DarkwingMkII said:
Ra_V_en said:
Let me just guess ... you have Seagate drive? I wouldn't care about the sound card anymore.. this HDD is almost certain suspect now.
If its indeed Seagate then this gonna get worse, I've had 2 similar OS drives like that and with both of them i had certain issues with stability.
OS was freezing without any typical reason, even while watching some movies there was some hangs, during gaming the was some sound cracks and other weird behavior like unexpected crashes. I've searched the for reason quite some time until I realized it has to be it.
Remember HDSentinel is a third party software and it only shows information basing on the SMART data. I'd recommend to download HDD dedicated software and run all test to be assure you can RMA is asap. Unfortunately even such software throws conservative response... and while it shows drive is good indeed its not and far from being such. But the only way to get the RMA ticket is to run that software which is quite unfortunate.
In my scenario i was putting constant load on that drive to wear it off even faster, until SeaTools finally threw out errors, which took over a month.
Obviously after i bought a new drive all those issues went away.... so there is quite some chance you have similar situation atm.
Edit: Id suggest to start doing back up of an important data.. this instability doesn't come from nowhere... some files which were stored on that sectors can be already damaged.
My HD is a 1.0 Terrabyte ST31000528AS ATA Device.
And also what is RMAing?
By the way I turned my Graphics Card fan speed up and it so far hasn't crashed AS much as it used to. Not sure if this is useful.
So indeed its a Seagate drive... everything seems to match now.
Now I'm 99% positive its that HDD, RMA means returning the faulty drive for repair or replacement due to warranty rights. To do this you need to download SeaTools from Seagate web page and run it until it throws RMA code thus giving you possibility to create drive return ticket on the Seagate site.
If it doesn't give you the error code I'd recommend to put a heavy load on that drive so it will get even more bad blocks and eventually break even more, so the SeaTools will throw the code. Ofc you should make a backup of an important data before starting such.
After you get the code you need to send the drive to the local Seagate branch within your country or directly to the headquarters. You need to pack it well before sending, usually air bubble foil and some cardboard box is enough, there are also HDD drive transparent plastic boxes which can be used if you have one.
There is more information on the Seagate site about this, so you will just follow the steps.
The whole process is quite easy and you can do it yourself instead o giving the drive to the shop you bought it, which will only make it take longer.
Despite that you should consider buying new drive as far as the repaired or replaced one will be with "refurbished" status which means its far from being a fully efficient drive. They usually send other drive of the same capacity with repaired disk platters but the speed is far from being as at a new drive. I just bought 1TB Caviar Blue, which had quite good random access speed and is just fine for an OS drive and when i get back the Seagate, it was used just to store some junk.
Btw i had exactly the same model you have, i still remember the model number since I've tested it quite some time and seen this number many times... its known for stupid and unstable behavior, loud cracking noises.. etc.
Put "ST31000528AS noises" on the google.. you will see I'm not bluffing here.
There is still slight chance i could be wrong with that drive tho.. but considering the amount of information now, the fact i had the issues with this drive as well and it was behaving very similar to what you are writing... i really doubt that, the logic points on that direction I'm afraid.