Computer problems

[Kyle Raiden]

A few days ago, my house got struck by lightning. The strike hit our TV arial, and our phone line. It went through the surge protectors, and took out our wireless network router. It also did something to my computer. But I don't know what. Before the strike, my computer was working fine. I could play whatever games I wanted to. Listen to music. Watch movies. But now, I can't.

I checked out my graphics card's internal evaluation software thingy. It has somehow decided that AGP was non-existant (its an AGP card). My CPU registers half its normal speed - it should be a 2.1Gb, but its showing as a 1.25Gb. No games will run on my system. No music will play on my system. No movies will play on my system. Every time I attempt to do any of the above, it freezes. Even with a 1.25, the system is more than capable of handling the games...any idea why it doesn't want to?

[Figrin D'an]

Your BIOS may have defaulted to a "safe mode" of sorts when it detected the surge. You'll need to check the muliplier and the bus frequency to get your CPU back up to it's normal operating speeds.

You can check to make sure your BIOS is properly recognizing all of your system's hardware, too. That should give you a preliminary sign if anything was damaged.

If the HD itself was damaged, it would explain a lot of things. But, there's several potential problem sources. Start with the BIOS, and see what kinds of issues you still have after that.

[Alex]

OK. I was with you right up until "surge". I know what you mean, but I don't know where to look for it. Which part of the bios stuff is it under?

Sorry for being so dumb...I haven't slept for 2 days. :\

[Figrin D'an]

Look under the "Advanced" menu, and look for "CPU Frequency Multiple" and "CPU External Frequency (Mhz)" (or similar such labels). These two things determine the clock speed at which your processor will run. Depending upon the "official" speed of you processor, and the speed at which the front side bus is supposed to run, you need to adjust these two options. If they are greyed out, and you are unable to select them, look for a "CPU Speed" option and make sure it's set to "Manual" instead of "Auto."

Also, (related to one of your other problems) check for an "AGP Voltage" option, and make sure it's set to "Auto." If your AGP voltage defaulted to something else, that could explain your graphics card issue. (The other unfortunate possibility is that the card is fried.)

[Kyle Raiden]

OK. I've fixed my processor...turns out my dad never built the damn thing properly, and one of the jumpers was in the wrong place. I dunno what he did to fool the chip into working faster before, but at least its working back at 2.something gig again. However, I still can't get any games running.

I think the problem is audio-related. When I tried to play a .wav file earlier in sound recorder (to see if the sound card would actually work), it said another audio device was open. Then it started flashing corrupt file warnings, which look to be connected with Internet Explorer. I use Mozilla, so I have no idea what's up, but apparently, something to do with IE5 is corrupt. I thought installing the latest mozilla (I never downloaded 0.9) would help. But now, I can't get on the internet. Any ideas of something off-line I could do that might help?

Fortunately, everything with my graphics card now checks out fine. At least there's *some* good news.

[TheHolo.Net]

My suggestion is that you format re-install. Lightening strikes/power surges can really frell up your software and corrupt files are not so simple to find and also not so easy to fix most of the time.

I had a semi similar problem not all too long ago on one of my secondary PCs, but I was quite lucky in that my problems were more defined than yours seem to be, and I was able to fix it after doing some research on TCP/IP re-installation on WinXP systems (no simple task on WinXP), but the post you changed earlier nor this one really have any concrete pointers to a single easily definable problem, thus my suggestion is format re-install, after you back up your importnant data of course. ;)

You could boot up from your XP CD and see if a "Repair Installation" will work for you, but I have never had any luck with that feature myself.

[Alex]

I was gonna try doing the repair installation on XP. If that doesn't work, I'll try re-installing XP from scratch. I won't format the disk first though (long story). Someone recommended it as a spyware-removal tactic, and it does actually work, strangely. I then should be able to re-install drivers and software on top. I should be getting a new 80Gb HDD in a few weeks though, so I don't wanna re-format now if I can help it. If need be, I'll just cope til I get that, and make that my primary.

Thanks for the help.

[TheHolo.Net]

Just incase your problem is in fact very similar to mine here is how I fixed TCP/IP
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. In Registry Editor, locate the following keys, right-click each key, and then click Delete:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Winsock

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Winsock2
4. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.

Note Restart the computer after you delete the Winsock keys. Doing so causes the Windows XP operating system to create new shell entries for those two keys. If you do not restart the computer after you delete the Winsock keys, the next step does not work correctly.
Step 2: Install TCP/IP

1. Right-click the network connection, and then click Properties.
2. Click Install.
3. Click Protocol, and then click Add.
4. Click Have Disk.
5. Type C:\Windows\inf, and then click OK.
6. On the list of available protocols, click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and then click OK.
7. Restart the computer.

[TheHolo.Net]

Originally posted by Alex
I was gonna try doing the repair installation on XP. If that doesn't work, I'll try re-installing XP from scratch. I won't format the disk first though (long story). Someone recommended it as a spyware-removal tactic, and it does actually work, strangely. :lol With some spyware maybe, but some of the more stubborn spyware and malware will fix itself and bend you over even after doing that since its files are left intact on your PC after such a tactic. :p

[Alex]

*is getting worn out from running up and down the stairs between his dad's computer and his, so he can read the instructions*

Don't even THINK about suggesting that I print this off. That would not only be efficient, but logical and easy too. I like doing things the hard way. :mad


Edit:

The TCP/IP thing didn't work. :( The computer just isn't looking for an internet connection at all. It *should* be working. I'll check the network settings while I'm here, to make sure dad hasn't been fiddling about with it again. If that doesn't work, guess I'll try re-doing windows...

[Kyle Raiden]

Uh. Great. Dad's lost the XP disk. Grrr...I'm gonna kill him when he gets home...

[Alex]

WOOHOO! My computer works...sort of. Its strangely quiet...my sound card was fried. But, I should be able to get hold of a £120 one at the weekend...which is about half as expensive as a graphics card would be. And, I fixed the internet (with brute force and ignorance...aka swearing at the router, and hitting it a few times :)). I'm hoping my games will run without a sound card...if not, I'll chuck the best one I can find lying around the house in there, but leave the speakers unplugged. I have better music playing on the stereo in the room next door, anyway. ;)

Thanks for your help, SWFans. And congrats on the job. :D