Possesed PC?
 

If I change the disc in my R/W drive my CPU will restart???? Any ideas?

Exorcism

blame clinton

Power/short at drive? . . . . install another (different) drive. (they're cheap)

Well he did sue Microsoft, Thanks!!! Atleast I feel better:)

Powersupply not supplying enough for when the cd drive spins up, something bad in the cd drive, or something going bad in the powersupply.

how old is your power supply?

My suggestion: buy a mac.

Dang, Mat you beat me to it!

The "Office Space" solution procon. Very nice!

A bad power supply wouldn't kill a Mac? :eek:

Randy

nope.

Macs aren't impervious, I've seen OS X lock up a few times. Personally, I like the cheap PC hardware with Linux. Does everything I need/want and then some.

Of course, if you insist on a Mac, you can do what I did with a G3 based iMac. It is a combination of my mail/web/dns server and I use it for remote X sessions wiht my old POS laptop. Running Linux of course :)

Linux imac 2.4.25-powerpc #1 mer avr 14 15:38:38 CEST 2004 ppc GNU/Linux
22:10:34 up 26 days, 8:38, 0 users, load average: 1.10, 0.93, 0.52

Power supply is maybe 3 years old. Sounds like the likely culprit huh? Thanks guys I'll look into it.

Oh yea, my wife has a MAC and one in the family is enough thanks:)

"Lucy (Mat) you got some 'splainin ta do..."

Okay, I'll bite. Please explain this one to me. I have literally no experience with Macs. I mean, I've turned a few on or off at times, but that's about it. Again, please explain how you can have a bad power supply and not have your Mac die.

Enquiring minds wanna know!

Randy

I think it was just sarcasm... anything can fail, but... Apple controls their hardware so strictly that it's not like you're getting a cheap power supply, like you will with any other winders box. Why are computers so cheap now? You can get a whole box from emachines or dell for $299! The reason is usually they don't give much room for expansion, and the powersupply is underpowered and the gfx are cranked waaay down, etc. Apple doesn't turn things down or go cheap to sell more.

It's really crazy to me, becuase Apple is run by total lefties, even Algore is on their board of directors. Following the leftie logic, you'd think they would be trying to produce the cheapest computers possible, so they could help those who don't have one move into the information age... yet they aim for the highest quality and are the most expensive.

I always wanted to build a mini-itx computer in a full-size case with a window, but hide all of the guts of the computer along the edges... then put a hampster in there with a wheel. It'd be freakin' hilarious, and I'm sure it's been done... those creative nerds anyhow. Where am I going with this, I don't know.

This kind comes out only with prayer and fasting.

Len,

If the power supply is 3 years old, that means that the rest of the bits are at least that age, if not older. If the PS is dumping when you hit the eject button then its past its limits and needs to be replaced.

GET A NEW COMPUTER!!! These days you can get a new Dell for under $500 with a warranty, especially if you do not need a monitor. I build my own so its a bit less expenesive. I worked with a old P400 for years after returning to CONUS but after any computer is about 3 years old, its too old. About a year ago asked myself why I was wasting time with this old boat anchor and moved forward.

Bought a new AMD 2800 chip and motorboard for under $100, 1.5 meg of RAM for $120 and found a 120 gig, 7200 rpm hard drive for free after a rebate. Put it all together with three flat screen monitors and this puppy screams. Had been working with 512 meg RAM for years and just wanted overkill, and got it now. I barely hit the enter key and its already happened on the screen....

Time to look at a new computer! Worked with a Mac a bit sometime ago and just did not work for me. Will try Linux one of these days...

JoeA

Yea, maybe I'll get one of these holiday specials. Thanks guys.

P.S. Is three years really that old?

Len,

What speed is your computer? How much memory and how large is the hard drive? Assume you are running W98 on it?

I really hate XP but its the system of choice these days. I get a computer and format it then put W2000 on the hard drive as its a better system for me.

Do not work for Dell (used to fly him and he knows what he is doing!) but they make a really nice machine, and more importantly, they stand behind their products.

Look here: http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/desktops?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

They have a descent machine for $500 and change with a free flat panel monitor and free shipping. They even throw in a printer for free, so its a nice deal. If you do not want the printer you can delete it and get the price under $500.

Do not spend the bux to get a faster processor if its just for a home system. If you want to upgrade get more memory (the above units usually have only 256 and I would go with 512 min) or a larger hard drive. I would upgrade it to a single 512 meg memory chip so that you still have one memory slot available to later upgrade your memory if you wish.

Three years is about the best you can expect to get out of a computer. You could upgrade it but your limitation is your power supply and its already at its max now, so I would not spend any extra on this old machine. You can keep it and network it with a newer machine. This way you can use the old one as storage and backup and let the kids play games on it.

Joe A

3 years really isn't that old. I mean, it is if you need to run the hottest latest super-spiffy stuff, but for most people, three years just isn't that old.

Heck, my room-mate in college bought an IBM with dual 333's, ran that thing for about 7 years. My current machine is a 1.5Ghz machine with .75GB of RAM that I built a long time ago, and it's more than adequate, still.

On power supplies: a shiny brand new power supply should run about $50. A really super-spiffy one might be a little more expensive. It takes about half an hour to install. In my book, $500 is a darned cheap computer, but $50 << $500. And if you just replace the power supply, that leaves you $450 to spend on the Porsche! :) :) :)

Cheers,

Dan