Norman Verona Posted March 18, 2013 Author Share Posted March 18, 2013 It's not memory. I have downloaded Malware Bytes and run it. It found numerous problems. I'll leave it now until the morning. If the machine is OK in the morning I'll call it a job done. Thanks all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 Blue screen of death this morning. bad_pool_header. I'll take it apart later, clean all the contacts and reset everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Hate to say this norm but my new Dell laptop keep BSOD-ing with bad_pool_header last year, and all the IT boys said they could do to stop it was reload the OS (in this case XP) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 That's my thoughts. Still I'm about to shut down and clean so we'll see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhouse Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 It soundsa s if a clean install is the best way forward. Before you go to that extreme it might be worth booting with the Windows disc in the optical drive. Press the F8 key until you get a screen of options and select 'repair my pc'. Then cross your fingers and open a bottle of your finest red... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 Brian, that's next. I opened it up and thought that's not too bad, not too much dust. Got the small vacuum cleaner and starting cleaning. Then noticed the CPU fan. It's mounted on a large alloy heat sink and I couldn't see through it. I took the assembly off and with a screwdriver lifted the carpet of dust. Vacuumed it all up and cleaned it with a duster and vacuumed some more. Then removed the memory cards, cleaned the slots and contacts with switch cleaner and reseated. Then removed the power supply, opened it up and cleaned that. The machine is now sitting by the side of me and is completely silent. Now I can't hear it at all I think I could hear the fan running all the time before. However I can't be sure as it's not something you really notice. Time will tell. Just a postscript but supplying car dealers with computers I've seen some machine with so much dust that you couldn't see any of the boards and it took an airline to blow the dust away. These weren't PC's but NCR Towers (we now supply PC servers but most our customers are hosted on our server and run over the net). I must say it's much better now with most dealerships having very clean areas to house their computers but we do still have PC's in the workshop for technicians to log on and off jobs and request additional work. They tend to be renewed every 18 months to 2 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 Yeah, have seen similar; one of our commercial clients is a courier firm. (They do the last local loop of the collection/delivery service). So basically a large warehouse with front roller doors permanently open and constant movements from fleets of large Transit size vans, plus all the loading/unloading. The PC on the warehouse floor just vacuums all the dust and crud out of the air, the machines in the main office are hardly much better as the door into the warehouse is usually open. Take the side panels off and it looks like someones wrapped the interior in a grey fir coat. And everything has a grotty film of diesel exhaust/oil over it. A site we always make sure to wear "work" clothes for rather than best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 19, 2013 Author Share Posted March 19, 2013 Oh well it just died again. So it'll be try and repair in the morning after which a full reload. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 20, 2013 Author Share Posted March 20, 2013 Simon advises to buy and disk and a caddy and reload the new disk and then copy everything off the old disk. Make sense. But I'll probably have to repurchase all my paid for software unless I can find the serial numbers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 20, 2013 Author Share Posted March 20, 2013 New 2tb disc and disc caddy ordered. I've got a few of the serial numbers off the machine. The disc and caddy should be here by Friday so I'll fit the new disc and reload everything on Sunday. I suppose I can use the old disc in the caddy as a external backup. At the moment I have an ancient Iomega external disc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhett Turner - Black Country AO Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 Norm, Depending upon your machine you may be able to leave the disk inside and install on the new disk.If you have not already I have always found it beneficial to separate your documents (windows 7 - users folder, XP - documents and settings ) on a separate drive (That could be a physically different drive or a separate partition) from your software. This means that when rebuild times comes your really important stuff is separated from programs and the rebuild process is more straightforward and the risk of loosing something important is reduced. Rhett Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 BTW, who is PC Problems? Sounds like a very unfriendly copper to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 20, 2013 Author Share Posted March 20, 2013 Scott, he reports to Sergeant Trouble. Rhett, I've always had 2 disks up to now. As you say keeping the programmes and os separate from the more dynamic documents and pictures. But with 2 terabytes it's not necessary. I will partition it into drives C and D. This machine has 300 gb disk and it's nowhere near half full. With 2000 gb it'll be empty! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mid life crisis Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 Not sure if this will help you Norman www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted March 20, 2013 Author Share Posted March 20, 2013 Mid life. I downloaded it and it found the key to Windows 7 and winzip. Very good but I have both of them. Thanks, sorry it didn't do more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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