Today, I rebooted my computer normally after I lost internet (if I don't reboot, the computer encounters a serious error and automatically reboots, probably because of a conflict with the LAN card, or so I heard). Upon reboot, though, the computer initiated Checkdisk. I let it go through since, in the past, it never found errors. But this time it did. It deleted several corrupt files (the only one I wrote down was attribute record 128, " " and record segment 227377). It also recovered orphaned files and reinserted data for 227377. The computer loaded up fine, but the fact that it found several corrupt files has me worried.
Recently, for the past few months, this computer has been suffering from issues. The first issue was when I was downloading from Softpedia. While nothing happened the first many times I downloaded, on one occassion, it caused Opera to freeze up and Panda to go nuts, forcing me to reboot. For a while, this problem persisted, striking when I was either in the Transfers section of Opera or in My Documents, where I saved the files, until I got a cheaper version of Panda. Although, due to the problems from earlier, I've been wary of going into My Documents or using Opera to download.
The next issue that occurred was when I had installed Zone Alarm and Panda Cloud. Upon installing it, files would stop opening after a certain amount of time, forcing me to force a reboot just to continue using the computer. I eventually uninstalled Zone Alarm and tried install a trial of the latest Panda, but it wouldn't let me update. Despite multiple tries, it didn't work, so I put on AVG and turned Windows Firewall back on. But now, on occassion, once every hour it seems, the Windows Firewall goes down temporarily, lasting anywhere between a second to several seconds, always turning itself back on. I suspect this may be the result in a conflict likely caused when Zone Alarm was installed.
Prior to getting Zone Alarm, the computer stopped working altogether, refusing to turn on. My dad took a look inside and discovered it was covered in dust. We hadn't cleaned the computer since we got it, so that was about 2 years worth of dust collecting there. The dust had caused significant damage to force the computer to not turn on. Once the dust was cleaned up, though, the computer did turn on. For a while, though, it would reboot, likely because of the drop in temperature. But when I have the computer off for a length of time, it would reboot a few times before settling down.
I'm starting to wonder if the dust may have played a part in the issues I've been having. Well most of them anyway. Perhaps the dust caused damage to some hardware inside the computer. I hope to take a look inside it soon. If the problem is caused internally, I could either hope to find the right parts and repair it, or get a whole new computer. If the problem is not internal, but rather software issue, I may have to perform a total reformat, something I'm not looking forward to.
Anyone have any thoughts of the issues I've been having? Anyone have any similar experiences?
Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention that, when I try to do a full system scan (unless I'm in Safe Mode) the computer shows Delayed Windows Write Error and data loss in $BMP I think. Also, on my external harddrive, some strange folders have showed up, containing Windows files, such as the Malicious Tool Removal. How they got there, I dunno. And the old version of MSN wouldn't load up anymore, forcing me to update to the latest version. Not sure why since, before, I could use MSN just fine. AIM 6 sometimes freezes when I try to talk to people, so I have to use a much older version.