réjean Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 Hi all! Happy New Year btw. We are having a problem with my wife's computer. It is one that I built out of 4 old things after a thunderstorm zapped hers last summer.The motherboard is a Abit IP-95 v:1.0 and I think the processor is a Pentium 4 but I am not sure if it is a 3.2 Ghz or what. It has 2 GB of RAM either DDR2 or DDR-400. She is using WinXP but Win 7 is also installed on what I think is a SATA 250 GB hd but I am not sure. When it works it works ok. It can go for weeks without failing. A few days ago I had to run Malwarebyte and Spybot bwcause she had problems online. She uses Advast as antivirus. After the scanning was done I had to reboot and it wouldn't reboot for a solid hour. I tried resetting, turning the swith on the power supply on and off (sometimes unplugging the machine after switching off) but it wouldn't restart. I turned it off went to bed and tried it again in the middle of the night after I put the cat outside then tried it again in the morning but no go. My wife told me sometimes it takes a long time to restart the machine but this is more than long. Anyway I was going to shut it off and bring my computer downstairs when she asked about resetting. I showed her and all of a sudden it restarted. It worked until today but last night her sound card went. This afternoon I unplugged the speaker and tried the onboard sound card. I put a DVD music in the DVD player and the computer shut off. I have been trying for a whole hour to restart it but it doesn't want to. Both fans work ( the power supply and the processor ones). It makes some noise like it is trying to restart. The DVD light flashes periodically. So what do you think the problem is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
réjean Posted January 2, 2015 Author Share Posted January 2, 2015 I just removed 1 memory stick and the machine restarted as if nothing had happened. Could this be the problem or could it be something else? btw her hd is a IDE not a SATA. P.S. Feel free to give me advices or suggestions because we are going to town next week and I'll get a new sound card and I don't know how the machine will react when I'll try to restart it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
réjean Posted January 2, 2015 Author Share Posted January 2, 2015 (edited) Well that wasn't it! Although I had managed to restart into Win XP my wife asked me to have a look because it wasn't working. In fact it had frozen. I tried to restart but I am back to the black screen again. Could it be the hard drive then? Edited January 2, 2015 by réjean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 Réjean, To be bluntly honest with you here, there's just no way in the world anyone here or any computer guru anywhere is going to be able to make any sort of accurate diagnosis about this system for you with just the information given. It could literally be anything causing this. You could have a failing power supply. You could have a failing hard driive. You could have a bad stick of RAM. You could have a bad solder joint on the mobo somewhere. It could be a rootkit virus. It could be a corrupted XP installation. You BIOS ROM could be damaged/corrupted, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum... I know this is NOT what you want to hear, but you need to give that machine up. Just unplug it and toss the entire tower into the trash can outside of your house. Dig up a couple of your mason jars out back in the garden and take some of that Canuck cash to the local electronics store and buy the wife a nice new computer. Really. It needs to be done. You're trying to keep an old, obsolete boat anchor working and useful. You can only do so much. XP should not be used on any system anywhere anymore. That's the bottom line. It's way too old and dangerous. 3rd party apps like Avast and MalwareBytes can only do so much to keep it safe and running. Your hardware on that system is old and tired. Pentium IV? My gosh, man! That processor came out in 2000. It hasn't even been made since 2008. That means that old CPU of yours is at least 7 years old. I know times are hard. I know money is tight. I know these things better than most of you. However, the facts are, you're just postponing the inevitable, my friend. You're going to have to upgrade one of these days... VERY SOON! A Pentium IV 32 bit processor is just not really optimum for Win 7 either, so your hardware has to go and your old operating systems have to go. Sorry, Réjean. That's the best and most honest bit of advice I have for you regarding this machine. Anyone who attempts to troubleshoot this for you is just wasting their time and yours. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
réjean Posted January 3, 2015 Author Share Posted January 3, 2015 Thanks Eric! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 Harsh, wasn't that? You might be able to troubleshoot and resolve whatever issues you're having with that system, but even then, a system that old is only going to work well with a lite version of some Linux on it. It is what it is, I'm afraid. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 I'm sorry but I have to agree with Eric... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
