Windows 7 PC crashes with no BSOD, HDD failed to be detected

ReppuKishin · Jan 4, 2016

I recently (12/16/15) purchased a Dell Optiplex 380 MiniTower to replace a computer that went the way of 'Exploded Power Supplies'. Since January 2nd, I've been experiencing an odd problem similar to the one noted here;

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2896259/reboots-bios-hdd-detected.html

Now, I have not yet done what is suggested there (IE: Switching SATA Ports), since I wanted to try to find more potential answers before getting my hands dirty.

To put it into my own words; this problem seems to occur (IE: a black screen with no activity. if I have Windows set to automatically restart, it will claim no Disk Drive has been detected until I turn off and turn the computer back on) when I leave the computer to idle after turning off my monitor to go to bed.

Judging by the very little EventViewer has told me, it seems to happen between 30 minutes to one hour after shutting down most programs, but leaving my log-catching programs going for the next day.

My power plan settings do not set the computer to Sleep/Hibernate or wind the HDD down. The supplier of the PC has suggested a RAM test and a BIOS reset, which are two options I have added to the list of 'things to do'.

The current Power Supply is an (Unfortunately) Diablotek 500w. I'm willing to tag this out for a weaker 300w OEM, since the Video Card can still run off it based off various sources, if the PSU is suspected.

The most recent point of notice to System Restore to would be when I installed a newer version of DirectX on the 30th of December, but that is still a few days since the issue began (IE: the morning January 2nd)

PC Specs:
Dell Optiplex 380 MT
Motherboard: HN7XN 0HN7XN F0TGN 0F0TGN
Video: MSI GTX 750 ti LP
Ram 8GB
HDD: Hitachi 1.8 TB, unsure on partitions, SATA
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

Aside from the ideas of potentially switching the SATA port and wire, testing the RAM, and reseting the BIOS, I would appreciate any further help.

Edit: I have performed Virus and Malware Scanning with all clears, as well as had the HDD scanned by SeaTools and ChkDsk with all clears, but have not performed tests during the BIOS with it yet.

JimF_35 · Jan 4, 2016

Try running a SMART test on your drive, like this:

http://www.howtogeek.com/134735/how-to-see-if-your-hard-drive-is-dying/

ReppuKishin · Jan 4, 2016

I think you may be onto something. Here is the result;

http://i.imgur.com/N8rlK3o.png

GrumpyAeroGuy · Jan 4, 2016

ya, i was gong to vote for a bad drive as well. I have seen similiar wierdness with a HDD that is "on its way out". In my case, I would get random reboots, blackouts, non-detects, etc..

Chkdsk always found, and, corrected the errors, it claimed. At the end of the day, bought a new drive, managed to get the files transferred off on to the new one, and, magically, it all went away....

In any case, I think you are on borrowed time, at best with that drive. Just my intuition based on previous scar tissue.

ReppuKishin · Jan 4, 2016

Righto! I will get in contact with them about a replacement. Is there anything I should try in the meantime to eliminate other possibilities, or just go with this for the moment?

I could still try a RAM check (although I think a RAM error would cause a BSOD and not Suddenly Black'd), and possibly the BIOS reset (Which I rather not do if the BIOS is not a suspect at all) and SATA port swap (would require a new long wire because Dell PCs love to be complicated, but this isn't a big deal.)

GrumpyAeroGuy · Jan 4, 2016

If it were me, I would organize a new drive ASAP. In the mean time, do everything you can to get any data or files you can't stand losing off of that drive onto another/different/new drive.

Just my $0.05.

ReppuKishin · Jan 4, 2016

Aye, already contacted the distributor with my warranty. I've noticed the crash doesn't happen when the HD is in use so, going to try to keep those going to avoid more crashes.

I'll try some of the other suggestions as well, mostly the SATA port swap and it never hurts to check your RAM I guess.

ReppuKishin · Jan 5, 2016

Posting an Update on this: No crashing when I had a higher CPU program (IE: A game) running. I opted to not turn the monitor off as well.

johnbl · Jan 5, 2016

31192 power on hours is like 3.5 years and only 41 power cycles. I think the SMART stats might be wrong

ReppuKishin · Jan 5, 2016

That IS a little on the suspicious side. Do you have any thoughts on what to do? A different form of check? Hrm

I will note it is a refurbished HDD.

johnbl · Jan 5, 2016

a used drive can be ok, if you do a full format on it then the bad sectors should be marked bad and no data will be placed on them. If you did a quick format then you don't know. If you use windows 8 or above the system will try and scan your drive for bad/weak sectors and move data from them while the system is idle. Windows 7 requires you to to it yourself and no one wants to take the time.
when windows 8 went live lots of people hit problems with the scanning, the system would try over and over to read data from a bad sector. Sometimes it would take too long and the system would reset the SATA port to try to get it to respond. Bugs in the sata driver or hardware or bios then kicked in and the drive would not reconnect until you power cycled the machine.

