Something fried...

Y

yoni45

New member
Alright, so the computer just went out on its own at a certain point in time. I came across it, moved the mouse, and it just restarted on its own.

However, when turning back on, it took an oddly long amount of time, and instead of automatically logging onto windows as it usually does, it gave me a blank error message (red x, "yes" or "no", but no text or label, and clicking either does nothing)... Tried a few more times, same issue... figured windows installation corrupted...

So I reinstalled a new version of windows onto the same paritition and overwrote the old one. Didn't reformat since I wanted to keep the files and had no spare HD's or partition to play with, but it overwrote the windows folder and such...

Anyway, now it logs onto windows, however stalls far more often than it should. It also takes much longer to load windows as well... like well over than triple time, upto 5 minutes... And when using windows, well, I really can't describe it any better than it just often "stalls", most basic operations take a good 20 seconds to register, while the program doesn't respond in the meanwhile... we're talking about simplistic things like deleting favorites from the IE list (didnt bother installing firefox yet heh), clicking on some links, right clicking on various things such as folders or desktop, etc...

Ran MemTest86 for the better part of 24 hours, and not a single error popped up, so the RAM looks ok... Ran DiskCheck (or whatever they call ScanDisk on XP), and it got through with no errors, although I never really got a 'report' of any sort other than a popup stating "scandisk is complete"... Does the XP version provide any such report if there are no issues?

Anyway, I guess apart from HD and Memory, the potential culprits could be the motherboard or CPU... or perhaps PSU?

I still have an inkling that its the HD, as this kind of behaviour would make sense if there was an issue with it, but scandisk seems ok... (I'm defragging now, even though it might not be necessary, if it bugs up that should tell me something...)

What else could cause this kind of issue that I should be testing for? I don't have many spare parts to swap out, unfortunately...

Could the CPU or Motherboard cause these kinds of effects if they malfunctioned? I'm relatively sure vid-card wouldn't...

And there's always the PSU, but that's relatively new, maybe 2 or 3 months old after my old one fried...

Bah, it's so much easier when the unit just doesnt turn on and theres a wierd odour coming from one specific part hah... anyway, ideas? ^^
 
Sounds to me like it's the HD or memory. I know you tested both but this problem just seems too closely tied to things we've seen in the past that was either a mem or hd problem.

Is you HD SMART capable? You should run a SMART diagnostic on it and see what it reports. The Scandisk program only checks for corrupt sectors and damaged files on the hard drive, doesn't really check to make sure that the HD is functioning correctly.
 
FragTek said:
Sounds to me like it's the HD or memory. I know you tested both but this problem just seems too closely tied to things we've seen in the past that was either a mem or hd problem.

Is you HD SMART capable? You should run a SMART diagnostic on it and see what it reports. The Scandisk program only checks for corrupt sectors and damaged files on the hard drive, doesn't really check to make sure that the HD is functioning correctly.
Click to expand...

The HD is SMART capable, but when I used the PowerMax (Maxtor) utility to run a diagnostic off a boot CD it just froze during the "analyzing drives" stage which should have taken about a minute according to the screen prompt...

So, I borrowed a friend's old HD, formatted, and installed XP Pro on it... The installation itself was giving me some issues with corrupted files, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt... Retried a few times on the files that wouldnt go through, and in the end, only 1 file called wpl.dll couldn't be copied...

At this point, the computer no longer seems to stall at all... However, when using IE, it'll randomly crash...

I'm also trying to install Nero now, which comes as a single file that extracts a whole bunch and then installs... On extraction, at times half the files will screw up due to "corruption", but this will be fairly random. At one point I can run it fine, then next it'll show half of them corrupted... If I'm lucky and it gets through the extraction, it screws up due to a file being corrupted on the installation stage...

MemTest should have definitively tested the memory, right? So that can't be the issue... Could the M/B, CPU, or PSU cause this kind of issue? =/
 
Didn't reformat since I wanted to keep the files and had no spare HD's or partition to play with, but it overwrote the windows folder and such...
Click to expand...

Hmmm so same problems with and without format, sounds like RAM issue almost.
 
name='NickS' said:
Did you do a full or quick reformat? Files corrupt like mad for me if I do quick format.
Click to expand...

It was quick format, but why would they corrupt? They're coming off the CD, so it shouldn't have any effect... I was relatively sure that the only difference is that quick format "registers" (for lack of a better word) the drive as empty, while a full format physically resets all the bits to 0...

