Please help me save/fix a new PC

[getter77]

Coming to you LIVE from my old junk PC!

Yeah, new PC just had the most horrible and baffling crash the likes of which I've never seen.  Out of fear of making it worse and tremendous anger I've manually powered it down and retreated in shame to this old one.

I was just watching a simple video before aiming to get back to beta work on Din's Curse when it crashed in....awe....inspiring fashion:

-No BSOD
-Some odd, loud beepings here and there
-Locked me out of my Win 7 account
-Mouse went totally unresponsive/unpredictable
-Screen didn't even display said account lock out screen correctly and kept fading to black back and forth and back and forth.
-The keyboard buttons, crtl+alt+delete, Win key...they did nothing.

Now, as you might recall, the "install day" was cut very short so there wasn't time to "test" and "examine" much of anything.  I passed a Memtest 100% no errors, got ATi drivers/DirectX stuff fine, and Windows update seemed to function----past that I know of no diagnostic or otherwise things that pehaps would've been a DAMN FINE idea to run very early on.  My only possible lead is a pair of BSOD's I'd never seen before within the last couple days, "clock_interrupt" which led me to think that was maybe a BIOS issue...but upon finding what I think was the correct board on the manufacturers website, I was unsure what to do as to which of the downloads listed and made wary of the disclaimer that said BIOS flashing was risky unless it was necessary and you knew what you were doing (saw no idiotproof onsite instructions on this process...)

Anywho, I'm in deep water then and unable to continue the Din's beta work, or much else, until I get some confidence/a plan/reliable machine going....so please help!  I mean, Valentine's Day is generally not my day period....but this takes it to an entirely new, utterly ridiculous level.   

[corremn]

Should of got it flowers....

[getter77]

Well, my mother grabbed a 3 leaf-clover pin as kind of a joke gift for me the other day....is that close enough?   

[getter77]

Seemingly back in action, passed all manner of stress tests and BIOS has seemingly updated with no hitches.  Fingers crossed that there's no further strange trouble.

[5v3nd0ttg]

When it comes to BSOD errors, in my experience it's more-or-less hardware errors compared to software. If you're confident your software drivers are all installed correctly, no installs or uninstalls or changes recently before the errors.. don't rule out  the possibility of simple solutions like overheating CPU, low wattage distribution from the PSU, etc. Both of which can cause a MULTITUDE of errors. The best advice without knowing the specifics of your system would be simply: Don't overthink initially. Check the simple things, especially before making drastic decisions like formatting. Haha.. it happens more often than you think.

Best wishes.

[getter77]

Yeah, a reformat would be my last resort....never done before and I hope that to always be the case.  The diagnostic program a friend used checked temp, all cores behaving, RAM detected, and so on...used all the official BIOS updating stuff from the manufacturer, etc.

That said, I raised an eyebrow tonight to just having another crash a few minutes ago completely different from all before:  The screen and such obviously froze but alongside this was a  strange constant buzzing/humming noise that came from the monitor/speakers(built into the monitor) as opposed to the tower innards itself.  So...not sure what to make of THAT other than it making me feel quite uneasy following the footsteps of the rest but I will refrain from despair unless that specific thing happens again.

I know it is important to back things up and whatnot as a general rule, but these kinds of issues without even a BSOD clue to go by do not make for a good working environ.

[corremn]

Umm, make sure you have the latest drivers for all your hardware. 
Pull out and reinstall all cards, try different slots if possible.
Make sure all your fans are working and your heat sinks are attached firmly.

You could try re-installing OS, formatting etc after all else fails, but it still sounds like a hardware error. 

Also I got frequent crashing after I got attacked by a virus, even after I removed it. Its a long shot but anything is possible.

[getter77]

All things to keep in mind, so far no issues at all since then.  :knock on wood:

[Etinarg]

Might have been a random glitch. If you haven't yet, check the cooling of all parts.

[getter77]

A new post in this topic?  Yes, you know what that means.....   

I'd been hanging in there in general.  But, about 1pm today, I had a freeze needing the power button restart----like so many before it.  Unlike those, now things are crazy wrong:

1.  Can't open Firefox no matter what, and neither can anything else.  Fearing...fear...I'm on Chrome right now and tried to at least import all my mosr recent bookmarks(I know, I know....I did bad.  I really need to start making regular backups or some such of them) yet Chrome chouldn't manage it.

2.  There is now a ton of processes, like 40-50something, listed in the task manager at startup...eating a massive 20%'ish of my physical memory (4GB...insanity).  Even stranger, when I tried a reboot in Safe Mode, it was still eating that massive percentage despite being roughly "only" half as many processes.   I don't even have anywhere near these amounts of things that would even use processes---all that I've ever booted with is Firewall/Antivirus...and that's pretty much it as the rest I just manually activate like AIM and so forth on an as needed basis.

3.  System Restore, the last refuge of scoundrels, failed and tried to tell me I had a pirate copy of windows---which I at least talked it out of, I hope, after I was able to successfully revert the system restore attempt.

4.   Of course, still had a NICE little streak of quick/random freezes since all this began earlier this afternoon.

SO....help?   

(I made it this far to this point hoping Win 7SP1 would finally come out and resolve whatever the hell is wrong software wise since having passed all the diagnostic mem/stress/temp tests on the physical front.)

[mariodonick]

I wouldn't wait any longer. Save your files and reinstall Windows.

[getter77]

May well come down to that.  With a BSOD, I at least have something concrete I can Google---with this I feel like I am trying to punch the wind itself.  I suspect the external HD will be getting some use once again in some days time barring anything else happening on the positive end, that and I really do need to get to Best Buy to use a gift card I got awhile back on some blank DVD-R's for a somewhat more....reliable...physical backup just in case.

The little Windows diagnostic/troubleshooting things can't claim to find anything wrong.

Looking in taskmanager right now,  it is counting 4 chrome.exe's despite my only having a single instance of Chrome open with 2 tabs to its name.  The biggest one though is "svchost.exe"...which has 12(!) processes running.   This large amount only shows up with "show all Users processes" checked, which makes even less sense being that I am the only User this system has.

 

[mariodonick]

svchost.exe is a program that runs Windows' background services; I've got 10 instances of that process running (and if I hadn't disabled some of the unneccessary background services, it would be much more). So no worry about svchost.

I wouldn't be worried about Chrome; I've got 7 chrome instances right now, with 4 tabs openend.

That you see svchost only if your press "show all Users processes", is totally okay. Ususally, you are just a normal user, without administrator rights, in Windows 7. To see processes that have been started by the system on its own (i.e. not by _you_), you have to press the button.

[getter77]

Firefox mysteriously works again....after another freeze.  Made a fresh backup of my bookmarks....so now I dunno.  What seems to have done something was finding a "safe mode" firefox version in the Programs menu, which had some sort of error booting...but then seems to have booted, closed that out, then tried my trusty normal desktop shortcut and it is now working.

So bizarre...and still having that 28ish% Physical Memory in use...

[mariodonick]

Which processes shown in your task manager is consuming the most memory? (you can sort the list by clicking on one of the column heads, there must be sth. like "memory").