PC problems

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may remember that I have had intermittent problems with my main PC. I guess if you've had any PC for a while you, or someone you know will have had problems with it, but that's another story...maybe.

Anyway, what happens is that from time to time the thing freezes for no apparent reason. Then refuses to boot, or takes a long time to boot, or goes to the restore screen...you get the idea. It's an HP/Compaq machine with 3G ram running Vista Home Premium. I've virus checked it, spyware checked it, etc etc all with no results.

The other day it started again after about 2 months with no problems. Ram a memory test using Memtest a free and comprehensive memory testing tool. No issues there. Got the nmachine back up and running (not sure how) but then noticed that it wasn't recognising my DVD/Re-writer. rebooted, checked the BIOS settings etc, but still no recognition. Got the back off the PC, checked the cables and everything appeared to be plugged in correctly. But I did change the power cable to a new power outlet on the motherboard, and then rebooted.

Voila! Drive recognised. I wonder therefore if I've either got a dodgy motherboard generally, or there's a problem with one (or more) of the power outlets on the board.

Everything seems to be back to normal, so fingers crossed and we'll see how it goes.

As an aside, I'd done some pretty comprehensive googling about Vista boot problems and missing CD/DVD drives, and the nearest thing I've found to my symptoms was recorded here. This recommends fishing around in the registry and deleting some keys - something I'm not averse to, and have done before - and the keys in question are visible in my registry, so there may be an issue, but as everything seems to be working at the moment, I'll leave this and try it if it happens again.

By the way, whatever did we do before Google?