Which graphics card?

bsod

with 4GB of ram and an empty disk, it shouldn't be clunky or fragmented, disable windows update if the boot time is clunky

GolfDelta

bsod wrote: »

with 4GB of ram and an empty disk, it shouldn't be clunky or fragmented, disable windows update if the boot time is clunky

Ok. Thank you again.

dekaspace

GolfDelta wrote: »

Thank you so much. I appreciate everything you say and it all makes perfect sense. That's probably what I'll do. If it doesn't work I'll bite the bullet and buy a new tower with win 10.

I did clean the inside of the PC some weeks ago btw. The CPU heatsink was well clogged up with dust. I've never seen anything as bad. Unfortunately any damage that may have done cannot be undone and could well be the reason why the machine is misbehaving now but the green pixels got me thinking it was the graphics card.

The other things to attempt but require some confidence is replace the paste on cpu and graphics card, even if it runs faster now as cheap stuff is close to toothpaste and hardens and breaks which can kill it early as well as even if it does work cut out or have issues (and higher temps)

Ccleaner is good, I would even recommend a proper registry cleaner, and a better defragmentation software if you are only using Windows built in which is slow and inefficent.

iobit smart defrag is my current one, has a free version which is good, just means you have to manually run it every time.

bsod

two of them could turn it into a doorstop, none of them will improve a thing

GolfDelta

bsod wrote: »

two of them could turn it into a doorstop, none of them will improve a thing

I had thought of redoing the paste on the heatsinks but if I was going that far I'd upgrade the CPU, if one could be found to match. Given the time and energy I'd had to waste doing that however I feel I'd be better off paying £70-£100 for a refurb from E-bay or Amazon.

I accept that, although the machine is well enough put together its days are numbered.

It is definitely running better now though after the removal of that software and re-enabling the thumbs.db.

bsod

why would you, there is nothing to indicate a problem with paste, like there is nothing to indicate a problem with the psu, and there never is, these are imaginary problems in the mind of diy builders that somehow got some traction in the wider world.

If the wheels are turning, it's days aren't numbered, any problems relate to software.

GolfDelta

bsod wrote: »

why would you, there is nothing to indicate a problem with paste, like there is nothing to indicate a problem with the psu, and there never is, these are imaginary problems in the mind of diy builders that somehow got some traction in the wider world.

If the wheels are turning, it's days aren't numbered, any problems are caused by software.

I agree.
With dabblers like me the main thing is to try and exercise the correct logic when a rapid fix isn't available. It's sometimes taken me months to track down the cause of an issue, but I always get there in the end: largely with the help of kind strangers like yourself.

dekaspace

bsod wrote: »

why would you, there is nothing to indicate a problem with paste, like there is nothing to indicate a problem with the psu, and there never is, these are imaginary problems in the mind of diy builders that somehow got some traction in the wider world.

If the wheels are turning, it's days aren't numbered, any problems relate to software.

Actually there can be, I have been building pcs for 14 years and if theres a problem with heatsink it can cause problems with artifacts though by that point most of the damage has occured.

And I am qualified in IT.

Artifacts are more likely a graphics card issue, less likely a virus, and maybe even the system dying.

GolfDelta

I'm very glad to report that my machine appears to be back to normal.