Hard Drive Light and System "Freezing"

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

I am running a home-built PC with an AMD Duron 1.2 MHz processor and
524-MB RAM. It is a dual boot running Windows XP Pro and Mandrake 10.1.
I have not put SP2 on the XP install, but otherwise it is fully
up-to-date in terms of updates.

Suddenly the system is freezing up in XP. I am thinking this MAY be a
hardware or thermal issue. Here is what it does. I can have only a
couple of Windows apps open and everything is fine. Then I hear a
"click" noise like a solenoid or something (the system is at eye level
on a desk so it's easy to hear stuff). The red hard drive access light
turns red full time. The mouse will still move for a second or two. Then
the system "freezes up." Nothing moves, no keystrokes work, the mouse is
frozen in the screen. The display is still there but totally
unresponsive. The hard drive light always stays in the solid "red" color
mode.

The noise and the hard drive light staying on are what makes me suspect
hardware. But, it is quite random. No pattern of particular programs,
etc. It will even "freeze up" just left on overnight with no user
applications running.

But, it does not freeze up at all in Linux, even with fairly heavy use
or if left on two or three days. *BUT* -- It appears that the "click"
noise also occurs from time to time, the hard drive light glows solid
red, but Linux appears to "overcome" this and keeps on running.

And to answer the first "obvious question" -- there is just one physical
hard drive with the first partition for XP, a second partition formatted
FAT32 (User data), and the three Linux partitions all in the extended
partition after that. So if it is hardware level on the hard drive, it
does not appear to happen in Linux.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Is there any free Linux
system-loading program that I can run to "stress" in in Mandrake to see
if it can be frozen in Linux? What are some tests to evaluate if it is
hardware or thermally related? (I downloaded "StressLinux" but it is
self booting and I cannot seem to get it to work anyway).

Thanks in advance,
Jess

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

> Suddenly the system is freezing up in XP. I am thinking this MAY be a
> hardware or thermal issue. Here is what it does. I can have only a
> couple of Windows apps open and everything is fine. Then I hear a
> "click" noise like a solenoid or something (the system is at eye level
> on a desk so it's easy to hear stuff). The red hard drive access light
> turns red full time. The mouse will still move for a second or two. Then
> the system "freezes up." Nothing moves, no keystrokes work, the mouse is
> frozen in the screen. The display is still there but totally
> unresponsive. The hard drive light always stays in the solid "red" color
> mode.

This sounds very much like a hard disk problem. This might be a good
time to start backing up your data. The disk light is controlled by the
hard disk drive itself, since it locks on it would suggest that the
problem is in the drive, and not the controller / cabling.


-- Chris

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

I am running a home-built PC with an AMD Duron 1.2 MHz processor and
524-MB RAM. It is a dual boot running Windows XP Pro and Mandrake 10.1.
I have not put SP2 on the XP install, but otherwise it is fully
up-to-date in terms of updates.

Suddenly the system is freezing up in XP. I am thinking this MAY be a
hardware or thermal issue. Here is what it does. I can have only a
couple of Windows apps open and everything is fine. Then I hear a
"click" noise like a solenoid or something (the system is at eye level
on a desk so it's easy to hear stuff). The red hard drive access light
turns red full time. The mouse will still move for a second or two. Then
the system "freezes up." Nothing moves, no keystrokes work, the mouse is
frozen in the screen. The display is still there but totally
unresponsive. The hard drive light always stays in the solid "red" color
mode.

The noise and the hard drive light staying on are what makes me suspect
hardware. But, it is quite random. No pattern of particular programs,
etc. It will even "freeze up" just left on overnight with no user
applications running.

But, it does not freeze up at all in Linux, even with fairly heavy use
or if left on two or three days. *BUT* -- It appears that the "click"
noise also occurs from time to time, the hard drive light glows solid
red, but Linux appears to "overcome" this and keeps on running.

And to answer the first "obvious question" -- there is just one physical
hard drive with the first partition for XP, a second partition formatted
FAT32 (User data), and the three Linux partitions all in the extended
partition after that. So if it is hardware level on the hard drive, it
does not appear to happen in Linux.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Is there any free Linux
system-loading program that I can run to "stress" in in Mandrake to see
if it can be frozen in Linux? What are some tests to evaluate if it is
hardware or thermally related? (I downloaded "StressLinux" but it is
self booting and I cannot seem to get it to work anyway).

Thanks in advance,
Jess

 

[Guest]

I think the problem is actually the SATA driver as Microsoft Windows XP does't like SATA at all so this is most likely the problem as it would be a good idea to format the hard-drive in it's entirity and install Mandrake,Ubuntu,Linux Mint,
FreeBSD,GhostBSD,PcBSD or OpenBSD maybe that will kill the problem and allow you to do what you want to do with your system and this is pritty much what I did when I found what the problem was.