Hardware and Software Freeze, Help!

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sharingan5

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Feb 19, 2013
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Recently(in the past 3 days with increasing frequency) I have been encountering freezes in my PC. The OS completely freezes, and the computer is deadlocked.

Also, the hardware also seems to freeze, as in my keyboard, mouse. Also when I try to press the start or restart button on my Cabinet, that does not yield any results. I have to cut the power flow to the System via the PSU switch and then restart it.

At this point it works fine. Until I encounter another freeze. Initially this only happened while watching movies, but now it ha happened when I was shutting the PC down, once while starting on the windows loading screen.

I don't know why the problem is happening.

My specifications are,

Intel i7-2600
ASUS P8P67 PRO
Seagate Baraccuda 1 TB
Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 1GB
Kingston 4GB RAM
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO
Cooler Master HAF 912 Combat
 
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butremor

butremor

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Sounds like an issue with HDD.
If your HDD is Seagate scan it with this program
seagate then this http://www.seagate.com/support/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/freeagent-go-classic/seatools-win-master/
 
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sharingan5

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Thank you for the reply!

I decided to eliminate that possibility, or confirm it...lol. I am running HDTune error scan right now. The scan will be finished in a few minutes, so I will be posting the results ASAP. So far I have one red square (Error/Bad Sector?).
 
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butremor

butremor

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Oh well, 1 bad sector isn't that bad. But it's not good also.
Next you should open My computer, right click on Disk C: - > Tools ->Error checking -> tick both boxes - Because this is your system partition you will be informed that this utility will run on the next restart. confirm the pop-up. http://www.computerstepbystep.com/windows_7_chkdsk.html
Next you should perform a defragmentation. If you pass defrag without freezes you might be in luck.
But as a contingency start thinking how would you save important data if your drive continues crashing. USB stick, or external hhd.
If you have warranty that's not expired, might RMA that hdd
 
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sharingan5

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I have RMA left, more worried about data. This drive itself is a RMA'd one. I am running Windows 8, I scanned the C Disk, What software should I use for Defrag? I am starting to think it might be memory, so I have to try to isolate that too.
 
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butremor

butremor

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Defragmentation is a standard system tool, you don't need software for that, just click start - programs -accesories - system tools
For memory testing use memtest86 , but please not to be 100% sure test is recommended to run approx. 8 hours
 
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TenPc

TenPc

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Bad sectors in a 32 bit OS can be tolerated up to as many as 8 bad sectors but a 64 bit OS does not tolerate them at all, one bad sector will allow access to the OS but 2 or more will BSoD at start up, usually. Linux, for example, do not allow for them ever.

You will continue to get problems, you need to replaced the hdd. If the bad sector was not in the beginning, you could get away with it, just increase your free space area to include it but with it being close to the beginning, it will cause many problems.

A bad sector may occur if you have dropped the hdd at any time (the needle thing actually comes into contact with the hdd), an electrical surge might cause the needle arm to move erratically over the disk, or you have been programming, rendering, or whatever extremely on a slow system for long periods of time, even gaming whereby the hard drive is in extreme pressure (sometimes screen catpure video ) will cause the issue.

Whatever the cause, the actually hard drive has encountered being "touched" somewhat in some way, I suppose much like a scratch on the surface of a Cd disk. There are utilities that might be able to "fix" the issue but usually it is the sign of oncoming danger and data loss!

You can still get your data, you can still access up to 99% of the hdd using it as a slave or external hdd, you just use an external hdd enclosure or an ide/sata to usb adapter which is better because some enclosures have certain requirements.
 
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sharingan5

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I ran Memtest for 4 hours and got nothing, going to use a different RAM stick to see if the problem persists, if it does the only culprit is the HDD.

Also, if the HDD is faulty, why does the hardware freeze as well? Why do I not get any response when pressing the Power or Reset buttons on the Cabinet?


Also, will Segate recognize this as a reason for RMA? Or do I have to wait till something more drastic happens?

 
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TenPc

TenPc

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What's the point of testing the ram if it is a hard drive problem?
The hard drive is used for virtual memory by the ram, video card and the cpu, managed by Windows Os so if the hard drive is failing, the other hardware will not be able to function properly.

If you hold the power button in for about 4 seconds, the Pc should shut down however, you may need to set that option in the bios and/or in Windows Power options.

If all the hardware is frozen that would also include the cpu and ram and the pwoer management, it is not identifying the power button press action.

You could try to RMA the hdd but I doubt that they will see it as their fault.

Edit - What is make / model of PSU, how many watts?
 
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TenPc

TenPc

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A pending Current Sector warning may be salvageable, at least it's not a permanent bad sector.

Use the Run command and type
chkdsk /f

If the run command for chkdsk does not show a dialog, you may need to start it with cmd in the command box then type in the dialog (looks like a DOS window) chkdsk /f


Pres the Enter key, exit dialog, restart Pc and let it run through its checking feature. It may take a few minutes or maybe more than 20 minutes but it could fix the issue. If the issue persists, run chkdsk again but with the /r option, it takes longer but might get the job done. The /r option might take about 10 minutes or more than 2 hours.
chkdsk /r

If that doesn't do the deed, you may need to run a scandisk from the OS install or repair CD (or DVD data) disk. That might take six hours or as much as 12 hours.

The PSU is adequate but for an i7 I would have gone a bit higher even though your video card is not exactly high end.

Edit - Bad sectors are only recognizable on spin disk hdd's not SSD, what is your actual hdd make and model and type?
 
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