HDD active time 100% with ~0 transfer rate. CPU usage goes to 0 and system hangs

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katosrevenge

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Part list : www.pcpartpicker.com/p/qhPDBm

I built the computer about 4 months ago. About a month ago it started hanging randomly. Resource monitor shows that disk active time (the blue line) is pinned at 100% during the hangs and disk transfer rate (the light green area) is ~0. It seems as likely to do this when opening notepad as it is to do it during a performance test, although certain programs do seem to aggravate it - Firefox and The Elder Scrolls Online.

Yesterday I swapped in a new hard drive with a completely stock install of Windows 7 Home Premium. The system didn't hang and performance seemed normal for about 24 hours. In that time I installed Steam and The Elder Scrolls Online (way underrated game). I also installed notepad++, Chrome, and all of the drivers.

So the HDD is freshly formatted with a clean stock Windows install.

Normal performance:

utEUl4P.png


An example of a very mild hang that happened when I opened event viewer. Sometimes it will hang so long that the blue line is just all the way to the top all the way across and you can't even see any light green (in the Disk pane):

K7nipmv.png


Event viewer doesn't have much to show. There are a couple of errors mentioning the cdrom and some timeouts that happen when there is a long hang.

I've triple checked all of the cable connections, made sure the ram and stuff was well seated, swapped out the HDD as well as the cable connecting it, and disconnected the optical drive. Memtest and Memtest+ came up with nothing.

I'm stumped.
 
Solution
K
Thanks again SuperSoph.

So, I reset the CMOS on my motherboard, and I think that *may* have fixed it. It's too early to tell for sure, because the issue has been so intermittent, it may have just not shown itself yet. I can say though that this is the longest it has gone without any hint of the issue. So fingers crossed!!

I will be back to update if the issue shows up again, or not.
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Welcome to the TH community, katosrevenge!

I'd recommend you to backup any important data from the HDD before continuing with the troubleshooting. Afterwards, it's probably best to run the QUICK and EXTENDED tests from WD's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics for Windows. The utility will help us determine the SMART status and health of the WD Black drive.
I'd also suggest you reseat all the connections inside the rig again and make sure that every component is properly connected.

Give it a try and keep me posted with the results. Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD
 
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katosrevenge

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Thank you for the reply SuperSoph_WD!

After work today I was able to run the diagnostics you suggested. Here are the results:

Western Digital Logo

Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD5003AZEX-00MK2A0
Unit Serial Number: WD-WCC3F4YA07HC
Firmware Number: 01.01A01
Capacity: 500.11 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 19:04:10, February 03, 2016

Test Option: EXTENDED TEST
Model Number: WDC WD5003AZEX-00MK2A0
Unit Serial Number: WD-WCC3F4YA07HC
Firmware Number: 01.01A01
Capacity: 500.11 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 20:15:59, February 03, 2016

It is a 500GB drive. I have a 1TB listed in the parts list of my original post because I didn't see the 500GB model on pcpartpicker.

I'm going to go ahead and reseat all of the connections (again) and see if that helps.

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Update: I reseated all of the connections and connected the hard drive to a different sata port on the mobo. I ran Prime95 and Furmark without a hiccup. Performance is awesome. I'll be keeping this thread up to date if I experience the issue again, or if it is resolved. I suspect that I will continue to experience the issue, since I have already tried everything I've done here. Or, this could have just been a very thorough lesson in the most basic of troubleshooting advice - "have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?"
 
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katosrevenge

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Well, it happened again. While I was playing the elder scrolls online. The whole system didn't hang but I got some weird behavior in the game and saw this is resmon. This was after i opened the snipping tool and stuff. At first the transfer rate was zero the whole way across:

FNJnsta.png
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hey there again, katosrevenge!

I'm glad your hangs and freezes are over, though. What does the Windows Resource monitor show, though?
If this happened while gaming, you could try resolving the issue by backing up game saves and reinstalling the software.
I'd also advise you to check the SMART data results. There should be a small button in the Data LifeGuard Diagnostics tool above the HDD list, it says View S.M.A.R.T. data.

Either way, if you have any concerns about your WD Black, I'd advise you to check its warranty on our website. If it's still covered, you can raise the issue with our Customer Support and send an RMA request.

Hope this helps.
SuperSoph_WD
 
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katosrevenge

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Thanks again for the reply SuperSoph_WD.

I just experienced the issue again. I wasn't actually on the computer, but I had pandora playing and noticed that the music skipped a bit, I checked resmon and sure enough, the issue was there.

I really do not think that the hard drive is the issue. I've experienced this with two separate drives that have both passed diagnostic tests.

I also do not think that it's a software issue, as it has persisted across different hard drives, and the current one has shown the issue with a totally stock windows install with no added programs or modifications.

One day I will get to the bottom of this...
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Well, that sounds unfortunate, @katosrevenge! :(
The only thing that comes to mind that might help you is going to a PC repair service nearby and let the guys there perform full diagnostics on your rig. Hopefully, they'd be able to find the hardware that is causing these annoying issues with your system, so you'd know what to replace/upgrade.

Best of luck!
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful!
SuperSoph_WD
 
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katosrevenge

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Feb 2, 2016
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Thanks again SuperSoph.

So, I reset the CMOS on my motherboard, and I think that *may* have fixed it. It's too early to tell for sure, because the issue has been so intermittent, it may have just not shown itself yet. I can say though that this is the longest it has gone without any hint of the issue. So fingers crossed!!

I will be back to update if the issue shows up again, or not.
 
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Solution
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katosrevenge

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Feb 2, 2016
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The issue seems to be resolved!

Performance and stability have been solid, since clearing the CMOS. There was one exception, I was downloading a 10 gig file, while watching a youtube video, and the video stuttered a bit. When I looked into resmon I saw that disk active time was very high, with a low transfer rate. I think that may well have been normal behavior, though, allocating disk space for a large file being downloaded and whatnot.

Other than that, everything seems really good. The games that seemed to trigger the issue before are running butter smooth and disk activity looks healthy.

I would mark this as solved, but I don't seem to be able to choose my own response as a solution.
 
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