Ah yea, I've had issues with laptops in the past as well. Some of them turned out to be faulty RAM, others had faulty components on the motherboard, etc. To be honest, I've had 6 laptops in my life, and every last one of them, in some way, died before their time. I don't buy laptops anymore. My desktop hasn't had a single issue since the day I bought it, and it's at least 3 years old.
I guess if money isn't an issue for you, buying a new computer isn't a bad idea. I would just urge you to research and get something that's known to be solid. But if you're not down with spending a bunch of money, you might be better off isolating the issue and if the problem is repairable, even if it means replacing parts, going that route.

Regarding the virus thing, most good virus programs now days have an active scanner that checks all your incoming traffic/downloads/etc and severs the connection when it detects a virus being downloaded, so you really shouldn't need to actively scan your system. If your program doesn't do this, then you're bound to catch all sorts of crap and it will be unknown to you until you actually perform the scan, and then it may be too late depending on what the virus is programmed to do... since it's already on your computer and may have been run.
Another smart idea is using a firewall. I'm not talking about Windows firewall either. There are free firewalls out there that are really good at brickwalling your system so that nothing can get in without you specifically initiating the transfer yourself.
Most people view that level of protection as pointless, because as long as they can get to Facebook and download music they don't give a crap about what else is going on... and they're usually the people who end up needing help when something inevitably goes wrong.

I'm not a Facebook person so that's not me :p
But, yeah, I'll probably just keep that laptop for a bit more, I do need the money for more important things. I prefer Desktops too, but I just like taking the laptop wherever I go, but it does come with it's downside.

My computer won't install Sims 3 properly or play Mad Men past halfway of episode 2. It must be my CD player because it makes spitting noises like it's struggling to load the discs. Can anyone please help me figure out what is a) wrong with it and b) what I need to do to resolve it?

You are probably right. If you put different disks in the CD/DVD bay (that have no significant scratches or gouges) and experience the same effects, there's probably something wrong with the CD/DVD drive itself.

First try to find the most absolutely clean and unmarred audio CD or DVD movie and try to play it all the way through. If you have the same issue then there's likely a mechanical issue. Maybe the read/write armature that moves along the disk has some gunk or something stuck in it and it's causing a problem at a certain point.

If that's the case, it needs to be taken out of the computer and cleaned, or at the very least, examined. Find someone you know who's savvy with computers and offer him a date if he fixes it for you. More than likely, he will not have been with many girls (if any at all) and may even buy you a new computer out of his sheer excitement and joy.

Good luck.

:clap:

EDIT: Nevermind



I need to find out what the make/model of this AMD cpu I have(so I can buy the correct mobo). The mobo got fried and I am taking some of the parts out of the old computer and getting a new mobo, ram, case, and psu for it. I have done searches of all of these to no avail. The computer doesn't run so I can't just use CPUz on it.

AMD Athlon 64 X2
ADAG000IAA6CZ
CCB8F 0741APMW
1916451J70116

Aren't all these 64 x2's on a AM2 socket?
Or am I mixing things up?
Do you know how many mhz it is?

ADAG000IAA6CZ was the line I needed. and yes, it is an am2 socket.

What else do you need to know?
fsb speed probably.

800mhz FSB, AM2 socket. Anything else?