Laptop hangs and HDD light on full

fasttalkerchat

Every 10 minutes my laptop will hang. Mouse pointer moves and i can use start menu but programs wont open. The HDD light stats on full and doesnt flicker like normal. After 30 seconds everything is okay again.

Anyone have any suggestions to try before buying a new hard disk?

yoyo

That doesn't mean the hard disk is on the way out, to be sure I would run a diagnostic scan on the drive to avoid purchasing a HD needlessly. Poorly written software, viruses etc can have that effect also on a computer so check out whats running, in Task manager look for processes which are eating up memory and CPU time.
When your machine runs out of RAM, virtual memory kicks in, which will cause you hard disk to be doing much more activity, and this will likely cause system freezing

Nick

fasttalkerchat

yoyo wrote: »

That doesn't mean the hard disk is on the way out, to be sure I would run a diagnostic scan on the drive to avoid purchasing a HD needlessly. Poorly written software, viruses etc can have that effect also on a computer so check out whats running, in Task manager look for processes which are eating up memory and CPU time.
When your machine runs out of RAM, virtual memory kicks in, which will cause you hard disk to be doing much more activity, and this will likely cause system freezing

Nick

This happens regardless of what programs are running.
The system is virus & malware free.
All auto-updates are turned off and nothing is scheduled.
RAM and CPU usage do not spike when the computer hangs.

HDDScan report:

yoyo

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

This happens regardless of what programs are running.
The system is virus & malware free.
All auto-updates are turned off and nothing is scheduled.
RAM and CPU usage do not spike when the computer hangs.

HDDScan report:

Ahh ok, SMART failing is a bad thing! Yeah get your data backed up and get a new drive! Many slow computers will have similar symptoms hence my reply to try diagnostics first, no point in getting a new drive just for the sake of a slow system with too much running!

Nick

unkel

I wouldn't let the SMART error freak me out. Could just be some issue that happened some time in the past. Your software doesn't show how often the problem has occurred

Do back your stuff up though!

Did you run chkdsk? Did you run seatools? Did you run any other diagnostic software? Any noises from the hard disk?

fasttalkerchat

unkel wrote: »

I wouldn't let the SMART error freak me out. Could just be some issue that happened some time in the past. Your software doesn't show how often the problem has occurred

Do back your stuff up though!

Did you run chkdsk? Did you run seatools? Did you run any other diagnostic software? Any noises from the hard disk?

chkdsk doesn't find anything abnormal.
Running seatools for the first time now:
It passed the SMART test. Which other tests should I run on seatools?

yoyo

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

chkdsk doesn't find anything abnormal.
Running seatools for the first time now:
It passed the SMART test. Which other tests should I run on seatools?

Run the long test, I prefare using the bootable Seatools for DOS myself. I only quickly looked at your diagnostic and as said its not the worst of SMART failures, but it is something to bear in mind.

Nick

fasttalkerchat

yoyo wrote: »

Run the long test, I prefare using the bootable Seatools for DOS myself. I only quickly looked at your diagnostic and as said its not the worst of SMART failures, but it is something to bear in mind.

Nick

Passed the long test too.

yoyo

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

Passed the long test too.

Thats strange alrite, are you sure the RAM usage isn't full or near full when the issue starts happening? Also a drive passing a diagnostics test means that it works and reads fine, this does not mean the drive will perform efficiently and quickly. There is a possibility the drive is struggling with some sectors, but can read them

Nick

fasttalkerchat

I rolled back the driver for the Synaptics touchpad about 2 hours ago and it hasn't happened since. Possibly problem solved...

EDIT: Just a coincidence.

unkel

Keep us updated!

Passing the long test would make me pretty confident that your hard disk is fine. But you know it's computers - it could be anything

fasttalkerchat

Managed to get a screenshot of the resource monitor utility during the freeze. I also have one after the freeze for camparison.

During:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2056508030


After:


Arrow on the Disk usage chart is the point that the light went off and the laptop went back to normal.

Any help or suggestions welcome.

yoyo

I think when uturrent is downloading it downloads different "chunks" of data, and when the download finishes it combines these chunks into the data file, if it is a 700+mb Ubuntu iso, for e.g, you may expierience pausing for a few seconds while the program reconstructs the file, this is quite an intensive operation for the hard disk

Nick

fasttalkerchat

yoyo wrote: »

I think when uturrent is downloading it downloads different "chunks" of data, and when the download finishes it combines these chunks into the data file, if it is a 700+mb Ubuntu iso, for e.g, you may expierience pausing for a few seconds while the program reconstructs the file, this is quite an intensive operation for the hard disk

Nick

utorrent is seeding 3 small programs. Same results with no programs running so I think I can rule that out.