Computer issues

[Jarochai Alabaster]

Several days ago, my computer shut itself down without warning. When I tried to boot it back up, it refused to boot and said "Invalid Partition something." There was no option to boot in safe mode. There was no option to boot at all. So I reinstalled windows. It worked fine up through this afternoon, when it crashed again. After this crash, it began behaving very sluggishly. Nothing would open, nothing would work. So, again, reinstall windows.

Now it still won't do anything. It boots...barely. It won't open so much as the start menu without lagging to all hell, and it inevitably blue screens on me, even in safe mode. Unfortunately, I'm at a loss. My windows disc tells me it can't repair my computer. It can't even tell me what's wrong with it. I've googled, but I'm not finding anything relating to the issue I'm having. Any help anyone could offer would be appreciated. I'm at a loss, and this shit's infuriating considering the PC's all of 2 years old.

[Ddrak]

Sounds like the CPU's overheating (at a first guess). Open the PC up and check all the fans inside are running and it's not all gummed up with dust.
Second guess is the HDD is failing. Harder to test without a backup HDD.

Dd

[Minute]

Yup. 99/100 times if a PC shuts itself off without warning it is a heating issue. Some fan isn't doing what it's supposed to or there's too much dust in the way for it to. Most often it's #2.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

Ok, thanks. My guess was the HDD...but now it's running just fine. I rebooted it from safe mode last night before I went to bed and when I checked on it this morning it's behaving. I somewhat recently (About 3 months ago) swapped out the video card and dusted the thing out at the time, but I'll check it again today to be sure. Thanks again.

[Jarochai Alabaster]

Ok, so it ran fine for a few hours today, and now it's back to being stupid again. I opened it up, all the fans work and there's almost no dust anywhere inside the thing. It was doing fine, then inexplicably began taking forever to do simple things, like open a window. I shut it down, and on reboot it's slow as shit once it gets to loading Windows. It's getting hung up on everything, and is currently stuck on the password page before going to the desktop. Based on how it behaved last night, if and when I get to the desktop it will lag on everything before inevitably blue screening.

Seriously, I fucking hate computers. I've never in my life owned a stable machine. This was a hand-me-down from the bf, and it's about 1 1/2 years old. Literally every computer I own breaks within a year, for no fucking reason. I had 3 HDs break beyond recovery within the span of a year once. It's not like I do anything to them...I play games and browse the web. I don't download shit. I don't fuck with any settings. I just use my damn computer and it breaks for no reason. At this point, I may as well give up owning one.

/rant off

[Kulaf]

Sounds like a failing HD to me. My suggestion, if you can get Windows to load, would be to run CHKDSK /F at the command prompt and see if it finds bad sectors. Also check the System log for errors.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Alternatively, Hiren's Boot Disc to a CD or bootable USB drive.

It has some stuff you can use to test the Hardware in the computer. (Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools 1.24 is best for failing HDD's, there are some other HDD tools on there too)

[Ddrak]

Open the event viewer: http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-7/ho ... nt-viewer/

Look for a bunch of scary red Error messages in the System Event Log. Copy/paste or screenshot them over here if you see them.

Dd

[Jarochai Alabaster]

PC won't boot. On the rare occasions it makes it to the desktop, it can't do anything at all - just sits there.

So I'm just going to buy a new one. Been poking around Newegg, and their pre-built Desktops don't quite work for me (Everything with high-end vid cards has a 2TB HD, for example. I don't need more than 250GB, but I know 500 is about as small as they come now so I don't want to spend the extra cash on the 2TB), and their DIY kits frighten and confuse me. I can put a PC together no problem, I just don't know what's compatible with what or what rating power supply I need for X or Y card. Does anyone know of a relatively user-friendly guide out there for determining what components to use to get a PC together for the novice?

Edit: By the way, thank you all for the help. In my frustration with the computer I forgot my manners.

[Raelesyn]

Dunno if this is gonna help you bud..I was in the same situation with my PC as you..looked round Newegg and all..had my eye on a nice Ibuypower system but money was tight..so I called my local best buy and asked them what they had that could run EQ and so on...they hooked me up with a nice HP system that runs just about any game out there with np and I went for the warranty..No muss no fuss and I am back in business...

Hope this helps

Rael

[Ddrak]

What's your budget? A bunch of people on this forum are quite good at making DIY PCs to a budget...

[Jarochai Alabaster]

Got a temporary solution. I pulled the 250G HD out of my old computer to test and see if the HD was the problem. Turns out, it was. I hadn't thought this would be a solution before, because I mistakenly believed the HD in the old tower was 50G or something. After a fresh windows install I was able to hook up the bad drive to pull my relevant documents, and the PC's been behaving beautifully since. I didn't even lose any progress on my MineCraft world.
I'll still likely upgrade in the near future. If I don't outright replace the thing I'll at least upgrade the CPU and video card. I'll check back in when I do for DIY tips. I'll have a modest chunk of change coming my way shortly, so I should be able to set up a decent rig.

Thanks again!