Topic: comp problems, its likely a hardware problem but can't pinpoint it, need tests (Read 15055 times)

Xanatos · « **on:** November 04, 2007, 09:03:20 am »

so i've been having computer trouble for the past month or two, and i'm pretty sure I can accredit the issues to faulty primary hard drive or motherboard and I can't pinpoint either for sure, i've been running a lot of diagnostic tests and whatever I can find, like for example I did a harddrive diagnostic test to see if i would get any errors, it came up with nothing, it just said it was 'complete'.

my motherboard is a abit kn8 sli and my primary hard drive is this 80GB HITACHI Deskstar

could anyone recommend some diagnostic tests or torture tests, whatever you call em, in which i can perhaps pinpoint which component in my custom built pc has the problem. i'm almost certain it's a hardware issue so i'll spare a redundant and confusing story of the problem..at least that's how i see it. but what's making me think more and more it's a hard drive thing is I reformatted and all of a sudden i'm getting these new issues with my comp that i've never gotten before. i've ran as many tests as i could find for my processor and memory and both came up with nothing, as for the motherboard i haven't a clue. my powersupply is new, i've cleaned the insides not too long ago, either way i've still had one issue or another - it's gotta be either the harddrive or mobo but i can't pinpoint it and i'm not willing to go to a technician or something, any help?

fonfa · « **Reply #1 on:** November 04, 2007, 11:34:17 am »

which are the symptoms?

Konrad Beerbaum · « **Reply #2 on:** November 04, 2007, 06:36:35 pm »

Download UBCD for Dos. You burn it to a cd, then boot off the cd. Go to Hard drive tests, and on the 3rd or 4th screen there is a program called Drive Fitness Test. Run that, and if your drive is bad it will give you an error code. Post that here and I can tell you what it means. 0x00 means its good, 0x70 or anything else means a faulty drive, and I should be able to tell you what the specific code means.

A link is here. Hit me up on aim if you need any help.
http://forums.goldeneyesource.com/index.php/topic,974.0.html

VC · « **Reply #3 on:** November 04, 2007, 08:51:32 pm »

I say acquire a different drive, install, and see if the problem remains. If everything magically gets better, it's either the deathstar or your current OS install caught e-AIDS and is expressing symptoms thereof.

Xanatos · « **Reply #4 on:** November 04, 2007, 09:03:36 pm »

yeah konrad i did a similar harddrive test off the hitachi site, made the boot disk, and got a 0x00, should i go ahead and try this one too? i have reasons for why it could be the hard drive still, but there's also the motherboard...

i'll try to explain the long backstory of when I started noticing problems...i'm sure there are a lot of redundant details but here we go:

a while back I tried replacing my amd athlon 2400 xp processor with a new dual core, and when I would play games after a while the fps would drop to a constant 20-fps or somewhere in that range. other apps like video editing progs would then be sagging constantly unless i restarted, and it would be fine again until it sagged after time. i think that's a cooling issue, but out of frustration back then and not knowing what to do i just put my old processor back in and things started running fine again. i started to notice about every 15 minutes or so i'd have these little freeze blips when just doing ordinary desktop stuff. anyway, fast forward to me going through a powersupply and replacing my old graphics card with a new 8800 gts (won from a contest for free yeay). bad game performance starts happening again, but not as bad as before. i was able to somehow avoid the comp lag and games would run fine. fast forward to a few days ago, i noticed that if i joined a source game online, i'd have this constant rubber band lag effect although my ping was still normal. tf2 online was for the most part ok, and if i created a listen server for anything that'd be fine too.

so i figured i was due for a reformat, and i did. if you skipped the last paragraph good enough cause heres the current situation. now ive had problems with programs freezing up or crashing like steam, my game downloads on steam are incredibly slow while my ping stays the same, i'll watch a video on youtube for another example and sometimes it would stop halfway or at another point and think the video is finished although its not and it appears as if the whole thing loaded. images and downloads are the same way - sometimes the full image wont load completely and downloads will say they are done when really they are not. i have to clear my cache if i want to start from the beginning for say videos or images and load them again. i havent tried much other than diagnostic tests yet, later i'm going to try playing something to see what it's like...but what's odd is these problems were triggered by a reformat...and ive had other problems before and again or still...it just makes no sense.

Jeron [SharpSh00tah] · « **Reply #5 on:** November 04, 2007, 09:09:14 pm »

when my comp decided to shat itself, a reformat for me only made matters worse- not to mention how much shit i lost

Konrad Beerbaum · « **Reply #6 on:** November 04, 2007, 10:13:07 pm »

The hitachi program is most likely the same one, so you don't need to download it again. If you got the 0x00 code, it is almost certain your hard drive is fine. None of those symptons you posted sound like issues a bad hard drive could cause. Bad hard drives usually cause issues like data loss, missing system files, and slow explorer response times/hangs. I'm not ruling it out, but the hard drive being bad isn't too likely if it passed the dft test.

