Windows 7 freezing - Windows XP fine (dual boot)

[Yorke36]

My computer has been behaving very strangly since I gave it a clean today, to give you the full story:

Last night I noticed my computers cpu was running extremely hot (90c) i put this down to a dusty case and it was located in a confined space without much airflow so this morning I decided to give it a much needed clean out. I unattached the cpu and heat sink and noticed the thermal paste was pretty dry, infact it the cpu popped out attached to the heatsink but didnt take much to pull off.

Anyhoo, Ive ordered some thermal paste and a new heatsink/fan, should be here next week.

My harddrive has 3 partitions, c: Windows 7 64bit, d: windows XP and e: storage.

When i tried to boot up after the cleanout it worked fine for about 20 minutes but then it started freezing since then Windows 7 is running into all sorts of issues, Failed to boot messages, sometimes black screen, sometimes black screen with blinking cursor, alot of times it will get stuck on the starting windows screen and sometimes it loads up but when it does it will freeze up alot, on average for 30 seconds before i lets up for 3-10 seconds followed by a freeze up again.

I ran a chkdsk /r /f, it found loads of errors, ive ran it a few times and everytime its finding errors and fixing them (apparently)

While using windows xp (which is generally running prefectly fine), I DLed HDtune and ran a check, everything seems fine on the harddrive however, when i tried to copy some files from the C: drive into D: windows xp froze aswell.

My harddrive is around 4 years old now, same with the cpu and motherboard, graphics card is pretty new as is the ram and PSU. Ive replaced the sata cable with a spare i had but it hasnt resolved the freezing. Ive also removed and reseated everything inside so ensure nothing was loose or sitting wrong. I also check the temp of my cpu and since the clean its at a much more reasonable 40-60 degrees now.

At this point im pretty much thinking the harddrive is starting to fail but was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as i would rather try other options before i reinstall windows and/or buy a new harddrive.

My System:
Asus M2N-E SLI Motherboard
Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATAII 7200RPM Harddrive
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz
Kingston 4GB DDR2 800MHz

 

[smorizio]

could be a few issues. dimm has a bad bit or went bad..or you need to reseat it...on the cpu itself heat killed something like the cache on the cpu. the cpu not seated or there a lose wire in the case. i would start and download intel cpu check. dont think that the right name for it but it should be online or on intel web page..it tests the cpu see if it ok. then try booting from a usb or cd run memtest. also run from hd vendor the hd tool to check the hd life.

 

[PaulSouter]

Try checking the SMART values on the hard drive download Speedfan http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

 

[Yorke36]

Since moving the computer and removing the side casings the temps had been around 60 which was acceptable, I installed the new heatsink and thermal paste yesterday and now the temp isnt going above 45 so that seems to have resolved the overheating issue.

However, If the computer is cold any attempts to boot up result in a read disk error, only after leaving the computer on for around 5 minutes will it give me the OS select options on boot up.

Windows 7 (C Partition) will rarely boot or start (this is also after a reinstall), as explained in my original post I get various errors, mostly its either a black screen or sometimes i get the Windows Starting screen but without the coloured windows logo, in the rare event it does start, it still frequently freezes up.

Windows XP (D Partition) however runs ok, there are some odd issues like having a browser and a java app running will result in short freezing but overall its working.

Ive already ordered a new Harddrive and expect it to arrive this week, Im pretty convinced its harddrive thats starting to go, its fairly old and considering the high temperatures I had previously, I guess it hasnt done it any good at all. Once I get the new hard drive, ill transfer all my data over and format the old harddrive and use it as backup.

In reply to the responces, dimm is fine, i had already tried reseating everything to ensure it wasnt that, I would be suprised if the CPU cache had burnt out consider everything is running fine on XP, also I dont have an intel CPU (as explained in my first post).

Ill post back with results from the new harddrive once i get it installed.

 

[Yorke36]

New Hard Drive resolved the issues.

 

[Yorke36]

Best answer selected by Yorke36.