Ok.. So I'm using Win2k Pro, and the computer automatically powers down when you shut down the system. That's dandy and all, until I installed my printer [hp deskjet 960c].. then some weird things start to happen. If the power on my printer is on, and I shut down the computer, it will power off, beep, and reboot, then power off, beep.. and repeat... in about 3 second intervals - indefinitely. It eventually completely shuts down if I turn off the power on my printer. I figure, no big deal... I only turn on my printer when I need to print something anyways.
One day, while in a hurry.. I just shut down my computer and knowing it will automatically power off, I run off and leave. Little did I know, my printer was still on... and as it turns out, the computer had been switching on and off the entire time I was gone... about 8 hours straight. I turn off the printer power, and it finally shuts down. Hoping nothing bad had happened.. I turn the computer back on, to find out that my hard drive is now dead... windows won't load and everything on it has been corrupted. Luckily, only the partition that Windows was on got damaged. I say damaged.. because I can't reformat it or repartition it... Ok, fine, only 10 gigs gone.
I do all the reinstalling of Windows on the other part.. got everything up and running, installed all the drivers over etc etc... but I find that my computer's speed has decreased quite a bit. I guess it was the damaged partition of the hard drive... making it harder to access the files on the non damaged part... so I get a new hard drive (I needed a new one anyways). I go through the entire installation of everything again, in hopes of getting my computer back to it's tip top shape. Still.. to no avail!
Before all of this.. I was able to watch movies, play mp3s, run multiple versions of IE, and burn a CD in the background without any noticable lag and "choppiness" AT ALL. Now... I can't even run one IE without it slowing down. When I hit the MINIMIZE button on applications, the entire system slows down... it goes into "MATRIX TIME." I think... wow, I guess those 8 hours of on and off must have sent some constant voltage through all the circuitry.. and maybe it ruined a component somewhere.
I'm not really sure which one it might be, if at all any of them. My computer, every so often now, would spike and slow down, as I can see by observing the CPU Memory usage in the Task Manager thing. It shoots up to 100% sporadically, and it's not fun. Also.. I have a 56x CD Drive... that before would actually copy at that rate. Now it takes me up to 10+ minutes to copy the files of a CD onto my hard drive.
Could this have to do with the IDE cables or the memory... or anything with hardware? I'll replace whatever it might be... but I don't want to go out and just buy new parts that won't fix this problem (as I did for the hard drive). Anyone know what might be causing this? It's really annoying because my computer never.. _never_ even crashed before or had any problems at all... until the "incident." Any help would be appreciated!
Here are my system specs:
1.4 Ghz AMD Athlon
512 SDRAM
40gig Maxtor HD (that's the new one...)
Windows 2000 Pro...
Looking at the task manager, there still plenty of Physical Memory available.. Kernel Memory is at total ~40k, paged ~32k, nonpaged ~8k... are those at all weird numbers? I wouldn't know..
I'm not sure if anything else would matter, since everything worked perfectly before.
Anyways.. if you actually read through all this, thanks! And if you have any idea what I'm talking about and can help me out.. that'd be even better - more thanks! This is my second time typing this since I accidently closed IE ...
One day, while in a hurry.. I just shut down my computer and knowing it will automatically power off, I run off and leave. Little did I know, my printer was still on... and as it turns out, the computer had been switching on and off the entire time I was gone... about 8 hours straight. I turn off the printer power, and it finally shuts down. Hoping nothing bad had happened.. I turn the computer back on, to find out that my hard drive is now dead... windows won't load and everything on it has been corrupted. Luckily, only the partition that Windows was on got damaged. I say damaged.. because I can't reformat it or repartition it... Ok, fine, only 10 gigs gone.
I do all the reinstalling of Windows on the other part.. got everything up and running, installed all the drivers over etc etc... but I find that my computer's speed has decreased quite a bit. I guess it was the damaged partition of the hard drive... making it harder to access the files on the non damaged part... so I get a new hard drive (I needed a new one anyways). I go through the entire installation of everything again, in hopes of getting my computer back to it's tip top shape. Still.. to no avail!
Before all of this.. I was able to watch movies, play mp3s, run multiple versions of IE, and burn a CD in the background without any noticable lag and "choppiness" AT ALL. Now... I can't even run one IE without it slowing down. When I hit the MINIMIZE button on applications, the entire system slows down... it goes into "MATRIX TIME." I think... wow, I guess those 8 hours of on and off must have sent some constant voltage through all the circuitry.. and maybe it ruined a component somewhere.
I'm not really sure which one it might be, if at all any of them. My computer, every so often now, would spike and slow down, as I can see by observing the CPU Memory usage in the Task Manager thing. It shoots up to 100% sporadically, and it's not fun. Also.. I have a 56x CD Drive... that before would actually copy at that rate. Now it takes me up to 10+ minutes to copy the files of a CD onto my hard drive.
Could this have to do with the IDE cables or the memory... or anything with hardware? I'll replace whatever it might be... but I don't want to go out and just buy new parts that won't fix this problem (as I did for the hard drive). Anyone know what might be causing this? It's really annoying because my computer never.. _never_ even crashed before or had any problems at all... until the "incident." Any help would be appreciated!
Here are my system specs:
1.4 Ghz AMD Athlon
512 SDRAM
40gig Maxtor HD (that's the new one...)
Windows 2000 Pro...
Looking at the task manager, there still plenty of Physical Memory available.. Kernel Memory is at total ~40k, paged ~32k, nonpaged ~8k... are those at all weird numbers? I wouldn't know..
I'm not sure if anything else would matter, since everything worked perfectly before.
Anyways.. if you actually read through all this, thanks! And if you have any idea what I'm talking about and can help me out.. that'd be even better - more thanks! This is my second time typing this since I accidently closed IE ...