I would suggest doing another reformat, as painful as that suggestion is, and make sure you get the full windows updates and latest drivers for all your hardware. It sounds like it could be a software/driver issue. To make sure, I would format the entire drive as well.

If it is the motherboard, it is almost impossible to troubleshoot, you pretty much just have to replace it and see if it fixes it. But in that case you should do a reformat anyway to avoid driver conflicts with the new motherboard.

Polizei · « **Reply #7 on:** November 05, 2007, 07:21:53 pm »

Buy a new harddrive, you should need a thousand of them anyways MR. MOVIE MAGICK. I was having that "freeze blips" problem with my system not too long ago and it turned out to be my secondary hard drive acting up. The SATA connections on my mobo are fucked to shit and they've been that way since day one, I don't know why. I went out and bought an ultra ATA harddrive and I haven't had a problem since. If nothing else, you'll have more storage space which you can put into a portable harddrive case.

Xanatos · « **Reply #8 on:** November 06, 2007, 01:04:54 am »

yeah i have two HDDs and an external

so meh, not sure yet on what to do, i'll see how games play currently.

Polizei · « **Reply #9 on:** November 06, 2007, 02:13:30 am »

Are they all SATA? Have you tried running different harddrives as the master? Have you tried doing that while disconnecting the others? Have you tried using different ports?

Xanatos · « **Reply #10 on:** November 06, 2007, 02:26:30 am »

no, haven't tried anything inside like that yet. i was playing gmod online and it played just about perfectly.

i'm still pissed at this youtube example. i'll watch a youtube video and it'll stop randomly and think it reached the end of the video, when it really didn't (you cant skip to parts after it either, and when it reaches that point again it just stops), and it appears as if it loaded all the way. i have to clear my cache to load the whole thing over.

same thing happens for some images and even downloads...this is part of the reason why i'm intent on it being the hard drive, because none of this ever happened before the reformat. i'll give what you said a try soon.

but yeah its not like i'm having hard drive failures or anything...so i don't really understand the point of all this or if it could even BE this.

both harddrives are SATA, yes, and no to everything else. its gotta be this or some glitch in the mobo..

Polizei · « **Reply #11 on:** November 06, 2007, 03:01:04 am »

Did you try using a different browser?

I realize that this question is offensive and condescending.

My suggestion with the harddrives was purely for that glitchy thing which (I assume) you don't have anymore so don't bother with that yet. I don't know much about these darned nintendo playstations you kids are building.

Xanatos · « **Reply #12 on:** November 06, 2007, 11:04:34 pm »

i just got a bsod and i have no idea what it was because i saw it for about half a second and then my computer restarted O_O

also another random program crash

fonfa · « **Reply #13 on:** November 07, 2007, 03:50:17 am »

reformat again?

Shaken not Stirred · « **Reply #14 on:** November 07, 2007, 05:28:02 am »

Quote from: fonfa on November 07, 2007, 03:50:17 am

reformat again?

Wait, did he already rereformat or do you mean rerereformat?

I just confused myself into a corner.

Loafie, Hero of Dreams · « **Reply #15 on:** November 07, 2007, 09:02:44 am »

Xanatos · « **Reply #16 on:** November 07, 2007, 02:05:00 pm »

no, i have only reformatted once and that was prior to the problems. havent tried it a second time yet, but i guess i will sometime fairly soon.

EduCatOR · « **Reply #17 on:** November 28, 2007, 09:20:14 pm »

So I read the whole topic...and to be honest I can't remember if anyone said anything abou this. Have you done a virus scan and spyware scan lately? (This is probably another offensive question)

If not, google AVG free edition and grab that along with a program called Spybot. There's quite a few viruses that can cause these symptoms nowadays, and it might be something as "simple" as that.

With regards to the random cpu crash, sounds like a motherboard issue to me. I have encountered that problem before as well. I've also had problems with my slave HD due to fragmented files that could not be defrag'd.

That, "I devided by zero" picture is just pure comedy. =)

Xanatos · « **Reply #18 on:** December 05, 2007, 03:53:45 pm »

so yeah i reformatted again and i'm not really having any major problems with hardware/bsods/crashing/cache issues anymore, just some weird stuff that i can probably credit to my router now.

Polizei · « **Reply #19 on:** December 05, 2007, 08:41:18 pm »

Fuck routers. Where we're going we don't need firewalls.

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Author Topic: comp problems, its likely a hardware problem but can't pinpoint it, need tests (Read 15055 times)