Computer freezes when hard drive clicks (SSD boot drive)...

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Hi,

I'm having a weird issue with my PC lately which started 2-3 days ago.
Occasionally the whole PC will freeze for around half a second which is followed by a hard drive click, as if the drive is spinning up or stopping.
It doesn't matter what it's doing, desktop, web, video, the pc will freeze for a moment.
It's just really annoying.

I'm using a Samsung 830 SSD for by boot drive so a hard drive error shouldn't cause freezing...

I may try reinstalling Windows.

Any help would be appreciated, thank you.
 
Thats a mechanical drive problem which is about to fail. You need to find out which one it is, remove it or swap it out.
 
OR! the drive has gone to sleep and its just waking up. This will cause windows to halt and gets annoying if you have multiple drives that are left to go idle. I make it a point to disable hd power saving in the power profiles to avoid this.
 
OR! the drive has gone to sleep and its just waking up. This will cause windows to halt and gets annoying if you have multiple drives that are left to go idle. I make it a point to disable hd power saving in the power profiles to avoid this.

That is entirely possible as it does occur multiple times & each time I hear the click noise.
I don't know if it's caused by multiple drives going to sleep, or the same drive dying.
 
isn't it normal for things to freeze atleast one/two seconds then a click as whatever your trying to access is on a sleeping hdd?

it has to spinup first then you can access it,to disable it look in power profile/advanced and turn off hdd sleep

all my drives do it,it will freeze then a whirring sound then a click and then you can access the program/file
 
isn't it normal for things to freeze atleast one/two seconds then a click as whatever your trying to access is on a sleeping hdd?

it has to spinup first then you can access it,to disable it look in power profile/advanced and turn off hdd sleep

all my drives do it,it will freeze then a whirring sound then a click and then you can access the program/file

It's normal for the drive to take a few seconds to spin up & show it's contents after being asleep, but not for the whole system to lock up momentarily. Especially when the OS isn't even on said drive.

My whole PC freezes for half a second. Mouse stops moving & jumps position after the click, video freezes, etc.
 
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pretty sure mine does the same

test by disabling it,then see if it still locks up

I don't think the drives dying its just what happens when a drive comes out of sleep

1zp7b50.jpg
 
Last edited:
pretty sure mine does the same

test by disabling it,then see if it still locks up

I don't think the drives dying its just what happens when a drive comes out of sleep

1zp7b50.jpg

It's only just started happening. Definitely not normal.
The whole PC should not lock up/become unusable, especially when the drive is just spinning up/down.

I have disconnected one of the drives & not noticed any problems. Will reconnect & see if the problem returns, else back to sq1.
 
Pretty sure it's the samsung drive that's messing things up. Look at this HD Tune screen:

HDTune.JPG


Both drives have a failure under spin up time.
Just checked the warranty status & both Samsung drives are under warranty until August so they're going to Samsung as soon as I get another drive to properly back everything up to.

Check the event viewer this should tell you which drive is at fault or not.

Where exactly would I look in event viewer?
 
Windows key then the R key type eventvwr and click ok.

No bad sectors on the disks then?

No bad sectors.
Heath is all good/green with a quick scan.

Copying all the data off it now, can just about squeeze it onto a 4TB with 10GB to spare :p

Any idea how Samsung test the drive?
I'm scanning with Seatools now. I don't want them to appear working to them (Seagate) & come back without being repaired.
 
Best move you can do while its still working. Although ive had drives in the past where they would have the same slow spinups and clicking that still worked for a while but all in all clicking is a bad thing and a sign of impending doom. Lucky catch some fail not long after.
 
I have recently re-added this 'startech' pcie 1x 2 port sata card to run my optical drive & front 2.5" dock.
Event viewer is mentioning atapi which is the manufacturer of my optical drive...
Maybe that has something to do with it (as well)?

Another hour then calling it quits for the day. Resume tomorrow. Stay tuned :p
 
Hi,

I'm having a weird issue with my PC lately which started 2-3 days ago.

I have recently re-added this 'startech' pcie 1x 2 port sata card to run my optical drive & front 2.5" dock.
Event viewer is mentioning atapi which is the manufacturer of my optical drive...
Maybe that has something to do with it (as well)?

Does this all coincide with the issues? Anyway backing up is the first port of call good luck.
 
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