PC Locking up/Slow Thinks its The HDD?

stevek93

For some reason my desktop keeps locking up/freezing on most applications they would freeze up for a few seconds and come back to life. For example I am watching aertv at the moment In a side by side window when I open up a new tab the video will lock up until the tab completes loading.

Its fairly new hardware only built it last year so it shouldn't be slowing down/locking it. Ill post my specs below, other thing I have noticed Is the primary drive for the OS has become very noisy was dead silent when i bought it.

Only other thing I can think of is the RAM is going bad.

Specs below should be running smooth as butter with theses specs me thinks.

Also I'm running 7 ultimate.
CPU
AMD Phenom II X4 840 27 °C
Propus 45nm Technology
RAM
4.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 669MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. M4N68T V2 (AM3) 42 °C
Graphics
512MB GeForce 210 (ASUStek Computer Inc) 46 °C
Hard Drives
466GB SAMSUNG SAMSUNG HD502HJ SCSI Disk Device (ATA)

Tommay

Have you cleared up things with CCleaner and done a Defrag to see if performance improves?

I virus scan wouldn't go a miss either.

yoyo

I would run a low level diagnostics scan of the drive, Vivard is good (availabile on UBCD)

Nick

stevek93

Tommay wrote: »

Have you cleared up things with CCleaner and done a Defrag to see if performance improves?

I virus scan wouldn't go a miss either.

Yep run it twice a day everyday and defrag once a week.

For the antivirus have NIS 12 and malwarebytes.

stevek93

yoyo wrote: »

I would run a low level diagnostics scan of the drive, Vivard is good (availabile on UBCD)

Nick

Ill give that a shot and post back the results, thanks Nick.

CSU

...had similar problems with a dodgy SATA cable, check them or swap them around and see...:)

stevek93

CSU wrote: »

...had similar problems with a dodgy SATA cable, check them or swap them around and see...:)

Never thought of that, would it show up on the benchmark that Nick suggested? Ill swap the around and see what happens thanks.

CSU

stevek93 wrote: »

Never thought of that, would it show up on the benchmark that Nick suggested? Ill swap the around and see what happens thanks.

...I was pulling my hair out with mine, benchmarks showed all was normal - that fact it was a 'hard-wired' intermittent problem just didnt show up in tests...

give it a go, worth a shot...

yoyo

stevek93 wrote: »

Never thought of that, would it show up on the benchmark that Nick suggested? Ill swap the around and see what happens thanks.

If the cable is dodgy and working probably not, I would swap cable and also run a scan to be sure though

Nick

stevek93

yoyo wrote: »

If the cable is dodgy and working probably not, I would swap cable and also run a scan to be sure though

Nick

Id heard that before, if the cable is bad it may still work but will give you trouble. Going to run that scan now in a few minutes and ill be back with the results.

stevek93

OK just swapped around the sata cables. Automatically booted into the Startup Repair without prompting me first and is now running a disk repair. Whats that all about

stevek93

Now just finished its repair on the disk and again booted into startup repair and is asking to do a system restore don't particularly want to do that going to swap them around again to another cable and see what happens.

Edit: It was trying to boot of the bloody second drive. :P Even though I kept the primary drive for the OS in the same slot strange.

CSU

...swap them on the board too keeping disc boot order

stevek93

CSU wrote: »

...swap them on the board too keeping disc boot order

Thats what I did do, strange it way trying to boot of the second drive.

CSU

nm

stevek93

CSU wrote: »

...bios boots by name rather than by location so...:D

Ye I know that. :P It was only the cables I swapped around, had the primary drive in SATA 1 on the board took the cable from the second drive that was in SATA 2 plugged it into the primary drive and SATA 1 and the same with the second drive only the cables were changed.

CSU

stevek93 wrote: »

Ye I know that. :P It was only the cables I swapped around, had the primary drive in SATA 1 on the board took the cable from the second drive that was in SATA 2 plugged it into the primary drive and SATA 1 and the same with the second drive only the cables were changed.

