PC Useless

Clarkson

Clarkson

Clarkson

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10 Aug 2010
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I have come to seek wisdom as I am rather bamboozled myself.

So to get to the point; I was just doing general, basic stuff on my pc (internet/skype), and then it started lagging a bit and then 'not responding'. I thought it might just be skype at first so closed it down eventually when it briefly stopped 'not responding'. But then the problem persisted, so I restarted the computer.

Upon restart, it was still doing it, even without skype running, so I knew it wasn't just that. Over the past couple of days I must have restarted the computer at least 30 times...to begin with I sometimes got a couple of hours use before it would start 'not responding' again, but now it will rarely go 2 minutes without doing it.

So the general gist is: Keeps 'not responding' as soon as I login.

Other important things I feel should be noted:

Sometimes after restarting (by way of power button 'shut down' due to not being able to shut down properly) it will bring the mobo options screen up (to select bios, boot order, etc) and it will stick on this.

Sometimes it will show the options to enter safe mode after restarting, sometimes it won't...

I have noticed some form of hard disk error, but only once or twice out of all the restarts.

For the first time just a few minutes ago it offered me the chance of 'startup repair' (I believe it was called that), when I started up. Though this was after I'd disconnected the hdd and reconnected. Startup repair also told me it could not repair the problems, and I got 2 errors on the diagnosis. (I forgot about writing them down, but I might be able to do it again). In any case it said it couldnt do a system restore either.

These things make me think it is primarily a hdd problem. I did notice a somewhat tinny scratching sound in the days leading up to this..which furthers my suspicion of the hdd.

Am I right in thinking it is the hdd? Would getting a new one and obviously doing a fresh install of windows 7 be likely to cease my woes?

Spec:
i5 2500k
Gigabyte P67-A UD3 mobo
HIS 6950
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA-II
Antec truepower new modular 650W
Corsair XMS3 4GB
Windows 7

Sorry for longish post, just trying to give as much info as I can.
:cool:
 
No problem for the long post. The more info, the better :)

It sounds as if you might have diagnosed the problem already, but before you go and fit a new HDD and install Windows again I would suggest a disk defrag, disk cleanup and also doing a memory test using memtest86

You can download memtest86 from a few sites as an ISO file. Once downloaded, burn the file to a bootable CD and then select the CD drive as the first boot device when your system boots up. From there, follow the on screen prompts to to begin testing the RAM.
 
Start the system up normally, use msconfig to turn off as many features as you can. Turn them all back on one by one until you encounter the process that is causing the error.
If it is a process you will find it. If not it will be a HDD or hardware problem.

If you suspect it's a main OS problem, back up all of your data onto another one and re-install Windows 7. If the problem persists then replace the HDD.
 
Appreciate the replies, but there is no way it will go long enough without 'not responding' for me to be able to do anything really.

It even does it in safe mode where loads of stuff is turned off by default.

So there is no way I can download and burn memtest, or go through any settings. It literally locks up after a minute or two. I can move the mouse about and grab and move any boxes usually but any processes are just impossible.

If I RMA this hdd, how do they test it? I don't have any naughty stuff on there (:D) but still don't fancy the thought of someone fitting it to a computer and trawling through my stuff should it work. Unless they test it via other means.:cool:
 
Well I haven't done much research on RMA'ing so I wouldn't know. Is it possible to download memtest86+ and burn it from another PC?

Also, have you tried the hard drive in another system?
 
There are only laptops and a ridiculously old and epically slow desktop in the house besides my PC, so can't really check the HDD in another machine. Unless there is a way to get it to work with laptops.

Could download memtest though I supose.

Some basic 'tests' the system did itself though said no issues with the RAM.
 
Hmm... Well go ahead with the memtest86+ and if that shows no errors I suppose you could strip it all down, clean everything and rebuild it... (I know this is a complete nightmare)

Beyond that, I really don't know. Sorry pal.
 
Just another random thing I forgot to say, is that I noticed in the BIOS it said the drive was a slave...but I only have this one drive so surely it should be master?

No idea if that has any relation to anything but I thought it was odd..I am no pro though. :p
 
Clarkson said:
Just another random thing I forgot to say, is that I noticed in the BIOS it said the drive was a slave...but I only have this one drive so surely it should be master?

No idea if that has any relation to anything but I thought it was odd..I am no pro though. :p
Click to expand...

Sounds strange indeed. I get similar things happen with my computer though. I'll give you an example. Before I underclocked my PC it would only show my hard drive, optical drive and the fake drive that Daemon Tools Lite creates.

I put my PC back to stock speed (2.7 Ghz) and it now shows that I have (A:) Floppy Disk Drive and sometimes another (F:) CD Drive. Very strange indeed lol. But it seems to work fine nonetheless.
 
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