My machine is locking up recently

[jflongo]

I just recently build a new fast machine. I notice my AMD X2 6000+ is very cool, and under low load. My NVidia 8800GTS has good temps, and under little load. My 4GB of memory is under low load.

Everything will be ok, then I'll hear my hard drive getting a little loud, then everything freezes and sometimes comes back. The screen isn't completely locked up though, I can still move my mouse around, but just can't close or open items.

I am running Windows Vista Home Premium too.

Is it possible the OS is doing massive accesses all the time, and I need to turn something off? Or do you think this is a bad hard drive? It has been working flawless for a few weeks. This just started happening a few days ago, and is irritating as hell.

 

[g-paw]

Run the diagnostic/repair software from the hdd mfg website off a Floppy. If you don't have a floppy, you can probably run it in Windows. You can also run Error Checking, Right Click drive, Properties, Tools. Could be a driver or RAM problem but I'd start with the hdd

 

[jflongo]

Just to be safe, I decided to go and buy a 150GB Raptor drive, and I re-installed the OS and programs on that. I'm going to go ahead and put my WD320 RE drive back in as the secondary and try it some more. I'll download the WD Diagnostic Tools and see if I find anything.

 

[g-paw]

Good idea to get a new drive and back up your data. Noisy hdd are never a good sign

 

[ZOldDude]

Did this happen starting two days ago when the Windows updates came out?
I suspect that one of them is cuase of our 7 computers not responding durring file transfers. They work for awhile and then the programs need restarting to get data moving again....but not true freeze with high CPU or "program not responding" messages.

 

[jflongo]

Oh possibly, hard to nail down if that is the issue. So far my Raptor isn't having that same problem, so not sure.