...lol nevermind I got confuzed too :P

stevek93

CSU wrote: »

stevek93 wrote: »

Ye I know that. :P It was only the cables I swapped around, had the primary drive in SATA 1 on the board took the cable from the second drive that was in SATA 2 plugged it into the primary drive and SATA 1 and the same with the second drive only the cables were changed.

...lol nevermind I got confuzed too :P

lol no worries.

Have the dagnostics running here no errors so far speed is coming in at around 8300 mb/mins.

Edit: Scan still running no errors found thank god but speed has dropped to 6700Mb/min is that normal?

stevek93

Test finished with no errors. Said it saved it log file didn't say where though.

Tommay

Check the root of your C: Drive

Overheal

One of the few times I couldnt diagnose a problem correctly it turned out to be a motherboard issue. ASUS does have a self-diagnostic utility but it only seems to support a handful of motherboards (mines on there yay! ) you can look around their support site though

stevek93

Tommay wrote: »

Check the root of your C: Drive

Not there.

stevek93

Overheal wrote: »

One of the few times I couldnt diagnose a problem correctly it turned out to be a motherboard issue. ASUS does have a self-diagnostic utility but it only seems to support a handful of motherboards (mines on there yay! ) you can look around their support site though

Is that in the BIOS? only a cheap MB i have not sure if it will support it.

stevek93

Forgot i took this :P everything look ok me thinks.

yoyo

Whats your CPU temperature out of interest? an overheating CPU or memory could cause such issues or even complete lock ups, sometimes the heatsinks or thermal paste need replacing after time

Nick

stevek93

yoyo wrote: »

Whats your CPU temperature out of interest? an overheating CPU or memory could cause such issues or even complete lock ups, sometimes the heatsinks or thermal paste need replacing after time

Nick

You know what Nick I think your right bought a new fan a while back drom pixmania I think it was. Getting CPU fan error whenever I boot but the temps are fine never go above 30c so I just ignored it.

yoyo

stevek93 wrote: »

You know what Nick I think your right bought a new fan a while back drom pixmania I think it was. Getting CPU fan error whenever I boot but the temps are fine never go above 30c so I just ignored it.

Are you sure the fan is mounted correctly? also check the temperatures of the CPU from the bios if you can (sometimes software tools get inaccurate readings).

Nick

stevek93

Yep everything in perfect don't want to take it of was told Id need to replace the thermal paste if so correct? Ill boot it up leave it to warm up for about 5 minutes and reboot it it back into the BIOS and check the temps.

stevek93

Just checking it here seems fine showing up at 45c and the MB at 34c also I have no case fan wouldn't see that causing the problem though.

Edit: Back to the HDD again there is something seriously fishy going on.

yoyo

stevek93 wrote: »

Just checking it here seems fine showing up at 45c and the MB at 34c also I have no case fan wouldn't see that causing the problem though.

Edit: Back to the HDD again there is something seriously fishy going on.

That is not a good sign, could well be the hard disk is the issue, I'd run another vivard test, make sure to do the full surface test. That is signifying a reading error from the hard disk

Nick

stevek93

yoyo wrote: »

That is not a good sign, could well be the hard disk is the issue, I'd run another vivard test, make sure to do the full surface test. That is signifying a reading error from the hard disk

Nick

Just ran chkdsk now that is showing errors looks like im in need of a new drive.

Going to run another vivard test and see what that picks up.

stevek93

Ok i have surface test and surface test with remap not sure which one to pick?

CSU

...you'll need to schedule a scan on boot.

Select the drive properties and choose scan and fix errors IIRC you'll be asked to set up a schedule.

stevek93

CSU wrote: »

...you'll need to schedule a scan on boot.

Select the drive properties and choose scan and fix errors IIRC you'll be asked to set up a schedule.

