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  • #2241142

    Computer weird after power failure…

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    by alexoftennis ·

    My computer was on during a power outage and when I turned it back on it wasn’t the same…?
    During the outage the power went off for about 3 seconds on for about 1 second and off for about 30 minutes, this happened when my computer was on. When the power came back up I turned on the computer and everything loaded well but when I tried to open Firefox it said there was an error. I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it but it still didn’t work. The next day when I turned my computer on more error messages occurred. Not only did Firefox not work but Internet Explorer doesn’t either, in fact most of my programs couldn’t run! Including my games like Halo 2, and Age of Empires III. When turning on the computer I keep getting LogonUIexe_Bad Image and C:\Windows\sysyem32\rtutlis.dll, WFWIZ_vistaexe_Bad Image, C:\Windows\system32\avicap32.dll just to name a few. I ran a virus scan but that didn’t help and now when I click on my start menu it won’t open. I ran a system restore and it still didn’t fix anything. It’s at the point where almost nothing works and error messages pop up everywhere. I backed up my files but don’t know what’s next

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    • #2644513

      Clarifications

      by alexoftennis ·

      In reply to Computer weird after power failure…

      Clarifications

    • #2644492

      RE: Computer weird after power failure

      by rob miners ·

      In reply to Computer weird after power failure…

      Try running the SFC tool to see if it is a corrupt rtutils.dll file.
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833/en-us

      If that dosn’t work try the Startup Repair Tool.
      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925810/

    • #2644474

      Hardware Problem?

      by thechas ·

      In reply to Computer weird after power failure…

      I suspect that you have a hardware problem.

      Power glitches don’t usually scramble a hard drive unless the PC is in the process of writing to the drive when the glitch happens.

      I suspect that the power supply passed on a surge and your motherboard is now slightly damaged.

      Another thing to consider is if the power glitch was during a lightning storm, the surge could have come in through modem or network connections.

      Based on the age of the PC, you need to determine if you want to look into repair or replacement.

      If you want to perform repair and hardware diagnostics, the easy way is to swap parts.
      Start with the power supply. Then, the CPU and RAM.
      If this was during a lightning storm, I would swap the modem and or NIC first though.
      Still not working? That leaves you with the motherboard.

      Chas

    • #2644440

      You should seriously invest in a good UPS if you have power issues

      by maniacman ·

      In reply to Computer weird after power failure…

      Don’t simply use them cheap $5 power strips if that’s what you’re using. A good UPS would have prevented this from happening. You may need to perform an inplace repair of your XP installation if you have too many corrupt files on your hard drive, but first, run diags on the hard drive to ensure that it’s not damaged after the power spike.

    • #2644408

      Same experience

      by mjd420nova ·

      In reply to Computer weird after power failure…

      My last encounter was just last night and it was a non-event. In the past however, it took a few happenings for the cure to sink in. In one case, the unit was saving a large .jpg format photo almost 20MB in size. It corrupted the photo and the MBR on the drive, besides whacking out the OS to the extent of having to do a fresh install from a back-up. I use a 1.7 KVA UPS unit that will power the CPU’s and modem and router for almost an hour and then will trigger an orderly shut down before dumping the UPS for extended outage. Not over thirty minutes is the normal but it’s really the repeated power on attempts that will knock out some fuses and around here they try three times before taking it down for good and looking for a full fault. That can cause all sorts of damage and the accompanied current surges are devastating to capacitors and voltage regulators. This will cause all sorts of faults and the first would be to do a repair of the OS and then a checkdisk to find lost sectors. A defrag would be best at that point to compact and tighten up the files as close to each other as possible. Even a small UPS of just 200 VA will give you enough time to shut down when the lights go out. Once the OS gets corrupted in some areas, this would cause a progresive advance of errors and strange unworking or non-responding hardware aspects.

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