HDD breaking down or?

[seizmic]

Hey, recently bought a computer which cost me around £1,200 approx 6 months ago, put it together myself and it's worked perfectly fine since, however 5-6 days ago I had an issue where everything froze and I had to restart, upon restarting my HDD wasn't detected however since then it's been detected everytime.

The problem is though, my PC in general is now starting to seem rather laggy.....it can play videos/games at blazing speeds, load up is perfectly fine etc but the freezing/unresponsive symptom I experienced has started happening 2x a day now atleast.

My HDD is a WD1002Faex. I used Data LifeGuard Diagnostic and everything came up fine, used chkdsk, everything came up fine. However, when I try to even open a programme called HD Tune, I get the symptoms I've been having problems with, everything becomes unresponsive/freezes and I have to restart my computer, I can trigger these symptoms everytime now by simply attempting to open HD Tune.

Does this sound like a HDD problem or something else? Like a PSU problem perhaps? Maybe even RAM or BIOS settings problem? I've already backed up everything I need incase of a HDD problem but I just want my £1,200 i7-930 to be back to normal ;/ answers appreciated, thanks for reading.

 

[sadams04]

You may want to run a speed test on your HDD (Disk Check / Passmark / HD Tune) to see what you get back. Maybe it is starting to have trouble... Also, you can run Prime95 to stress the rest of your system to see if anything fails.

 

[seizmic]

HD Tune won't open, at all. If I try to open HD Tune it becomes unresponsive and my whole computer freezes/lags so much I have to restart my computer. I'm using CPUID and the temps are all fine

CPU = 25C
HDD = 24C
GFX = 35C

I'll try out Prime95 and Passmark now.

 

[seizmic]

You may want to run a speed test on your HDD (Disk Check / Passmark / HD Tune) to see what you get back. Maybe it is starting to have trouble... Also, you can run Prime95 to stress the rest of your system to see if anything fails.

Stress tested, everything came back fine, was no freezing or problems/errors under a stress test.

 

[sadams04]

Are all your drivers up to date (including your MB)?

 

[seizmic]

I believe so but not totally 100% sure. Why would this cause random freezes though?

Mobo: P6X58D-E
GFX: XFX Radeon HD 5770

Not sure what the latest drivers for those are but there's no option to update them, so I assume they're up to date.

 

[sadams04]

Out of date / bad drivers can cause unexpected crashes, spontaneous reboots, poor performance, sleep and hibernation issues, etc. It would be worth a manual check crossing the device manager list with the manufacturers web site. This may not be your problem, but needs to be ruled out...

 

[seizmic]

Just took a look in Device Manager and there's 1 "!" notice for my P.C says "needs troubleshooting" then I see Marvell 91xx Config ATA Device with this message:

The drivers for this device are not installed. (Code 28)

To find a driver for this device, click Update Driver.

There's no option to click update driver for this device though.

I clicked update on my Radeon HD 5770 and promptly got a Blue screen of death. The driver was @ 8.66 now it's @ 8.791 and still has another Upgrade option. My original driver was dated @ 09, this one is now dated @ 26/10/2010.

Tbh looking @ everything, it seems most things CAN have their drivers updated.

DVD/HDD/Mouse/Keyboard/Ethernet etc etc all have options to have their drivers updated.

 

[sadams04]

The Marvell device is for your SATA controller. You will need to hit the MB manufacturers web site to pull down the latest chipset drivers (this will be for audio / lan / SATA / PCIe/ etc..).

Glad you were able update the 5770 drivers!

 

[seizmic]

The Marvell device is for your SATA controller. You will need to hit the MB manufacturers web site to pull down the latest chipset drivers (this will be for audio / lan / SATA / PCIe/ etc..).

Glad you were able update the 5770 drivers!

Updated all my drivers, P.C does soom more smooth than it did before, however opening HD Tune still gives the same results as before, freezes windows. I haven't experienced the freeze since yesterday now but if it's happened 3-4x randomly in the past 5 days, odds are it'll happen again.

Shall I just wait and see if it happens again randomly then bump this to let you know the problem is still here or does the fact opening HD Tune mimics the same symptoms mean it's more than likely going to happen again?

 

[sadams04]

ITunes opening may be scanning for media on your hard drive. This could take some time under normal situations (I am not all THAT familar with ITunes).

Go ahead and load that machine down with games / programs. Better to know if it will happen than sit back and hope it doesn't...

 

[seizmic]

ITunes opening may be scanning for media on your hard drive. This could take some time under normal situations (I am not all THAT familar with ITunes).

Go ahead and load that machine down with games / programs. Better to know if it will happen than sit back and hope it doesn't...

HD Tune, not ITunes hehe.

I did a Passmark test and got 2215.3 total result my specs are

i7-930 @ 2.8GHz
Corsair XMS3 Tri-Chan mem 6gb, it's supposed to be @ 1600MHz but it's underclocked to 1066MHZ atm.
P6X58D-E Mobo
Radeon HD 5770 GFX
1TB Western digital black HDD.

My HDD scored 804.7. I really have no idea what these results tell me hence why I'm hoping you could possibly shed some light, does my computer seem to be running at a normal speed for these specs?

I've got like 5 different games loaded atm and it hasn't freezed yet, it seems to just happen randomly, not sure what triggers it.

 

[seizmic]

On a S.M.A.R.T test now, I get Uncorrectable Sector Count, status: FAIL, Value 100, Worst 253, Threshold 116.

Only had this HDD for 6 months, should I RMA it or is this a fixable problem?

 

[seizmic]

Sorry for the double post, also just got these FAIL

Power Cycle Count

Write Error Count

 

[sadams04]

I would try to RMA it if you can. Sounds like the drive is bad...