Over the last two weeks I have been having a plethora of problems with my computer. Kernal errors, Skype not obeying the settings I selected, more RAM being used than my computer is supposedly using, and now two programs and two games refuse to work.

It started with Razer Synapse. Normally it starts on system start up, but not anymore. So I figured, okay, I'll start it manually. Double clicked the icon, nothing happened. Right clicked and hit open, nothing happened. I didn't use it much, so I figured I'd just leave it be for now. And then I went to update NVIDIA GeForce Experience... that didn't start up. I tried to open it every way imaginable, nothing worked. So I ran some checks on my computer and now when I try to start it it gives me a message saying that it can't find the specified path, even though all the files are in the folder. So I tried to uninstall it via the control panel, and that isn't responding to me either. So I trying overwrite it with a fresh install of the latest version of GeForce Experience. That installation fails. I have no idea what the hell is going on with these programs.

And then there are two games I bought during the Steam Summer Sale. Q.U.B.E. - Director's Cut and Stardew Valley. I was curious, they were cheap, so I figured why the hell not. Except, while they both install properly and all the files are there(I checked by validating the cache.), I get the normal "Preparing to Launch" window except it doesn't look like its doing anything, and then the window closes and the game itself doesn't start up. I tried reinstalling it, no dice. I tried updating my computer to see if that would help. Yeah, that did not. System Restore? Nope. Windows 7 deleted all my restore points prior to June 23rd so I couldn't back to a time that I think was before all this stuff got screwed up.

I'm just at my wits end here. I have zero idea what the problem could be and its driving me insane knowing that my computer is having all these problems and nothing I try is working. I tried leaving a thread on Steam, but I got all of one reply, which directed me to a thread with common solutions for the games, but nothing in that thread worked either and no one else has stepped forward. I left a thread on Tom's Hardware, but twenty people have read it, and zero have responded.

If anyone has any semblance of an idea as to what is going, I'm all ears.

I'm not a technician, but I know that some Linux nerds don't even try to fix their systems but totally re-install it when they have a problem.

Even if you have Windows, can't you do that ?

Or did you check for viruses ? Have you recently tempered with your registry or something ?

The only thing that could have potentially did something to the registry is the check disk scan I ran the other day. Some files got corrupted so I ran a check disk to replace the corrupted files.

As for viruses, my anti-virus is really slow. It gets to about 42% and then stops dead. It tells me its scanning, but I can leave it go for three hours and it won't move from there, so the most I can do is run quick scans, not full scans. And all the quick scans have found nothing wrong.

Sounds like corrupted files. I could be wrong.

>>3 And did you try with an antivirus rescue CD ?

You can use such CDs to run a scan without booting Windows.
You just have to download an iso file from a antivirus company (that's often free), and burn it on a CD or USB key.

And do that on a clean computer, of course.

>>5 I spoke to a friend and he seems pretty convinced that my internal hard disk drive is failing, which could partly be why the anti-virus isn't working correctly. So I've ordered a new hard drive and a copy of Windows 10 to replace the failing one. All my important files have been moved over to my external drive including a folder full of drivers I tracked down so that everything works on the new drive. It's probably not all the drivers I needed, but so long as the driver for my wireless card lets me connect to the internet, I can just have the rest auto-download.