réjean Posted January 3, 2015 Author Share Posted January 3, 2015 I might be able to convince her to run Linux on her next system. Much of her work is online anyway.Thanks for the recommendations! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amenditman Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 (edited) I have had great success setting up customers on Chromebooks and Boxes. If most of your work is online, a Chromebook/box is for you. Do not believe the lies about them not working offline. Do not believe the lies about them not running Office or Photoshop. Do not worry about recommending them to your friends and neighbors, or spouse. The only thing I have had problems with is printing in a home or RV with no other computer available. Solved that with a raspberry pi running raspian and acting as a printserver. Chromebooks/boxes are really cheap, and reasonably nice hardware. One customer asked me to find them a Windows Laptop for $600 or so. After asking them a bunch of questions I loaned them a Chromebook for a week. They bought two Chromebooks and a raspberry pi for their RV and they haven't breached $500 yet. No complaints. Edited January 3, 2015 by amenditman 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 I agree with the chromebooks plus if you wanted, you could install normal linux on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 Hello, My initial thought is the power supply, but it could be any other component. If you have a spare ATX power supply, you could try installing that and see if it solves the problems, but given the presumed age of the system, replacing any other parts is likely to be cost-prohibitive, as Eric noted. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted January 3, 2015 Share Posted January 3, 2015 I just removed 1 memory stick and the machine restarted as if nothing had happened. Could this be the problem or could it be something else? btw her hd is a IDE not a SATA. P.S. Feel free to give me advices or suggestions because we are going to town next week and I'll get a new sound card and I don't know how the machine will react when I'll try to restart it. Could be a dodgy ram socket or dodgy ram. Try turning it on and off with one stick of ram in each socket independently and with two sticks aswell. Or it could be any one of the 6 million other things that can go wrong. Could even be a buggie in the os. Have you tried a new coms battery ? As it is an old pc that may be it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b2cm Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Look for and replace bad capacitors on the mainboard (Abit was known for this problem). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
réjean Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 (edited) Thanks everyone! Dealing with capacitors is way beyond my expertise b2cm. Right now she has been using her machine for 2 days (without a sound card, or a DVD reader/writer, and only one stick of RAM) without any failure. It's when we try restarting the machine that it gets stubborn. Does it means that her problem is not the power supply, Aryeh? I am looking into the Chromebook/boxes but for that price wouldn't she be better to replace her motherboard and processor? Edited January 6, 2015 by réjean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amenditman Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 (edited) Thanks everyone! Dealing with capacitorsis way beyond my expertise b2cm. Right now she has been using her machine for 2 days (without a sound card, or a DVD reader/writer, and only one stick of RAM) without any failure. It's when we try restarting the machine that it gets stubborn. Does it means that her problem is not the power supply, Aryeh? I am looking into the Chromebook/boxes but for that price wouldn't she be better to replace her motherboard and processor? With these new stats, I'd say it's worth a try at a Power Supply. Try to find someone that has one you can use, then you're not out anything. We're still way out in the land of Oz on this. It could still be a lot of things. As far as Chromebooks/Boxes go, no you are not better off replacing the Mobo and CPU. You would still have an old, worn, out of date computer. With a Chrome OS device you would be right up to date and avoid all the OS related stuff. It just works. Edited January 6, 2015 by amenditman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Hello, Power supply and/or capacitors are a possibility. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Have you tried a new coms battery ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
réjean Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 The thing is that right now her machine is working (albeit in a limited capacity) and it scares the **** out of me to turn it off since it is the machine she does her (our) business with. If it were my computer I wouldn't hesitate for 1 second to do what you all suggested. I have 3 or 4 working power supplies, a few batteries but as I said earlier the capacitators are out of my league. Thanks for all the suggestions, btw. @amenditman; Would she be able to run Office XP on a chromebox? She stubbornly say that she doesn't like Open Office or Libre Office that's why I think she would be better off running Linux and operate Office XP with wine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amenditman Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Microsoft Office is available online as an app. Available in the Chrome webstore. Might not be exactly the same, but it is the Microsoft mobile version. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Have you had a look at Kingsoft Office stuff. It runs on linux aswell as it comes as stock on Makulu Mate. http://www.kingsoftstore.com/kingsoft-office-freeware.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
réjean Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 This looks good. The thing is that I don't mind using Open Office or Libre Office. In fact they are the only ones I use. It's my wife who insists on using Office XP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Well OfficeXP no longer gets updates and it was discontinued 10 years ago so good luck with it working with any current file format she opens. OfficeXP still uses the old doc, etc. format instead of the later docx format. Now if she just needs the Microsoft version of Office, you can run the different tools as an app inside Chrome. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 If the wife loves MS Office so much, why don't you just set up a Linux box for her and let her use MS Office Online. It works great! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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