I think my hard drive is failing

fixationdarknes · Post by **fixationdarknes** » Fri May 22, 2009 5:23 am

I've been running XP, and basically, my computer had gotten to the point where it would basically freeze (music stops, cursor can't move, the letters that I'm typing cease to show up, but will all show up if I keep typing once the frozen-ness goes away) for a good 4 or 5 seconds perhaps every 20 seconds. Although it seemed pretty random. It would happen a lot if was trying to play a game like Warcraft, or just run lots of Firefox windows or something, especially when iTunes is playing. But other times it would just happen while I had like one Firefox browser open and that was it. It just seems like my Athlon 3200 2.0GB ram shouldn't be having these kinds of problems lol.

I tried doing a fresh format on my C drive. I installed it with Vista this time just for the hell of it, and at first it seemed smooth and better, but now I'm starting to notice the annoying hiccups again. They are nowhere near as severe (they used to last like 5 seconds), but they still happen.

My brother is suggesting that my hard drive is going bad, with a possibility that it's my motherboard (although I just got a new mobo like 5 or so months ago). So I may be ordering a new drive, but I want to exhaust the possibilities of problems before spending the money.

I know it's probably difficult to diagnose a problem like this from over the Internet from some silly explanation from a punk like me who hardly knows anything about computers.

But any suggestions or input would be appreciated. Thanks.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri May 22, 2009 7:21 am

When you start getting sluggishness, extreme slowdowns, and the big one....random freezes....if you're sure your system is quite clean from malware, chances are good that your hard drive is the culprit.

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Fri May 22, 2009 9:45 am

what kinda drive is it? Just test it

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri May 22, 2009 6:05 pm

Try HD Tuneon it?

fixationdarknes · Post by **fixationdarknes** » Fri May 22, 2009 9:27 pm

Thanks guise. I'm running the tests now.

RoundEye · Post by **RoundEye** » Fri May 22, 2009 11:13 pm

I’d run a through scandisk on the drive before I condemned it. It’ll even move data from bad sectors on platters if found.

fixationdarknes · Post by **fixationdarknes** » Sat May 23, 2009 2:02 am

^ I am going to run 'chkdsk' on my next reboot, thanks.

This is a pretty long post guys, but I really don't know what else to do, so if you guys can take the time to read through this crap and help me out I'd be eternally grateful

To start, here's a screenshot of the results of the Benchmark Test run in HD Tune Pro:

I would guess that those dips in the graph correlate to where my PC "freezes."

And here are some other test results that I'm not sure are important but I figured I'd post the links anyway:
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7259 ... wdcwd2.png
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/5967 ... cwd200.png
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7633 ... swdcwd.png

Any input?

-edit: Also, I just ran a "Quick Test" from the Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics and this is what it came up with:
Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD20 00JS-98MHB0
Unit Serial Number: N/A
Firmware Number: 1.00
Capacity: 200.05 GB
SMART Status: Not Available
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 23:05:49, May 22, 2009

...but I'm guessing that isn't very helpful

-edit #2: The "Extended Test" also said PASS

Is it possible it's not my HD that is messed up and maybe its my mobo or CPU or something? Perhaps running Vista doesn't help things much? I don't know much about computers =/

-edit #3: I also have another issue that has been affecting me recently. I will just be randomly browsing youtube or something with a couple of Firefox windows open, and all of the sudden I get this crazy lag/choppiness that seems to bring my computer to almost a full stop, but it's not exactly like the "freezing" issue I described earlier, because it is long and drawn out and has no abrupt stop, it is just a constant stream of lagginess. This one has to do with cpu usage, but I do not know what is making my cpu usage spike so crazily, here are some screenshots showing my situation:

So as you can see... my CPU Usage is off the hizzle at like 99-100% when I'm only running a few things, and it's not like I had JUST then started up those applications, I had been using my PC for a while, and then there is this all the sudden burst of lag and I check the CPU Usage to find that it's going crazy for no apparent reason.

Even after closing all my applications the CPU Usage is still high, and eventually goes back down to like 0-1% or whatever, but I'm not even sure if it's because i closed the applications that were running, maybe just coincidence

So is it possible these two problems are related with one another?

Thanks so much for reading this. help pl0x !

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Sat May 23, 2009 8:27 am

Disable indexing?

fixationdarknes · Post by **fixationdarknes** » Sat May 23, 2009 6:37 pm

I checked to see if indexing was enabled and it is not. I re-formatted to XP last night to test some things out though, just to clarify, but unless indexing is enabled by default, then I never had it turned on when running Vista.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Sat May 23, 2009 9:31 pm

How is it working under XP?

fixationdarknes · Post by **fixationdarknes** » Sun May 24, 2009 2:25 am

Well I actually haven't noticed any 'hard drive freezes' as of yet, but I have had a couple experiences with my 'CPU Usage' going ballistic on me. Not sure what this means...

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Sun May 24, 2009 7:55 am

Did you update to SP3?

fixationdarknes · Post by **fixationdarknes** » Sun May 24, 2009 8:09 am

I'm not sure, how can I tell if I have?

Thanks for the help btw.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sun May 24, 2009 9:35 am

fixationdarknes wrote:I'm not sure, how can I tell if I have?

Thanks for the help btw.

right click the my computer icon on desktop, choose properties, it should say there what service pack ya got.

fixationdarknes · Post by **fixationdarknes** » Sun May 24, 2009 9:51 am

Hm, mine is SP2 as of right now. Thanks.

fixationdarknes · Post by **fixationdarknes** » Tue May 26, 2009 2:00 am

My current problem doesn't really seem like much of a "hard drive" problem, it is that the CPU Usage skyrockets for no apparent reason, and that is after having a fresh install of Windows so I know there's no spyware/viruses. Pics of situations:

Click to enlarge (I haven't installed photoshop to 'crop' yet):

Any idea as to why my cpu usage is going nuts, please let me know. Thanks.

dimgt · Post by **dimgt** » Wed May 27, 2009 7:38 am

check out the temperatures inside with speedfan and make sure everything is ok regarding this before any other tests.