Corrupt Downloads & More

FULGORE

Hi all,

Not sure if this belongs here or in Tech, but I need to get some opinions on this now, since the issue's now worse. I'm using a Win7 PC, nothing spectacular, nothing really out of the ordinary afaik. But for a while I've been getting weirdness, e.g. images not loading or cutting in half in browsers. Then I had a load of trouble getting Steam to run w/out insta crashing. Now I have Steam's interface going all Windows ME on me:


And I can't install anything that requires an online installer - anything from Steam, including Cryengine , EVE Online, etc etc

Question is - is this more likely a hardware or a software based problem?

I can wipe this machine and hope that does it, or be in poverty for a while and get a newer PC.

AtticusMars

I'd guess the problem is with your internet connection, your screenshot is really typical of what happens to a page when the CSS fails to load. Anybody with an unstable connection has likely seen pages like that.

You're going to have to troubleshoot this to figure out where the problem is.

Is your connection slow? How are the other computers on your network? How does the system perform in safe mode?

mats effect

Sounds like connection issues. I would contact your ip, could be something on their end or to do with your setup.

FULGORE

The odd thing is that the issue seems isolated to this machine - my previous build (same house) worked flawlessly, the chromebook I'm using to reply right now is always lightning fast, and my housemate's old macbook has no problems with the connection.
I'm usually able to stream OK, and my downloads don't take ridiculous amounts of time, but they're increasingly interrupted or corrupted - e.g. downloading from Steam. It'll do its thing for a while, then time out, then tell me the local data is corrupt.

I also get annoying things like having to refresh facebook because it'll load in with just empty frames and no content. I'll try it out in safe mode.

AtticusMars

If the problem persists in safe mode then it is probably not software related. If you want to be sure you could try wiping it like you said, or trying windows repair. Make sure you deactivate your software licenses before you reformat... that shit is annoying to recover.

Failing that, assuming you are using a wired connection and not wifi, I would find a working computer, unplug both your computers and plug the bad one into where the good one is and see if the problem is still there. If it is, then the problem is inside your PC. If the problem goes away, it's probably on your network (maybe your switch/cables the bad PC was plugged into)

If the problem is in your PC, my first bet would be to replace the network adapter, if you dont have one lying around you can buy a network card off amazon for like 10 dollars.

My bet is still that its connection related but it might be your hard drive. I had an external drive at one point that would constantly corrupt files, but wouldn't actually notify me of it. It would act as though everything was fine and I wouldn't find out that the files were actually damaged and corrupted until I did something that ran an integrity check on the files, like unpack an archive or run an installer.

Times like these are when it really helps to have lots of old working spare PC parts.

Good luck man.