[quote=Padme]Great thread! I actually have a question now. I always format my computer like once every 2-3 months. [b]Is this unhealthy for my hard drive?[/b] My computer seem to ran slow now these days. I need to clean my hardware, but my video card is having problems. If I clean it, I have a hard time making it work again. GRRR![/quote] Hi Padme, Re-formatting the hard drive is generally a "healthy" procedure and helps clear away bad blocks while defragging it as well. I don't think this can cause performance problems to you. One thing you can do is to identify what is the cause of the performance hog. One way to do this is hit CTRL-ALT-DEL , then go to task manager. There will be a CPU column there. Most often the worst performance offender is the one that has a cpu value of 50 or greater. If you do find a process like that , highlight that process then kill it. If your system performs better, then that should be the culprit. Video card problems normally arise when a wrong driver is installed or as usual , "bugs". I would recommend you to check the vendor site of your video card for more up to date drivers. When installing drivers, its usually best to "manually" uninstall them first (software wise and hardware wise). There will be cases you may need to re-seat the video card (hardware wise) . One other check is to go to Event Viewer, here you will see potential hardware and software issues . This can help detect bad drives, etc... To go to Event Viewer, try to go to Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Event Viewer ( Win 2000 -- Im not sure on vista or xp ) hope this helps

Last edited by kabuteman (2007-06-05 13:42:54)