Mauve Has Computer Problems. Help Please?

[mauve]

Mauve's List O' Computer Problems She Can't Figure Out

or

Best Buy's Geek Squad are Assholes

or

Mauve Types Too Much

I have two computers that are having problems; one is connected to the internet and the other is not. Best Buy's Geek Squad likes to brush me off because I'm a girl and apparently am too stupid to know what I'm talking about (F*CK YOU GEEK SQUAD), and since I can't bring my dad with me (to be the obligatory male apparently necessary to get the damn computer looked at) until next weekend, I was hoping you guys might have some suggestions in the meantime. It really sucks having only one computer repair place within an eighty mile radius of my house.

So if anybody can offer some hints into either of these two problems, I'd appreciate it!


PROBLEM ONE: MAUVE'S PC HAS ODD GRAPHICS BUG

My video card is an NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT. The computer is a Gateway FX4710. It is about two years old.

This computer is having what I believe to be graphics card-related issues. About a month ago, Left 4 Dead 2 started having an odd problem in which the screen would freeze mid-game, the audio would loop, and the screen would be riddled with neon-green lines and spots. The problem happened more and more frequently, to the point where it would freeze within ten or fifteen minutes every time the game was played. Eventually the problem began to spread to other games as well. Prior to this, the games had all run perfectly on the machine.

Geek Squad suggested it might be a driver issue. Since I had the computer there, they updated the drivers for my video card for me, and that seemed to solve the problem... for about a week. It ran beautifully for that whole week, but by Saturday? Bam. Green lines. AAaaaaand after the green lines ran for a few minutes, the monitor flashed an error message saying there was no video signal.

So I brought it back to Geek Squad and left it there for a few hours. When I came back, they then said they couldn't diagnose video card problems in the store and they'd have to ship it elsewhere to get it fixed. They couldn't even tell me if it WAS a video card problem. They DID, however, find time to access my password-protected Steam account somehow, without my permission and while I wasn't in the store, and played my personal copy of Left 4 Dead for a while "to make sure the drivers worked." When I asked them how the hell they got into my account without my password, they told me that "it logged in by itself." I took the computer home.

Unfortunately, I think I'm gonna have to let them ship it away for a week since the problem hasnt' gotten any better. Any idea what's going on? Any suggestions before I pay these assholes more money to play my video games?


PROBLEM TWO: MAUVE'S SISTER HAS A PC AND IT IS RUNNING SLOW

Mauve's sister has an older HP, which runs Windows XP. It is NOT connected to the internet. It's got plenty of available memory.

It's normally the best-behaved and fastest of all our computers. Until Friday, that is. She scanned some old floppy disks to make sure they were empty before she threw them away, and the next time she booted up the computer, she saw an odd black screen with a white loading bar at the bottom. After that, it started taking longer to start up and was running certain programs slower than usual. She opened the task manager to monitor what was going on, and noticed EVERYTHING was running slower.

She hasn't installed any new programs on the computer. She says it doesn't need to be defragged, and she doesn't think there's any bloatware slowing it down.

Our good friends at Geek Squad ran a virus scan and found nothing, so they decided to disable a bunch of her startup processes (without asking my sister's permission or telling her WHAT they were disabling and how to reverse it) and called it a day. She asked them what they turned off, to which they replied, quote, "Stuff you don't need."

This boosted the speed slightly, but it's still slower than it was three days ago.


Any suggestions?

[Doc ock rokc]

OK First off I think the connection on you video card might be messed up a little. Its fully possible that the Card might have overheated. So if you can do this for me. Open up your computer so you can see everything on the inside and take a Picture of the video card for me. If the card's connections got shifted its a easy fix you just keep some exposed skin touching the case and pull out and plug back in the car. be sure to hold the edges and be sure to disconnect EVERYTHING and have it UNPLUGED when you do so (sorry I have to warn this last time I gave advise over the internet the moron did it while the thing was plugged in)
However I would like a Picture to check for Discoloration. If your card isn't the standard color its been overheated and needs to be replaced.

On your sisters thing it could very well be some malware slipped in or the flops had some start up codes in there. Could you take a Picture of the Screen before the thing starts up for me? this could actually help out.

[Nikose Tyris]

Video card is dusty. Take it out; canned air it, then put it back in.

That SHOULD fix it.

Sister's computer has a pretty standard XP-wakeup with that white bar. I've seen it before- and it's usually from 'sleep' to wakeup that I see it.

Can you double-check for me to make sure it does it from 'off' and not from 'sleep'? HP models sometimes don't have the sleep light on them. Waking up from sleep is usually faster but HP computers have... issues... in strange places.

Edit: I realize that isn't actually a solution on the HP PC. It's more for helping me 'see' without being there. Also, if the Video card isn't dusty/dirty, or isn't loose in the port, then go to Doc's idea.

[bluestarultor]

Best advice, don't bother with Geek Squad. You're probably qualified to join. They don't know shit and a trained monkey could do their job. Literally. Knowing a guy who was in it, their standard software troubleshooting procedure is to plug in a company USB device, boot it up, and click buttons on an interface until the problem goes away. They also have a habit of physically kicking around boxes with computers in them in the back room when bored, according to him. They don't care about your machine and they certainly don't care about your data. They may just wipe your drive if it's easier or they don't know how to fix something. They aren't even obligated to keep up with tech issues. I had to bite my tongue when I was over buying a router and heard one telling a woman she could upgrade from XP straight to Win7. You can't. You need an intermediate upgrade. Geek Squad is the biggest scam in the history of professional computing to the point my teachers have advised me against getting it even as a temporary job because it looks bad on a resume.


That tirade over with, your video card issues sound like a bad connection. Cards heat up, and when they do, they can push themselves out of their slots. The more often it happens, the more they push out. Follow Doc Ock's suggestion on that one.


As for your sister's machine, it could be one of several issues. For one, a stick of her RAM may have died. Check to make sure the amount is the same as always. Otherwise, while unlikely, it's possible there was a virus of some sort on one of those floppies. I highly doubt it, though. If anything, it would more likely have come from a USB drive she plugged in. Follow the directions in the virus sticky at the top of this forum and get back to us on that if the RAM checks out.

For her processes, it's actually not that big a deal. It just means you have to start the process manually, which will happen when you open the associated program.

[mauve]

Best advice, don't bother with Geek Squad. You're probably qualified to join. They don't know shit and a trained monkey could do their job. Whatchu tryin' to say, punk?


Thanks for the suggestions on the video card, everyone. I had a feeling it was overheating or something, but the Geek Squad wouldn't even open the damn thing and look. Personally I'm better at figuring out software issues than hardware. I'll see what I can tell you if I get up the courage to open it and take a look at the damages.