Computer woes

[kerravonsen]

My 'puter is sick. Very sick. But not yet dead. It seems to be suffering the computer equivalent to epilepsy; it goes fine, and then crashes, and then crashes, and then crashes. And sometimes doesn't reboot until the power is turned off and on again. As I said, very sick. But I can't do anything about it until I get back from NZ! (Three days is not enough time to replace a computer). So if my website goes off the air while I'm away, then that is probably why. Likewise if all my mail starts bouncing. (sigh)

Comments

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Wombats' doos. It looks like bad luck is catching. :-(

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

And at least you haven't got a slanderous message on your site.

[kerravonsen]

{hugs}

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

It's so frustrating when technology fails you. *hugs*
Hope it gets sorted out soon.
Does the computer just shut down without any warning. i.e. and not the proper Windows shutdown. It just goes pfft! and the power is off?

[kerravonsen]

It just goes pfft and reboots, yes. I don't use MS-Windows, though.

[(Anonymous)]

Could be so many things ... anything from memory that is loose in a socket and when the heat gets to a certain point the contact between one of the pins and the socket becomes dodgy and the computer crashes and keeps crashing until the heat drops a little and contact is made properly again, through to tiny gremlins that make sure the power supply voltage is high enough falling asleep so that the powersupply isn't sufficient to keep the machine going, and the gremlins are woken by doing a power cycle ...

... I'll ask the important question now ... is everything important from that PC backed up on some external drive? If not, then I'd suggest that should be the highest priority, even more so than getting the PC working properly ... I only suggest this because I know mine isn't (I've run out of external backup space and backing up even 80Gb onto DVDs at 4x means 20 minutes x 20 discs, plus time to do the swop overs etc. so about 10 hours straight ... that's why I need a new external drive!

[kerravonsen]

I expect it's some memory/cpu/hardware thing; it got fixed by a computer tech friend of my fathers some months ago, and I reckon the fix didn't take.

Yes, everything important is backed up, in two ways.
(1) frequent mirroring of "working" files between the PC and my laptop. This includes all my stories, my website and my digital art.
(2) Automatic (cron job) backup of everything under /etc /files /home /root and /usr/local to an external USB drive. Backups are done 3 times daily, then daily for a week, weekly for a month, and I've recently added a monthly cycle. The external drive is 360G, and since my actual PC is only 90G (60G + 30G in two drives) then there's no worries about it running out.

The only things that aren't backed up is the operating system (since I figured that it would take a heck of a lot of space for not much return, since when I get a new computer I'd need to re-install clean anyway) and my music files, which are on another external USB drive (so that I can move them between the PC and the laptop).

I've learned the hard way that backing things up to DVD just doesn't get done; one needs something that is completely automatic that doesn't need manual intervention.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Ouch, much sympathy. We've decided to get a new computer, before the current one (which has developed problems but none of them fatal) collapses on us...