the RAM is overheating. If you computer restarts with NO warning, then either your processor or video card are overheating.

I used an XP boot disk and it showed that the entire partition was empty. I couldn't see any way to fix it so just deleted it and did a fresh install. The partition with the recovery stuff is still there and all the files seem to be ok, I'm just not sure if i can revert to factory settings from it. Also it wouldn't recognise the product key so it isn't ideal. I can get a boot disk to restore it to factory settings from the manufacturer so i'll probably do that.

Also I think it was restarting because of some BIOS setting. I remember I used to have a computer which did that too.

[Blackbat]

First thing I always ask when I go to a client site and something like this happens.

"What has changed in the past 2-3 days?"

Overheating could be the problem but it's usually fairly obvious and if it had in fact overheated you wouldn't be able to boot at all. Overheating doesn't happen one moment and then go away the next, if a fan fails, it fails and the overheating is constant from that point on.

HDD failure is common though, which might be the case. But again, it sounds like you were able to reformat it and start using it again so that makes me think otherwise. Especially since the entire partition was empty when you went through the setup screen.

My guess is:

Boot Sector virus.

What do I win, bitches?

[Solos]

I just realised i missed out a rather major point. The night before it froze and I had to turn it off by removing the battery before i went to bed. I'm pretty sure that had something to do with it.

[Blackbat]

So it froze and you yanked the battery out? You couldn't do a soft reboot?

There are usually 2 kinds of crashing/freezing and for the most part they can be narrowed down to 2 kinds of failures.

The first failure is the one that requires a hard reboot. By that I mean pulling the power cord or flipping the power supply toggle button to reboot it. These kinds of failures are usually hardware related.

The second one is the one that requires a soft boot. Meaning that a ctrl+alt+delete or by pressing the main power button will reboot it. These are usually software failures, incompatible drivers, memory leaks, etc...

Still sounds like a master boot record virus to me.

[Solos]

I remember trying to turn it off by holding the power button in. I might not have held it in long enough though, I can't remember. I was tired and rather angry at it freezing in the middle of an arena fight. Now that I think about it it looked like it had dropped to 640*480 and 8 bit color or something right before it froze. I've left it running a few hours now and it hasn't had any problems. I haven't tried it with anything that would tax the video card yet though.