So...no one else is gonna bring it up?

[notbobsmith]

Has this happened to you also?

No, nothing like this.

[DeadPoolX]

Rath, you might want to do a clean install of Windows 10. Again, in my experience, upgrading from one OS directly to another OS usually causes problems, many of which aren't immediately obvious but show up over time.

[goatmeal]

Rath, you might want to do a clean install of Windows 10. Again, in my experience, upgrading from one OS directly to another OS usually causes problems, many of which aren't immediately obvious but show up over time.

Since you only have 8 GB RAM, it might be that your computer is using HDD space as Virtual Memory RAM and is periodically writing things back and forth to it. Depending on the amount of space remaining on you HDD (and how fragmented it is), if your HDD is near "full," it might be having to jumps to more and more spots.

Either that, or -- based on the age of your system -- you might be in the early stages of your HDD starting to fail; the "random running" might be a warning sign... Mine started making occasional "ticking" sounds for weeks before it finally went.

[Rath Darkblade]

Rath, you might want to do a clean install of Windows 10. Again, in my experience, upgrading from one OS directly to another OS usually causes problems, many of which aren't immediately obvious but show up over time.

Since you only have 8 GB RAM, it might be that your computer is using HDD space as Virtual Memory RAM and is periodically writing things back and forth to it. Depending on the amount of space remaining on you HDD (and how fragmented it is), if your HDD is near "full," it might be having to jumps to more and more spots.

Either that, or -- based on the age of your system -- you might be in the early stages of your HDD starting to fail; the "random running" might be a warning sign... Mine started making occasional "ticking" sounds for weeks before it finally went.

Let me see ... *looks it up* Well, my HDD isn't near "full", but getting there. I started out with 930 GB, and I now have 242 GB left. That's still a substantial heap of empty space.

I also analysed my C drive for errors and fragmentation, but there are no errors, and the drive is 0% fragmented.

It definitely could be that my HDD is starting to fail. The "random running" and slowness issues seem to have stopped in the past few days, though.

What do you mean by "only 8 GB RAM", please? I'd have thought 8 GB RAM is plenty, but maybe I'm basing that on when I bought this computer (possibly 6-7 years ago).

[goatmeal]

What do you mean by "only 8 GB RAM", please? I'd have thought 8 GB RAM is plenty, but maybe I'm basing that on when I bought this computer (possibly 6-7 years ago).

Didn't mean to 'disparage' the quantity of RAM in your machine; I only meant that systems with 'less' memory would tend to rely more on virtual memory / HDD space than a system that has 'more' memory.

For example, the minimum spec for Windows 10 x64 is 2 GB of RAM. However, I can assure that it will run at a snail's pace when compared to a 4 GB or 8 GB system.

Regardless, you have more than 10% of you HDD free and 0% fragmentation, so you're good there.

Unless you can determine what program is accessing your HDD, you recent start-up issues also sound like they mirrored my eventual failed-drive problem. I'd start my computer, the drive would "tick," and the boot process would hang at various stages; I'd shut it down, restart, and then all would be fine: it would boot normally with no ticking. It kept getting worse and worse as time went on...

[DeadPoolX]

It definitely could be that my HDD is starting to fail. The "random running" and slowness issues seem to have stopped in the past few days, though.

You might want to download a program called CrystalDiskInfo. It'll show you all sorts of information about your hard drives, including the drive's "health status."

What do you mean by "only 8 GB RAM", please? I'd have thought 8 GB RAM is plenty, but maybe I'm basing that on when I bought this computer (possibly 6-7 years ago).

My computer is almost 10 years-old (I put it together in early 2014) and at that time I had 8 GB of RAM. I upgraded to 16 GB about two or three years later because 8 GB wasn't enough by then, so I couldn't imagine using 8 GB of RAM in 2023.

My next machine will have at least 32 GB of RAM.

[MusicallyInspired]

8GB RAM is definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel for PCs these days. It's the bare minimum. My last machine I had upgraded to 24GB (because of my music studio software and a couple games). That system I built new in 2011. When I got my new system a couple years ago I went up to 32GB. I wouldn't recommend a modern PC running modern Windows and modern apps/games these days without at least 16GB of RAM and an SSD at least for the OS and apps. Bootup just takes forever without an SSD. You could have a brand new clean install and if you've got your OS on an HDD it'll still be noticeably long. Certainly after you install a few drivers and programs.

[Rath Darkblade]

Fair enough. Welp, I now have a new PC (as I said over in this thread). It runs Win11 on its own SSD, and my old Win7/10 drive is now a standalone (just there to hold data).

This new computer also has a 12th-gen i5-2400 CPU and 32 GB of RAM. Presumably that ought to hold for the next few years, hmm?

All would be well, except that it runs ... shudder ... Windows 11. (The horror).

[Rath Darkblade]

So ... I know it's a year after MI brought up the original point of this (i.e. Return to Monkey Island), but ... I finally played and beat the game!

Yes, the ending is silly. But the challenge itself isn't (and some parts, like LeChuck's ship and Terror Island, were downright spooky).

There are more challenges in the game, I'm sure. For instance, I completely forgot to give Stan his toothbrush, although I knew I should. I just didn't know at what point I could. Also, I know there's an achievement for saving Wally, but I don't know how. Does anyone know?

I'm also sure I messed up some of the trivia questions. Are they mandatory, or just "nice to have done"? Just wondering.