Gateway Computer Problem, please help

T

tay69lor33

New Member
I have a Gateway Select 1000 PC that I purchased in 2000. Here are some specs;
AMD Athlon 1000MHz
Windows ME
128MB Memory Module
40GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive

Lately I've been having problems. The computer always freezes. It seems whenever I attempt a somewhat complicated task such as viewing flash websites, watching a movie, or even watching music the computer will freeze. Occasionally the computer will just reboot itself without warning. I have formatted my computer so many times I could do it in my sleep. This led me to think that it couldn't be a virus or spyware because i delete stuff on my computer. I've tried updating Windows and everything. I thought maybe my hard drive is bad, but if i bought a new hard drive should this solve the problem? Please help!
 
Occasionally the computer will just reboot itself without warning
Click to expand...
Heat problems? Failing memory?

I thought maybe my hard drive is bad, but if I bought a new hard drive should this solve the problem?
Click to expand...
If the drive has errors, a CHKDSK/SCANDISK should be able to find the major ones.

Windows ME
Click to expand...
There's your problem. WindowsME is a universally accepted, ineffecient, buggy and outright horrible OS (even my Windows fans).

The computer always freezes. It seems whenever I attempt a somewhat complicated task such as viewing flash websites, watching a movie, or even watching music the computer will freeze
Click to expand...
When you reformat, does it exhibit these problems right away or after you've started installing stuff (and the registry is a mess)
 
I doubt it has heat problems, i've had this computer for 3 and a half years and i've never had that problem. Scandisk doesn't pick up any problems. Even if Windows ME is really buggy, I didn't have this problem until recently. Yeah when i reformat if i try listening to music for awhile it will freeze.
 
I doubt it has heat problems, i've had this computer for 3 and a half years and i've never had that problem.
Click to expand...
I figured as much but it was worth mentioning

I didn't have this problem until recently.
Click to expand...
Virus potential? What are the processes running in the background?

Yeah when I reformat if I try listening to music for awhile it will freeze.
Click to expand...
Although I'm reluctant to "blame" the harddrive (seems to easy), that might be a possibilitiy.
 
Yeah i thought it would be viruses too, but nothing is running in the background, and plus i've reformatted a number of times which would mean no viruses. Is it worth taking it into a computer shop, or what should i do?
 
Yeah I thought it would be viruses too, but nothing is running in the background, and plus i've reformatted a number of times which would mean no viruses.
Click to expand...
1. Formats do not mean no-viruses
2. Viruscheck from a bootdisk gives the greatest chance of finding viruses. Second best is to run the virusscan during a seesion
 
Praetor said:
1. Formats do not mean no-viruses
2. Viruscheck from a bootdisk gives the greatest chance of finding viruses. Second best is to run the virusscan during a seesion
Click to expand...

How would i do that?
 
If you've got the antivirus cd, pop it in the drive and boot off the cd... most major antivirus cds are bootable and can do a viruscan during boottime to avoid the problem of boottime viruses
 
i did that and it didn't pick any up. However i made a new discovery, whenever my computer freezes it runs Scandisk, but the normal mode is selected not thorough. No problems are found. But recently i went into system tools and ran a thorough scan disk check and it found a few file errors that were fixed, but Scandisk quits responding when it gets stuck on a certain sector. Is this more evidence that i have a bad hard drive?
 
CHKDSK didn't work, it said
CHKDSK has NOT checked this drive for errors.
You must use SCANDISK to detect and fix errors on this drive.

So i downloaded Disk Checker 2.1 and it didn't find any errors.

By the way thanks for the quick reply.
 
Goto command prompt and type chkdsk C: /F replacing C: with the appropriate drive as needed... does that work?
 
that's what i have been doing lately, but i dont have another computer and parents don't think anything is wrong with this one. I think some computer guy is going to look at it. It use to be a great computer i could play games and stuff, now i can barely go to a website.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top