Time for Vista?

[Prudence (imported)]

Stewie, it really sounds like you might have some kind of Hardware Failure (no not THAT kind of hardware!)... Unfortunately its pretty hard to tell what could be wrong without actually being there looking at the computer. Even then sometimes you can't.

Here's a couple things that I've seen go bad on 5+ year old machines:

DUST -- open up the machine and look inside. If there's a bunch of dust everywhere, take it outside and blow it out with a can of compressed air, or a hair-dryer, or an Air-Compressor.

CPU Fan -- Make sure its turning nice and fast and pushing a lot of air. If its slow and noisy, or not spinning at all, you just found your problem!!

Drivers -- Make sure they are all up-to-date, especially the Video Driver (especially if its ATI -- the older versions of the ATI Video Drivers are among the worst dung-piles in all of computer history). Check Sound Card, Video Card, and Motherboard (ie: chipset) drivers.

Memory -- Memory can go bad too. Easiest way to test it is to download a bootable Linux CD (such as Knoppix or Ubuntu). Burn the .ISO file to a blank CD, then boot from it. MemTest86 will be one of your bootup options. Choose it. Let the memory test run overnight. In the morning see if there were any failures (if so, time to replace your memory).

Power Supply -- The one thing everyone always over-looks...

Make sure its fan is spinning and pushing a lot of air.

Make sure it is not all dusty inside (you need Compressed Air for this, a hair dryer or human breath won't cut it!).

Also, Power Supplies will start to put out "dirty power" after awhile (DC Ripple and/or Low Voltage under load, for all you Electronics Hobbyists and Engineers).

The easiest way to test if your Power Supply is the problem, is to connect a different Power Supply (from another computer, for instance) and see if the computer suddenly starts working normally. Unfortunately not everyone has a second computer they can swap Power Supplies with!

The other way to test it is only helpful to you if you are into Electronics... Simply connect a Volt Meter or Oscilloscope, power up the computer, and watch for any Voltage Drop or Ripple.

As for Vista, I wouldn't get it just yet. Wait a little longer for companies to make Drivers for it, and

for Microsoft to work out the bugs...

Honestly, it will probably end up being cheaper to buy a new computer with Vista on it, than it will to buy a bunch of upgrades and a copy of Vista for your existing computer!!

If you decide to go with Vista, here are some things you'll want in a new computer:

At least 2 Gigs of Ram is an absolute must.

A Dual-Core CPU is an absolute must.

A good Video Card is also very Very VERY highly recommended... Not an absolute must, though.

Look for ATI or NVidia. AVOID the "built-in" or "onboard" Intel/SiS (or anything else with "shared memory architecture").

Without a good Video Card, you won't get any of the new "eye candy" features and some things are going to be a bit slow.

[Paolo]

I just bought a new 64 bit machine, with dual core 2.42 GHZ processors and 2 gig of RAM and all sorts of other pricey things - it can do in 2 hours what it took the half-powered old machine to do in 8.

I put Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 on it and ran updates.

Since the year 2001, I can count on one hand the number of times Win2k has rolled over on me.

4.

2 of those were brought on by VLC media player not liking a 4 gig AVI file I was batting around.

If you can't make XP work, shop around for an old 2000 CD; they don't care or check to see if it's pirated anymore. It won't run IE7, but then there's always Firefox 2.

If after all those reloads and XP still won't work, I'd say something in the other hardware is to blame - or you have a bum XP CD.

[kristoff]

I won't touch a Mac with a ten foot pole. If you're a graphics or photo type, they're great for that but not a lot else. Over priced, and zealously defended by the very few, and definitely not worth their cost.

I've played with Vista on about 5-6 boxes. I loathe it.

XP has been crashing a lot lately, after several years of near flawless operation. I think I am going to try the registry program mentioned above and see if that helps.

Otherwise, this brain-dead sack-cloth wearing puter amateur is gonna just hafta learn Linux

[curious_guy (imported)]

Memory -- Memory can go bad too. Easiest way to test it is to download a bootable Linux CD (such as Knoppix or Ubuntu). Burn the .ISO file to a blank CD, then boot from it. MemTest86 will be one of your bootup options. Choose it. Let the memory test run overnight. In the morning see if there were any failures (if so, time to replace your memory).

If MemTest86 gives an error message it might not be the memory. My brother's computer had memory errors but when I switched the memory from my computer to his, it was still his computer that got errors. Both his memory and my memory tested bad in his computer and both tested good in my computer. It was not a speed issue either because my motherboard was faster and had a faster front side buss speed.

[bobov (imported)]

You guys are scaring me! My old XP machine is dying - repeated reboots, which a Microsoft expert concluded was a motherboard memory failure after 8-10 hours working with me. So I ordered an all new system with Vista Premium, and I'm reading here that it might still crash often. My old machine never crashed in 6 years until now. If the new one is bad, I'll have to decide between jumping off a tall building and pills. Say it ain't so!

[BossTamsin (imported)]

I don't want to say that crashes are not a problem in Vista, simply because if I do, I'm sure the MS gods will hear, and I'll be crashing every 10 mins.

Just do NOT go 64-bit with Vista. The software is nowhere near mature enough. For instance, I'm using a 64-bit version of Thunderbird. Every other time I try to write, reply, or forward a piece of mail, the program crashes.

Despite that, I'm surprised by how rarely a crashing piece of software takes down the whole system. Sure some programs may crash more, but the system seems to absorb it better than XP did. Now if only it ran faster...

[Paolo]

Bobov,

Get yourself a new machine with a "nude" hard drive then, and put XP back on it. If it continues to roll over on you, find another XP CD. XP support will continue for a few more years, just as patches for 2000 are.

[confuzed (imported)]

Are you using a late-model machine with a Vista upgrade, or are you using an older system? I'd never dream of trying to put Vista on this thing. My experience with XP is that when it fails, it fails BIG, and with no warning. My hopes are that Vista's a little less failure prone, or that it has better safety nets than XP's System Restore Points (which completely disappear if something mysteriously pisses off your system's registry).

It's my own PC that I built myself. It has Athlon 64bit 3000+ processor and 1023 MB of ram at the moment. I usually rebuild it every year with all the new technology, but its really over due an upgrade. Sounds like yours does too.

Confuzed

[stewie69 (imported)]

After about the third major crash, my system wouldn't format the hard drive, saying the disk may be damaged (back in November). OK, fine, I use this thing pretty hard, and it was then almost five years old. So, I replaced the hard drive and re-installed XP (and everything else). Yeah, I'll admit it was kinda dusty inside the case, but I blew all the crud out before I put the new drive in. Anyway, it seemed just fine for a while, then the failures came back. When it told me last weekend that my new hard drive couldn't be formatted, I was furious. After several attempts, it finally formatted, and everything went smoothly after that. (After all, I'm here ) Sadly, I just don't trust the thing anymore. I don't really need a system that does more, just one that doesn't fail. I can't be alone in this. Other folks gotta be bitching about this. MS has committed to XP for what? - another two years? Maybe there's still a fix on the horizon. (A guy can dream, can't he?...)

[bobov (imported)]

I've been using Vista Premium on my new HP for a few days, and it seems fine. Maybe part of the secret is using hardware and software that are certified for Vista. Trying to fit Vista into an older system might lead to troubles.