Overheating: I agree. Also, that drive is proably about to croak for good. Get another drive and back it all up.

Personally I like the USB drives for that. You can plug it in to any PC and keep backups of all of them. I also spread the really important files around to all the PC's and my usb "key chain" drives.

Good Luck.
-D

Hi bigboywooly:

You're absolutely correct. I took the side off and the compuuter has been running since 7 AM until 4 PM.

Rob

Hi Darksun:

Yes, it was the side of the computer. I took it off and the computer has been running from 7AM until 4 PM (which is now).

The hard drive is just a brand new hard drive purchased July 28th.

I don't understand how a UBS drive works. I have questions about that and my Silent Hunter Multi games.

I felt the video card and it was a little warm, so that is the problem. I might need to buy a new video card. I have a NVIDIA GeForce 6600 card.

Rob

Check your fans. If any are not running or running noisy, replace them. Blow out all the dust. If you blew out a lot of dust, the computer may actually run cooler with the case back on.

External drives are great for backup, but not the best thing for running games actively off of.

If your drive is pretty new, it's probably going to last longer than anything else in the case.

It's still a good idea to make multiple backups of everything you care about. Skydrive and foldershare are good options for for distrubuting your backups. I also like the USB drive since it's fast to move from PC to PC. Skydrive can take a few hours to re-replicate all your files.

How warm is "A little warm?" Computer chips can run at 130 deg. F without much problem. If you have a remote thermometer, (the kind with the laser or LED dot for targeting) check out the main chip on the card after you run the game for an hour. If that's 140+ it's probably running too hot. Memory chips can be sensitive to case heat buildup. If the case get up around 120+ inside they sometimes start throwing errors.

If you have specific questions about external drives, I will do my best to answer. I can't tell you doodly squat about multi-player. My internet connection uses carrier pigeons for part of the link, so latency is a problem.

I think the problem is with the graphics card, which is pretty old. So, I've ordered a new one. Sure hope that solves the problem.

you can see your system temps with Everest program , for the GC if it's an ATI you can use ATI tray tool if it's a Nvidia don't know never had any Nvidia of my entire life . ah yes once i had one two weeks http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...cons/rire2.gif

Well, I decided to have the "new" computer store in town to order me the best video card that will work in my motherboard. They phoned me this morning and said they are getting me a 7300 GT NVIDIA card. Hope it's a good card. It will be installed tomorrow.

Rob

The 7300 should work fine Rob :up:

I hope it's just the video card and not the motherboard :cry:

;) Thats how and why i built first time a puter out of seperate purchased parts. Couldnt get a fix on the prob until i replaced everything but case, harddrive and fans. Was a great learning experience though it drained my wallet.

I can relate to that. However, I have NO wallet left to drain :cry:

The video card did not come in today. So hopefully it will arrive tomorrow and hopefully, those Toronto experts are able to retrieve everything off that hard drive as I need everything on it really bad.

Rob

I hope the card will solve the problem and that not another component is broken e.g. the mainboard. Also scan for adware and malware. Free scanners available for that purpose. I had freezing problems which I considered hardware related (old disk) but they disappeared after the malware had been destroyed.

I use SpyBot and SpywareBlaster. I was told by a friend that he ws told to use BitDefender but my technician he knew nothing about that one, but used only SpyBot. I just ran it and there was nothing there and my McAfee scan today found nothing. So, I guess I'm okay :rock:

Rob

What browseing habits you have will determine what software you need.

I use nothing but AVG freeware version, Microsofts Malware thingy,
and commend sense.
After 30 + years on the Net?
Works for me.

Hooray!
 

I just heard from the company in Toronto and was informed that they can retrieve 15,000+ files from that hard drive that crashed because of the bad sector.

They sent me a list of all the files they can retrieve and everything I needed BADLY can be retrieved :D .

So needless to say I am very, very happy. But it will take another two weeks before I will receive a new hard drive with all those files on it so I can hook it into my computer and copy the files I want from it. :rock:

I was sure sweating there for a while.

Rob