Windows 7, total crap, new OP system recommendations?

[00tec]

Any of you computer savvy fellers work on them for hire? If so, send me a PM willya? Being unemployed I'm gimping along with an old corporate laptop running XP. Ain't much of a computer, but still works fine. It has a bunch of old corporate BS software cluttering up the drive that I'd love to get shoveled out. Basically a cleanout and tuneup, something to keep it alive until we can replace it. Not looking for free work, but affordable.

Also have a Dell desktop that's newer and better, but Micro Center says the motherboard is getting flaky and can't be fixed. I'm a total computard when it comes to working on them.

Take a look at the capacitors on the motherboard. Most are close to the ram. Are they swollen? If so, it can be repaired. I'm fixing mine once I decide to get off my ass.

[Gman]

Take a look at the capacitors on the motherboard. Most are close to the ram. Are they swollen? If so, it can be repaired. I'm fixing mine once I decide to get off my ass.

The caps that blow most often are usually around the CPU socket.

[blacklabel]

How massive? Mine were 45 MB with tons of data, formulas and graphs and I never saw stability problems. Took a while to open them but no stability problems.

Definitely not that big.

[rondog]

Take a look at the capacitors on the motherboard. Most are close to the ram. Are they swollen? If so, it can be repaired. I'm fixing mine once I decide to get off my ass.

Uh, hmmm. I'll have to take a looky!

What's happening is the machine works fine for awhile but then the video display gets all wacky looking, multi-colored and speckled. No matter what monitor or drivers. Micro Center messed with it for weeks, finally throwing in the towel and giving my money back for the diagnostic work.

Could capacitors cause this? The PC doesn't die, just the display becomes unusable. Sometimes a reboot will fix it, but usually not. I haven't even hooked the bastard back up since MC gave it back.

[MED]

Uh, hmmm. I'll have to take a looky!

What's happening is the machine works fine for awhile but then the video display gets all wacky looking, multi-colored and speckled. No matter what monitor or drivers. Micro Center messed with it for weeks, finally throwing in the towel and giving my money back for the diagnostic work.

Could capacitors cause this? The PC doesn't die, just the display becomes unusable. Sometimes a reboot will fix it, but usually not. I haven't even hooked the bastard back up since MC gave it back.

Do you have integrated video or is it a card? If it is integrated, disable it If you have an AGP or PCI express expansion slot...put a cheap card in it. I put different video cards in the kids P4 XP era machines and they all worked well.

[rondog]

Do you have integrated video or is it a card? If it is integrated, disable it If you have an AGP or PCI express expansion slot...put a cheap card in it. I put different video cards in the kids P4 XP era machines and they all worked well.

Uhhh......

[Danimal]

Any of you computer savvy fellers work on them for hire? If so, send me a PM willya? Being unemployed I'm gimping along with an old corporate laptop running XP. Ain't much of a computer, but still works fine. It has a bunch of old corporate BS software cluttering up the drive that I'd love to get shoveled out. Basically a cleanout and tuneup, something to keep it alive until we can replace it. Not looking for free work, but affordable.

Also have a Dell desktop that's newer and better, but Micro Center says the motherboard is getting flaky and can't be fixed. I'm a total computard when it comes to working on them.

It sounds like your graphics processor is failing. First thing that I would do is pull the whole thing apart, blow all the dust off of everything and then clean and re-apply thermal paste on the heat sinks for the cooler. Depending on the age of the computer, the processor and the configuration of the mother board there are a lot of different things that could be going wrong with it. Thermal paste is like $1 and available at best buy and most computer stores. I would start there and then when it is not thermally shutting down then you can move to software related issues.

[Hound]

I prefer anything Unix so Mac/linux/BSD are the answer for me but many things still require Win. Most of the input here has been spot on. You are probably either running old hardware or infected. Either way your gonna have to start from scratch if the memory upgrades don't work. The whole win7 vs win8 argument... I run both and they are both solid if setup right. Win8 is built on the code just a different frontend that takes some getting use to. My password cracker is running on win8 doing over 1.2 Trillion hashes per min and 21billion per second. I have setup far less capable systems with win8 and have no problem. Get somebody who breathes this stuff to take a look if need be.

[Holger Danske]

It sounds like your graphics processor is failing. First thing that I would do is pull the whole thing apart, blow all the dust off of everything and then clean and re-apply thermal paste on the heat sinks for the cooler. Depending on the age of the computer, the processor and the configuration of the mother board there are a lot of different things that could be going wrong with it. Thermal paste is like $1 and available at best buy and most computer stores. I would start there and then when it is not thermally shutting down then you can move to software related issues.

Ive heard of folks using a penny (pre 1984 or whenever they changed to copper content) between the GPU and heatsink to fix flakey video issues. But it would be much easier to buy a cheap pcie card to replace the integrated graphics controller.

[cfortune]

Uhhh......

Do you plug your monitor in the back of the computer near where all the USB ports and such are? Or do you plug it in below that in a more isolated area? Integrated meaning its built into the motherboard. If it's PCI(e), it'll be in one of the expansion slots below the other plugins. I'll post a picture of the back of mine in a sec to help explain further.