Posted: 10/17/2005 6:26:37 PM EDT
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I was hoping one of our resident techno experts could help... I have a 5 year old Gateway PC with a Pentium III. The operating system is windows me (I know it sucks). I have upgraded the computer with an ethernet card and more memory. I have installed all of the Windows updates. I use Ad Aware and, Zone Labs firewall/anti virus. My set up had been working great for several months. Recently it began to "hang" at startup and shutdown. I get the blue screen of death when I shut down. The screen looks scrambled and I cant read the error code. I have run the scan disk function as well as Registry Repair and the windows defrag program. No luck. This maxes out my computer abilities. My wife says its time for a new system. We dont use the computer for much more than surfing the web. (Less money spent on computers = more money for rifles) Any suggestions (other than multiple 5.56 holes) as to how to fix this piece of crap would be greatly appreciated |
| had the same problem it was a virus i was told called caesar virus or casar something like thath.gif |
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Even without virii and adware they all eventually get choked up with little bits and pieces of old files and stuff. Every thing you do leaves a little piece of itself behind and eventually they start pulling and tugging at each other. After 5 years you are WAY overdue to clean off the HD and reload Windows. You will be surprised at how well it will run with a fresh install. |
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It can be a software problem or a hardware problem. For hardware, when was the last time you cleaned the dust out of it? It may be overheating. The cpu fan might be dead. For software, can you read the bluescreen, or is it totally garbled? The bluescreen usually says what happened when the os crashes. Also try booting up in safe mode. Press F8 when booting up. See what happens. |
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What DoomPatrol said. You should be able to format the hard drive, thus getting rid of the virus(and everything else, so make sure your important stuff is backed up), set up a primary and an extended partition (at minimum), and install Windows XP. Hope this helps. ETA: ARDunstan has a valid point too. Your problem could stem from a number of things. You probably should lose Windows ME either way. |
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Low level format with clean reinstall... if you can find an old copy even 98SE is better than ME. If you still have problems it is likely hardware and not worth chasing down on a machine that old. If it were me I would not buy Windows XP at to install on that machine because a new computer with XP can be had for well below $500. |
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