Man I'm slow. Long time between updates. There have been some issues, though....

Basically, my schedule at work was really hectic (they just changed it to a Tuesday-Saturday, 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM shift), until they gave me a new one, which I like much better. I played quite a bit of WoW last month, but lately have been having computer trouble.

So. Randomly while playing WoW, my computer will reboot. I've been told (and come to understand) that spontaneous reboots are usually due to hardware issues. Windows does have a setting (XP does, anyway) that makes your system reboot itself when it blue-screens, but I have that turned off.

Initially, when this happened, it would reboot and say, "Windows has recovered from a serious error!" and then the error reporting window comes up. I hit 'send' just for kicks, and it comes back with: "Microsoft has a solution for this!" (or words to that effect). I ignore that, and dismiss it as a fluke.

Five or so reboots later, and I'm noticing that it seems to happen when my Hunter character is being played (though different things are happening every time it goes on, it seems to happen when I'm in combat). I decide that most likely what's going on is linked to the gunshot sound-effect, and either the MPQ file is corrupted and haxxoring my system, or something's wrong with my sound card.

So, for kicks, the next time Microsoft warns me I'm recovering from a serious error, I click on their link, and it tells me my Audigy drivers are hosed. I go to Creative, but their site is an assult on constructive driver aquisition, and I eventually just settled for reinstalling the drivers from the CD.

Problem still happens, only now Windows is saying it doesn't know what causes it when I hit send. Funny.

Next step is uninstalling the entire card, and buying a new sound card. I like to refer to the model as "The Audi'Better-be-the-last-god-damned-sound-card-I -need-to-buy!'gy 2." Why buy from a company that I was already having trouble with? Well ... I'm told they're the best there is. -_-

Anyway, problem not only persists, but becomes more prevalent. Now it randomly happens when I'm not playing WoW at all. I figure it's still a sound card issue, though.

Then last night, it starts happening while I'm using Word and iTunes at the same time. Annoying, because I want to finish writing a fanfic, but my computer keeps rebooting/shutting down and erasing all my work. Yey. -_-

I try running just Word, and don't use anything that uses sound on my system. Reboots anyway.

Now, I have considered the NIC card (already been replaced) the RAM (tested good!), the sound card (replaced) and the video card (is Word that taxing to a GeForce 4 Ti4600 when hours of WoW aren't? O_o?). Next in line to be tested: The CPU/MB.

After that, I replace the PSU, which I am not looking forward to (messy, messy!).

Good times!