-------
drives sometimes store the info incorrectly, or the program reads incorrectly.
maybe the vendor has their own tool to read the smart data.

ReppuKishin :

ReppuKishin · Jan 5, 2016

I assume the distributor formated the drive before sending it to me. Assuming since the install of Windows 7 was fresh. I went ahead and did a bad sector discovery and recovery in Windows 7 and got an all clear from it, so hm hm.

Any suggestions? I will note I've likely personally powered on the HDD here less than 10 times, easily. So there's likely 30 or so power ons outside of my own.

johnbl · Jan 5, 2016

most vendors will only do a quick format, a full format of a large drive can take 3 to 8 hours to complete.
it is one of the reasons windows 8 does the background sector by sector read test looking for read errors before they can not be corrected.

ReppuKishin :

ReppuKishin · Jan 5, 2016

Fair. Might be better off doing the RMA and possibly formating that. Only problem with doing a full format is I would need to reinstall windows, no? And OEM providers don't send your disc.

ReppuKishin · Jan 6, 2016

Just posting another update; Still 'working' while keeping something HDD active in the background. In this case, a game is more than applicable. I picked up a spare SATA wire and am considering switching the wire and port out, just... still trying to figure out -why- it would black screen and crash when idle.

I heard disabling Write Caching (which is an idle process apparently) can fix it, which I did as well.

If anyone has any idea why this would be happening, I'd love to hear. I'd like to not 'spend' my warranty on the 'wrong' fix. In theory I could replace the entire rig with a 'fresh' one.

Other random things I will note about the rig since it was purchased was, it was incredibly stubborn with Nvidia Drivers (Older ones from November 2015 worked, but recent ones refused to apply. And don't get me started on Geforce Experience, that refused to run). Windows Update is also misbehaving on it (hangs and completely eats the CPU.) That got bad to the point of actually disabling Windows Update and periodically trying it every so often.

The above annoyances are making me considering a warranty swap for a new rig, or if it's possible there's something else wrong and the black screen idle crashes are just an advancement of a smaller problem, grown bigger.

Other things I could do are a BIOS update, but the BIOS update for the Mobo doesn't actually improve anything. (Allows the use of some random Windows program I don't use).

ReppuKishin · Jan 7, 2016

Another Update: Theory continues to be proven; If I have a CPU/HDD Active program in the background when I go to bed, the PC has yet to crash again.

I have Write Caching turned off still, I do not turn off the Monitor, and of course the background program running. I am considering stopping one of these. I will likely turn off the monitor tonight to see if it's the possible cause of the black-screen crash.

I will keep this thread updated, seeing as this is apparently a 'problem' that is long-standing with no clear solution. I probably shouldn't have said this was 'solved', hahaha.

johnbl · Jan 7, 2016

you can also have problems in the sleep circuits of the drive, IE the drive goes to sleep, you try to wake the machine, the drive does not respond to the wakeup. you can actually use a system for a while in this state if you have lots of ram. At sometime something tends(task scheduler) to run that requires access to the drive and the system bugchecks. you get the bugcheck on the screen but it can not write it to disk.

ReppuKishin · Jan 7, 2016

Well, I don't have Sleep enabled, so that is a little surprising if that is the problem. But I'm still willing to bet it is the HDD in some capacity, yes.

johnbl · Jan 8, 2016

updated drivers pushed out by microsoft can overwrite the custom drivers (that have sleep functions disabled) provided by vendors like dell. The drivers have the same name but the default values change over the years.

when I refer to sleep I am actually talking about all of the low link power states. Like spinning down your drive after 15 minutes of idle. You can go into windows control panel and turn them all off by selecting high performance mode.
if the problem goes away, you can either enable each function one at a time or try to debug it.
to debug: start cmd.exe as an admin then
powercfg.exe /energy

this will run for about a minute and produce a report, you then can coy the report from the default location to a place where you can look at it. it puts the report in a directory you don't have rights to open a file for edit permissions so just copy the file or use a browser to view it.
use
powercfg.exe /?
to see the other things powercfg.exe can do to help figure out your machine problems.

ReppuKishin :

ReppuKishin · Jan 8, 2016

I have all those settings already off (Display Turn Off, HDD Wind Down, Sleep Time Out), and I usually do so on a new rig. This problem has been happening long after I turned these settings off, so I do not believe Windows is having the HDD wind down, or Sleep.

If it is, it's disobeying the own settings enabled.

Windows 7 PC crashes with no BSOD, HDD failed to be detected

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