First aid for a First timer please

[soul_80]

Hey all, have read this forum alot and found many fixes and tweaks but the problem i have atm is really baking my noodle as it were.

dual core E6750
2Gb Ram (2.66 GHz)
Asrock MB (ConRoe 1333-D667)
500Gb Samsung HD (partitioned if it matters)
Geforce 8500GT
MX 1000 mouse
Windows XP SP 2 (now SP3 but only very recently)
World of Warcraft (ok not really hardware but part of the somewhat thickened plot)

just got this pc earlier in the year, ran fine for a couple of months, then started getting WoW (warcraft) errors.

couldnt track down the problem, tried all sorts have format the HDD, replaced the RAM, wondered if it was heat related at some point so re-applied more thermal compound incase the guy i bought it from didnt use enough and have a small house fan directed into the system to help with any heating probs until i can get a new heatsink.

ayway if i write much more you will have my life story, so i'll shorten things a bit. the sequence seems to run like this.

WoW gives error and will no longer fully load.
When this happens windows also becomes incredibly sluggish, boot time is increased about 3 fold
I'll spend a couple of hours running chk disk, virus scans, adaware scans, tweaking start-up folder, checking temperatures.
Somewhere along the line system seems to sort out,
Copy over a few key files into WoW directory from a dvd i have (something corrupts each time)
system runs fine

...

for approx a week

..


then it all goes sideways again in the same pattern.

this is starting to really get me down lol, please please please any ideas!?!?!?!?!

thanks for your time and replies.

 

[Shadow703793]

Download and run Memtest86+. Looks like a RAM issue to me.

 

[soul_80]

will try that again, tried that before and it came back with no errors after about 6 hours running, RAM has also been replaced since then due to an unrelated r/l issue, would be very surprised if i had bad RAM, tested it and have it come back fine, then replaced it and again have faulty ram ? :E

 

[dokk2]

replace hdd,the fact that you have to replace files ,suggests the hdd may be snookered you might try zeroing it with the manu's software,might get lucky,but personally,a samsung i would get as far from it as i could,check the date on the label of the hdd,if it is more that two years old then the above is mandatory,because you may not know it's usage history,and zeroing it will give it a new lease on life,for how long,i do not know also consider upgrading your video card at least to an 8600gt,the 8500 is not really a gaming card,it'll do in a pinch,just barely, the 8600 pci-e is equal to the 7600 agp,more or less..

 

[soul_80]

if the hdd was failing wouldnt symptons be alot worse tho ?

 

[Shadow703793]

^Not necessarily.

 

[soul_80]

oh? interesting, could be a bad sector or something? how else would random corruption go on? :E

 

[Shadow703793]

Try Zerofilling the drive. And the installing Windows. Also don't get SP3.