Annoying computer problem...help needed

[Silver]

As many of you know, I used to work at a law firm and now I still do most of their "computer support" as it's a small firm with only about 6 computers. I know enough to handle most things, but this particular one has me stumped.

Anyhow, my boss' computer is only a little over a year old. P4 2.8 with an ECS 661FX mobo (I think). Around December, it started to weird out on me a little and came up with some corrupted .dll error when it was booting up. I didn't think much of it at the time so I just did a standard "Windows Repair" with the WinXP Pro CD and then everything was fine. Then, periodically over the last few months, it started doing it more often where, when rebooting, it'd come up with random .dll errors and wouldn't start (not always the same error though). Usually, if you left it alone for a half hour or so, it'd start up fine and that would be that.

Last night, I went to reboot it because the F-keys were being jerks and it came up with the error. This time, no fixie. Just won't start. A few different errors at start...something about hal.dll, or ntosyskernel.dll (or something like that), or just a flat out "Windows/System/System32" directory error. Tried the Windows Repair - no dice. I pulled the hdd out and threw it in another system to do a surface scan - no errors reported. When I tried to defrag it from the other system, it stalled at 3% though. I also tested the two RAM sticks in there individually and same startup problem occurred with each.

I'm thinking mobo or processor probably, but don't really know an effective way to diagnose that. Anyone have any brilliant ideas or access to diagnostic programs that will help?

He's kind of a high profile lawyer, and while I don't get paid extremely well, I have gotten tons of valuable experience from him and really like to do a good job there but I'm seriously coming up blank.

[Rockford35]

This sounds eerily familiar to what happened with my Dad's PC just under a year ago. Now, I'm not saying that this is the same thing, but the corrupt .dll thing jogged my memory into worry mode.

When all was said and done, a partition of his HD was effed and it ended up crashing completely, even after a full system restore and everything had come up roses, just as you described.

His was a P4 2.4 with some sort of generic motherboard. The HD was a barracuda, which was cheap to replace, but the point is that what you described fit the bill of what happened to him.

Just a heads up, i guess, more than anything....

R35

[Silver]

Hmm, interesting, the ECS boards are rather generic and his is an 80gb Barracuda as well.

But everything went kosher after the hd replacement? Very interesting...

[Rockford35]

Yep. It seems to be fine now.

However, he lost a bunch of stuff off the HD, nothing irreplaceable, but still a pain in the ass.

R35

[Silver]

well, for now, I can still access the drive when I put it in another computer...I'll back it up tonight I guess and see what I can do.

Interesting

[VtDivot]

I'd need to know what .dll's are not loading. If it's some stupid app, it's as easy as killing those registry entries.

If the .dll's are part of the Windows OS it will be a little more compliacted - you may first try finding the .dll's and re-registering them (I'm sure you know about regsvr32 etc so I won't go into that) If that doesn't work, you may need to back up all his client files and do a rebuild of the image or the OS. Hopefully your IT guys were on the ball and they have a usable image already, or they might also be able to save everything that is on the hard disk. Then rebuilding the OS would be no big deal.

[Loop]

This seems very much hardware related, as you describe random errors.
Check out that the power supply has enough watts. 400 Watts at least would be nice if there's plenty of peripherals in the cube.
If that still doesn't work, the cooling system might be defective. When the HD heats up, random errors appear and you can't access the HD whatsoever. So you need to let it cool down a bit. That's what happens to external 3.5" HD enclosure with no fan nor heatsink.

[Kilted Arab]

Have you tried switching it on and off a few times?

If that doesn't work, wait 20 minutes then turn it off and on again.

If that doesn't work, we'll send someone up next Thursday, and they'll turn it off and on again a few times, that might work.

If it doesn't, we can schedule someone to come up and fix it, say 2 weeks from next Tuesday? They're away at a Star Trek convention, but should be back by then.

[bdcrowe]

Originally Posted by Kilted Arab

Have you tried switching it on and off a few times?

If that doesn't work, wait 20 minutes then turn it off and on again.

If that doesn't work, we'll send someone up next Thursday, and they'll turn it off and on again a few times, that might work.