I guess i can do a full format, wouldn't hurt... but considering this is the 2nd HD giving me issues...

Well, the other variable is that I disconnected an old dead HD completely when I installed my friend's HD to test... I used to have 2 HD's connected, 1 that crashed, and 1 supposedly healthy one that I was using... Nothing was on the dead one, but when I connected the test drive I figured I'd disconnect the the mostly dead HD...

MemTest86 ran for almost 24 hours straight with not a single error, could the memory still have a problem?

Now, the other possibility I'm thinking of is the PSU... since I disconnected the dead HD, perhaps that took a load off of it, but its still having problems, which explains the lack of stalling, but the persistence of the file corruption issues...?
 
NEVER do a quick format. It corrups cause your old data is still physically on the drive but it makes it seem as its empty. Then when your HDD needs space it overwrites the old data. This causes lots of problems. It's best you do a full format. Always do it. I'm betting that will solve all your problems. :)
 
Hmmm I'm running on a quick format, I vote for Knoppix first. If Knoppix has problems its probably ur ram.
 
tho back in old amd xp days i had 1 pc that had problems like this on downloads installs nearly everything would get corupted files i ended up calling it was the motherboard and just upgrading. But i never had problems installing windows only after i got windows installed i had problems. Long shot but did you replace your ide cables maybe you got some bad wires in them and when they send on that wire the data is corupted.
 
like bal3wold said, replace ide/sata cables and use different headers ont he motherboard

also you said that this new hd you tested didn't seem 100% when you were installing windows anyway? can you get hold of a hard drive you know is perfect?
 
my friend had this problem, everything from downloads to installs were corrupted - we did a full format and everything is dandy now
 
XMS swears by quick format, he NEVER does full formats and never has problems with his OS installs. I on the other hand live and die by the full format and have never had a problem either, so...

As NoL stated a bit earlier it does actually sound like it could possibly be the RAM. Nick and Kemp (i think it was Kemp) can tell you that they've had RAM go bad and not be detected by a full run of MemTest.
 
FragTek said:
XMS swears by quick format, he NEVER does full formats and never has problems with his OS installs. I on the other hand live and die by the full format and have never had a problem either, so...

As NoL stated a bit earlier it does actually sound like it could possibly be the RAM. Nick and Kemp (i think it was Kemp) can tell you that they've had RAM go bad and not be detected by a full run of MemTest.
Click to expand...

Yep. Several full runs (round 3hours) and no errors. Run windows and loads of problems.

RMA RAM>all ok
 
A quick format is fine, all it does is clear the bam.

All a full-format will do is clear the bam and fill the tracks with a preset header, normally a pattern like 0x0000ffff0000ffff. Some smart-arses like to put their name in the header, christ knows why, just looks nice on a hex dump ?!?!??!

A quick format, if you like, just doesn`t fill your drive with the pattern, u`r pattern will be what was there before. However, it is infinately possible if u have a copy of the allocation table, to get all your old info back. Some drive utilities offer to backup the bam in such cases you might get an old boot virus.

I have to be honest, from your opening paragraphs, up until you mentioned memtest, that`s a text-book memory issue. Personally tho, I`ve never had memtest not come back without an error when there is an error.
 
Ok guys, thanks for the replies thus far, but this got a bit odd...

I turned on the automatic updates for windows for the hell of it last night before going to sleep, and it ran some updates, and afterwards, I don't seem to be having *any* issues on this new HD, no corruption on installing Nero, and even the IE crashing errors are gone...

Perhaps the update overwrote whatever file couldn't be written during the initial windows installation, which was causing all the corruption issues?

That being said, my real HD that was giving me issues in the first place with the constant stalling, still needs to be checked, since the constant stalling issue never came up with this replacement HD, even without the windows update... I guess I'll be putting in the regular HD back and doing the windows update to see if I still get the constant stalling... I guess I'll try Knoppix if that fails, but then again, it'd be 100% HD problem if the replacement HD is working fine, wouldn't it? ^^
 
It`s worth trying the old one back in anyway, just so you can be safe in the mind that u`ve found the problem and anything that comes up in the future (fingers crossed u`ll be ok from here on in), u won`t have that issue nagging at u amoungst other things >.<

Great to see u`ve sorted it, if indeed u have :)
 
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