Mrs Aruns told me a few hours ago about a problem with her computer. It’s a Dell and it’s out of warranty, so it’s up to Aruns Technical Support to solve it!
In short, the PC boots and works fine but doesn’t connect to Internet. I can ping remote systems, but anything else (web, instant messaging) doesn’t work - I get timeout errors like it couldn’t connect to the remote system. After a check, I was more or less confident that the network cable is ok (another computer connects to the net just fine) and that it should not be the integrated network card, because I plugged in another I know to be working, excluded the old one, and it still had the same problem. Scans with an antivirus, with Spybot and with AdAware turned up the usual little niggles like FastClick and other web based nuisances, but nothing else, and even after cleaning them up the system is still unresponsive.
The PC is a Dell, it’s little more than a year old, and runs Windows XP. I think I’ll try to run Linux from a bootable CD and see what happens, but this thing really leaves me stumped. What else can I check?
You’ve got ZoneAlarm, haven’t you? It got borked by the latest Window update. Temporarily downgrade Internet to Medium security - or disable ZA - and download the latest patch from Zonelabs.
I double this advice, because the exact same thing happened to my boyfriend. He ended up totally wiping out his computer, reinstalling windows, etc, before we learned of this. Thankfully he backed everything up on CDs, so it wasn’t too bad…
Bloody Windows Updates. They often cause more problems than they fix. Until now my experience with Zone Labs has been much, much better than Microsoft.
That’s for sure. I started a thread a while ago asking if SP3 was worth downloading, and the consensus was that it did not have enough advantages to be worth it. So, fortunately, I didn’t install it.
Since it seems like the OP has his comp working, could I ask a quick question while all the tech types are around? I have a water-cooled desktop running XP, and when it started to restart randomly I assume the coolant was low and that the thing was shutting down to protect itself.
Thing is, before I had a chance to buy and add the new coolant, the computer has started freezing during or just after startup. No error messages, but since the freezing began I’ve noticed that even though I used to have to hit the “power-on” switch to boot up, the system now starts whenever I press any key on the keyboard.
Of course, if it is freezing, you must have too much coolant.
It sounds to me as though you are putting it into Standby instead of full shutoff…is that true? If, so shut down, wait 30 seconds and start up and see what happens. If you are doing a full shutdown, then I have nothing.
Odd behavior. I’d leave it alone until you can add coolant. You can go into the BIOS to see what the operating temperature is.
There are some free software programs that keep the interior and CPU temps in the sys tray, forgot the names now, but you can google.
Thanks for that; I’ll grab coolant and see what happens from there.
On that note, however, let me ask: how on earth do you add coolant to the blasted thing? My documentation doesn’t give the manufacturer name and serial number, and the reservoir seems to be a side-filling model: I’ll take a photo if this description doesn’t work, but the reservoir is a black square mounted to the rear end of the case, just to the right of the system board. Said square has two unscrewable plastic caps mounted on the bottom corners of the vertical end of the faceplate, such that they point across the long (horizontal) axis of the tower.
Unscrewing said caps reveals two metal gaskets that presumably feed directly into the tank, but since the coolant I can buy at the store seems to come in a screw bottle or plastic packet, so I’m really not sure how they expect me to safely add new coolant without fragging any of the ludicrously expensive components that are sitting directly under the reservoir. (http://alienware.com/intro_pages/liquidcooling.aspx seems to have a photo very similiar to my setup: see the blue cooling tank + pipes in the upper-right photo.)
Wow, Omi no Kami, can’t help you with the coolant reservoir problem, guess you had better contact Alienware.
I am sure you have checked, but just in case, when you open the case, if it keeps running long enough, be sure to check that all the fans are running: the power supply, CPU, mobo fan if it ha one, etc. Also, if it needs it, give her a good cleaning.
Excessive heat, as you know, can fry everything, so I repeat, better be very careful about running the thing until you find out what’s wrong.
Hopefully, some gamer computer gurus will show up to help. If not, you might want to start a new thread on this.
Thanks for the help. ^^ And Alienware has been remarkably unhelpful, which I found kind of surprising, if understandable: my warranty expired a few months ago, and the fees they seem to want me to pay for help are really unreasonable. :smack:
Yea, that’s kind of what I figured. I kind of figured something was up when it became impossible to find anything useful on their site, not to mention when the prices started jumping through the roof. >_<
I kind of figured something was up when it became impossible to find anything useful on their site, not to mention when the prices started jumping through the roof. >_<