Systen crashes need help to analyse

[Elie]

Hi fellow murcers!!

my dual AMD system is now acting up, what happens is in an email or MSN, I'm typing away and then I hear the drive click and the system simply crashes, black screen! must hit reset to reboot.

Is this caused bya bad drive or bad power supply, or what?

the drive clicking sound as if there is a disconnect somewhere, similar to a sound old SCSI drives used to make when they power on or off.

so I'm wondering if it is a bad system drive or something.

Thanks in advance,
Elie

[UtwigMU]

If you hear clicks it's most likely drive. Download utility from maker and do a scan.

If you haven't installed any new drivers or upgraded to SP2 soon before the crash, it's most likely hardware.

Also check out PSU, measure voltages by voltmeter in molex and visually examine ATX20 connector.

[az]

Back up everythng important NOW, worry about whether it's actually the drive later.

AZ

[Wombat]

Yeah, when a HD starts making noise, that's a very bad sign. Backup before it's too late. It's likely that you're getting head crashes when you hear that sound, so physical damage to the platters.

What's your case temperature like? You could be overheating the drives.

[VJ]

Is there anything in the event log?
The harddrive that is making the noises, is it the system drive? (or does it hold the pagefile?)
Have you made changes to the software (new software, updates, ...)?
Did you have a power failure recently? (I had issues because of that)

Run a SMART utility to get the smartstatus of the drive.
(is SMART enabled in bios? this has warned me once of a failing harddrive, just before it failed)


Jörg

[UtwigMU]

Also install Motherboard monitor (I noticed Speedfan has problems detecting sensors on my MPX) or Asus utility and check temperatures.

[Elie]

Thanks for the feedback!!

"If you hear clicks it's most likely drive. Download utility from maker and do a scan."

I will thanks, the drive is a western digital, I'll check their site to see what I can download
It almost feels like power cuts off to the drive either because of a bad connector or something.

"Back up everythng important NOW, worry about whether it's actually the drive later.

AZ"

Thanks for the advise, there's not much other than apps but you are right, I will backup everything now!

"Yeah, when a HD starts making noise, that's a very bad sign. Backup before it's too late. It's likely that you're getting head crashes when you hear that sound, so physical damage to the platters.

What's your case temperature like? You could be overheating the drives."

I don't have any utils installed, I'll boot to bios and check the hardware monitors, I'll get back to you shortly.

"Is there anything in the event log?
The harddrive that is making the noises, is it the system drive? (or does it hold the pagefile?)
Have you made changes to the software (new software, updates, ...)?
Did you have a power failure recently? (I had issues because of that)

Run a SMART utility to get the smartstatus of the drive.
(is SMART enabled in bios? this has warned me once of a failing harddrive, just before it failed)


Jörg"

Event Log shows nothing since the OS itself crashes, I don't think there is time for the system to log anything.
I am running Windows XP SP2, and been doing so for a while now, so no software changes.

However I may just reformat the drive (providing it is good) and start fresh again.

I'm installing the utilities and see what it has to report.

Cheers guys!!

Elie

[VJ]

However I may just reformat the drive (providing it is good) and start fresh again.

I'm installing the utilities and see what it has to report.

I would hold out reformatting until there is more or less certainty of what is causing it... If it isn't the harddisk, you are likely to encounter it again... If it is, then you could have reinstalled everything for nothing...



Jörg

[Elie]

Here is the info from Asus Utility....

[UtwigMU]

Your temps appear normal, they are comparable to mine.

Download DLG diagnostics from WD. Also when my box resets drive spins down and makes parking noise which is normal (in case of reseting).

If the drive turns out OK try stress tests:

You may try running two instances of Prime95 (there's a switch but just download ZIP version from mersenne, make a copy of folder rename executables in each folder as Prime95-0.exe and Prime95-1.exe, run both, choose torture test in place max... , open task manager and set affinity so that Prime95-0 process runs on CPU0 and Prime95-1 runs on CPU1. This is very taxing and should quickly show instabilities if there are any. Generally 1h is enough to discover bigger problems but you may want to try running for 24h to make sure.

Note that voltages in image are not correct (I tweaked 5V and 12V line with multimeter and multimeter shows 12.05V and 4.91V).

[Elie]

OK ran the DLG diagnostics and all reported a ok

However your description of the sound my drives make are exact, the fact is when my system crashes the drives make that same parking sound and then they sound like they are powering up again, maybe they are loosing power?

I am leaning more towards power supply issue, changing that is not a hassle, maybe I'll buy an enermax 600WATT beasty to power up all my devices

Regards,
Elie

[UtwigMU]

It's not loosing power it's normal BSOD. You can enable BSOD in registry and cause one by pressing right ctrl and scroll lock. Drives will still power down. There is some driver or hardware instability.

[Elie]

Interesting, thanks UTwigMU!!
I will investigate further.

Regards,
Elie