[smarmyprince]

Now of course, I have absolutely no clue on how computers work, so if my ignorance is total, please be patient.

So, I have an eMachine (mistake) running Vista. According to my highly tech savvy uncle, eMachines are prone to freezeups, which occur occasionally for me. Not a big deal, it freezes for a minute or two and then catches up. My problem was that today, I was in a rush so I tried things an idiot who knew nothing about computers would do (press the windows button, escape a couple of times, ctrl/alt/delete). It unlocked eventually and I locked the computer and went for a shower.

When I came back, the computer was off and when I restarted, things were wonky. In addition to some minor visual differences, apparently my computer switched to software rendering mode. According to system popup windows that appear when I start some programs, that's a bad thing and hardware acceleration should be on. I checked and it claims to be on.

I updated using windows update and I updated my nvidia and directx software but I still can't seem to fix this.
(I'm on a GeForce 6150SE, so I shouldn't have defective hardware)

Oh wonderful tech savvy people, can you help me? Is there even a problem that needs to be fixed?

I realize more information may be needed, so tell me what and I'll get it up here.

Thanks!

[J_A_X]

This could be a driver problem, but I have a feeling that your power supply needs replacing. From experience, when a system goes wonky for no apparent reason on the hardware level, it's often the PSU not outputting enough watts or doesn't have a very good voltage level.

[smarmyprince]

Weirdest thing.

I did nothing and it somehow got fixed. If it's a power supply issue, could it have just been a temporary drop?

[Mizafim]

Power supplies can be all over the place. Had a problem with mine on an old computer, and my computer would get to the point where it didn't even boot. Problem? Once my hard drive got enough shit on it, it'd stop getting enough power to access properly. Reformatting worked, so I kept thinking it was some kind of software issue, but ended up being the PSU.

[J_A_X]

Weirdest thing.

I did nothing and it somehow got fixed. If it's a power supply issue, could it have just been a temporary drop?

Any 'temp' drop means it's either going to die or a bad PSU to start with. There are utilities out there for this kind of stuff.

Check out speedfan: http://www.almico.com/speedfan437.exe

Download and install. There's a section for your computer voltage. You can do logs. It should stay at 5v +- 0.1, amps should never change. If you see it changing too much, change PSU quickly before it blows a circuit in your comp.

[yoshida]

Could Vista have gone into sleep mode? The machine, like me, has trouble waking up properly in several random occasions.