Computer Advise

Just wanted to know anyone's take one this problem.

I started up my computer last week and it kept looping and not starting (would try to start up then shut itself down and start all over again). I went out and purchased a new computer and set it up. It worked fine until the next day when I started it up, kicked off Norton Internet Security, shut down and started again. (I did receive the blue screen of death after each shut down) When It came up the second time it was fine. I contacted my internet provider and Norton and they checked out fine. I contacted dell and they did a remote diagnostic and stated I had to do a systems restore. Had a professional do the systems restore, they brought it back to the house and set it up and it was fine. The next morning on startup, it happened all over again- Okay so now the say Windows is corrupted so I take back the computer for a refund and fix the old one (windows corrupted on that one also). I have it on now and it is working but i am afraid to turn it off and restart it.

Is is just a fluke that 2 computers failed that way? I know this is probably a goofy question but can the Roadrunner Internet or a power outlet corrupt a computer ?

I appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks!

Kim

stop going to that particular porn site.

Very funny, all the porn sites PJ goes to are protected from Trojans-Ha-Ha.

.. purchase a surge suppressor to protect your machine from brownouts and power spikes ..

. . on new machines sometimes the manuf. decides to install a 30 or 60 day trial of norton or ms office 2010/2007 .. you will know just by firing up the program ..if you don't want the trial, go into control panels and add/remove programs icon.. select the program for the list and uninstall it .. if you surf the internet alot without malware or spyware protection, this can cause problems too ..download spybot, ad-aware or ms essentials for free protection from the bad guys in cyber space ..rebooting issues can sometimes stem from hardware driver conflicts.. if you added a usb thumbnail drive or dvd burner, make sure your drivers match the operating system version/type + either 32 or 64 bit chipset.. for dell machines, to run a system restore (safely), during the p.o.s.t (power on self test), you'll see the dell logo appear, a couple seconds after that the upper right corner may flash <f2> bios setup and/or <f12> boot menu ..at this specific little delta of time, tap the <f5> and/or <f8> key to get a boot menu choice, select safe mode (no network or driver loads) ..enter safe mode, login as administrator (usually no password unless you assigned one), the screen will ,look like block text however just enjoy it.. click on start-all programs-accessories-syste tools, choose system restore.. choose to restore back 3-4 days.. it will reboot itself and run the restore.. soon as you get a new computer, run windows updates over the internet to get the latest patches and fixes .. if you have windows xp pro or some xp flavor, you can also click on start - run, enter msconfig on the box, you will see 2 main tabs of like 5 go into startup and look at the list.. for any "unfamiliar" programs, take the checkbox check off to pervent the service from loading on boot, also under the services tab, look at the list for menacing sounding program names, uncheck the box to prevent os from loading on boot ..

.. btw, leave your machine on 24/7 if power protected, its no problem ..

hope that helps a little bit..

-p


... $$$
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I know its generally wrong to make generic statements or to use anecdotal "evidence" but in 10+ years of having Roadrunner it has never effected our computers in this way or generally been a problem.

Thanks for the responses-

Kim

Probably just a fluke. (Actually, with Windows, the fluke is when it runs well!)

I don't really see what sort of mechanism there could be that would cause Roadrunner to screw up your computer. Maybe if there were some kind of special Roadrunner software that you had to install, and maybe if that software was faulty... but that would cause problems for all their customers, and you'd hear about it, so that's probably not it.

In theory, bad power could screw up your computer. Maybe a surge screws up the power supply. And if a bad power supply caused internal voltages to drop or fail to the hard drive while the hard drive was writing data, then in theory this could corrupt your hard drive. Maybe. Seems like a long shot. You might want to invest in a surge protector/power conditioner and keep your computer plugged into that, just to be on the safe side.

Joking about porn sites aside, it could be malware from some sort of website that was visited by both computers. Or from e-mail that was read on both computers. You'd think your A/V software would've caught that though.

- Jeff

.. true, road runner in and of itself is not a problem

. the architecture might be since it is a file-neighborhood-sharing type, so your bandwidth is shared and if your machine has file sharing enabled and a generic password in your router/firewall like username admin and password of password, then your neighbor could employ a packet sniffer and gain access to your local file shares, even planting malicious malware ..

.. dsl is dedicated point to point connection to the isp, though routing beyond that is likely to be a speed culprit ..


-p


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-p


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