Going do that after vivard finished thanks. Will windows actually fix any errors that it finds?

CSU

stevek93 wrote: »

Going do that after vivard finished thanks. Will windows actually fix any errors that it finds?

It will mark 'unusable sectors' so that no data is stored.

Forgetting about all the tests etc, how does it perform? is it still locking up after you swapped the SATA cables around or still the same or what?

stevek93

CSU wrote: »

It will mark 'unusable sectors' so that no data is stored.

Forgetting about all the tests etc, how does it perform? is it still locking up after you swapped the SATA cables around or still the same or what?

Ah cool.

Yep its getting worse if you ask me have to keep force closing explorer in the task man. Whenever I open a application it locks up for about a min then comes back to life.

CSU

stevek93 wrote: »

Ah cool.

Yep its getting worse if you ask me have to keep force closing explorer in the task man. Whenever I open a application it locks up for about a min then comes back to life.

...place your swapfile on the good disc and see if that gets you through until you sort it out...

stevek93

CSU wrote: »

...place your swapfile on the good disc and see if that gets you through until you sort it out...

Ill try that thanks. Looking to get a SSD if i can't get this sorted MB only supports a SATA 3Gb/s does that mean its not a SATA III?

CSU

stevek93 wrote: »

Ill try that thanks. Looking to get a SSD if i can't get this sorted MB only supports a SATA 3Gb/s does that mean its not a SATA III?

dunno

stevek93

CSU wrote: »

dunno

Looks like a new thread so.

Captain Commie

stevek93 wrote: »

Ill try that thanks. Looking to get a SSD if i can't get this sorted MB only supports a SATA 3Gb/s does that mean its not a SATA III?

Correct, your Mobo is most likey a SATA 2.

Deffo sounds like the disk is dodgy, once you start getting errors like that I wouldnt even try repairing it, just replace. If you are thinking SSD, you are best to get one for your OS drive and keep data on a standard HDD, that way you can reduce costs by only getting a 64 or 128GB SSD.

Good luck getting it all sorted, I know how much of a nightmare it can be.

stevek93

CSU wrote: »

...place your swapfile on the good disc and see if that gets you through until you sort it out...

Just turned of the swap file. Using the secondary drives SATA cable for the disc drive bit short on them here. lol Seems to be running a bit smoother time will tell.

Ran vivard again still not finding anything. Done a reboot on chkdsk seems like it done something alright not to sure what though. :P

stevek93

Captain Commie wrote: »

Correct, your Mobo is most likey a SATA 2.

Deffo sounds like the disk is dodgy, once you start getting errors like that I wouldnt even try repairing it, just replace. If you are thinking SSD, you are best to get one for your OS drive and keep data on a standard HDD, that way you can reduce costs by only getting a 64 or 128GB SSD.

Good luck getting it all sorted, I know how much of a nightmare it can be.

I think you are right, least I know what it is now. Thanks for everyones help.

One more quick question. Say if I plug in a SATA 6Gb/s it wont work at all not even at half the speed as my MB only supports 3Gb/s? So basically what I am looking for is a SATA 3Gb/s SSD drive yes?

Captain Commie

stevek93 wrote: »

One more quick question. Say if I plug in a SATA 6Gb/s it wont work at all not even at half the speed as my MB only supports 3Gb/s? So basically what I am looking for is a SATA 3Gb/s SSD drive yes?

SATA 3 is fully backwards compatible with SATA 2, so the drive should operate at SATA 2 speeds

stevek93

Captain Commie wrote: »

stevek93 wrote: »

One more quick question. Say if I plug in a SATA 6Gb/s it wont work at all not even at half the speed as my MB only supports 3Gb/s? So basically what I am looking for is a SATA 3Gb/s SSD drive yes?

SATA 3 is fully backwards compatible with SATA 2, so the drive should operate at SATA 2 speeds

Grand stuff thanks. Had a feeling it was more or less the same as USB.