If it doesn't, we can schedule someone to come up and fix it, say 2 weeks from next Tuesday? They're away at a Star Trek convention, but should be back by then.

You are so wrong, it is pitiful.

They are circling Uranus searching for Klingons...


harhahahahahahahaharamamamammrmrmrmrmmama.......

[Rockford35]

Originally Posted by bdcrowe

You are so wrong, it is pitiful.

They are circling Uranus searching for Klingons...


harhahahahahahahaharamamamammrmrmrmrmmama.......

Captain's Log, stardate 2005:

This joke was so very, very bad....



R35

[Silver]

Originally Posted by VtDivot

Hopefully your IT guys were on the ball and they have a usable image already, or they might also be able to save everything that is on the hard disk. Then rebuilding the OS would be no big deal.

Hah, Vt, you know what's funny, I *am* the "IT guy". To my chagrin, backup hasn't been my strong suit lately because it's going to be a bit of a hassle to get the backup running properly (gonna be using Genie Backup Manager with Open File Manager add on that looks like a hassle to install).



On a side note, everyone else here generally gets their names shortened in some way, and I just noticed what yours becomes when shortened.

Henceforth, you shall be known as VD.

[BentGrass]

Originally Posted by Silver

As many of you know, I used to work at a law firm and now I still do most of their "computer support" as it's a small firm with only about 6 computers. I know enough to handle most things, but this particular one has me stumped.

Anyhow, my boss' computer is only a little over a year old. P4 2.8 with an ECS 661FX mobo (I think). Around December, it started to weird out on me a little and came up with some corrupted .dll error when it was booting up. I didn't think much of it at the time so I just did a standard "Windows Repair" with the WinXP Pro CD and then everything was fine. Then, periodically over the last few months, it started doing it more often where, when rebooting, it'd come up with random .dll errors and wouldn't start (not always the same error though). Usually, if you left it alone for a half hour or so, it'd start up fine and that would be that.

Last night, I went to reboot it because the F-keys were being jerks and it came up with the error. This time, no fixie. Just won't start. A few different errors at start...something about hal.dll, or ntosyskernel.dll (or something like that), or just a flat out "Windows/System/System32" directory error. Tried the Windows Repair - no dice. I pulled the hdd out and threw it in another system to do a surface scan - no errors reported. When I tried to defrag it from the other system, it stalled at 3% though. I also tested the two RAM sticks in there individually and same startup problem occurred with each.

I'm thinking mobo or processor probably, but don't really know an effective way to diagnose that. Anyone have any brilliant ideas or access to diagnostic programs that will help?

He's kind of a high profile lawyer, and while I don't get paid extremely well, I have gotten tons of valuable experience from him and really like to do a good job there but I'm seriously coming up blank.

Does the HD run ok on the other computer? If not, spyware can do some strange stuff. Get AdAware, SpyBot, MS AntiSpyware etc to take care of that. If it is hardware, just get a new PC and put his HD into that. I'm guessing his time is more valuable then dinking around switching out hardware piece by piece.

[Silver]

HD recognizes and can read the data on the other computer. Eventually, I ended up running the Seagate Seatools for hdd analysis and found some bad sectors that were supposed to not be used anymore, but that didn't work, so I just threw an entirely different hdd in and it seemed to work alright.

It seems like it was just hdd related and that the busted hdd was preventing core system files from running properly.

Also, running the spyware progs probably won't work very well when the comp can't boot into Windows

Everything's alright now. Thanks for the tips guys.

[Roy]

Well, If i had read this post when you first had done it , I could have saved yah alittle pain.. When you start loosing files and reload them and they dissapear every month or even weeks. Do a Defrag on the HD , IT will almost be the same problem with a bad sectors on the HD and it will ask if you want to move the bad sectors to the back of the drive Well thats fine for a week or even a month but sooner or later it will happen again and eat the HD away. This is very common with Seagate HD's . I built computers for people for a few years and everytime for some Reason the Seagate HD's have problems and i have to replace them. Just something to Think about Next time you decide to buy a HD .

Now, I feel like a nerd THanks

[Silver]

no, that's awesome roy, thanks for letting me know

I didn't pick the seagate though...came with it...but I'll remember it next time this place builds our systems