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Check task manager and see what is causing the CPU spikes. Also, you could clean the vents/fan of the laptop with a can of compressed air, as it may have dust build up. Another thing you could do is check the HDD health using hdtune.
Check out http://www.hdtune.com/ , there's a free tool that's about 10mb or so, do a benchmark test (or whatever the first one is), you should have about 50mb/s across the graph. If it's stuffed, it might start at 50mb/s then drop to 1 and so on - it'll be quite erratic on the graph. Or it might just trawl along at like 5mb/s.
I've had hard drives pass SMART but still be really bad in the benchmark test. So, give that a go.
cpu: prime95 for stress testing, any number of benchmark suites for performance testing
gpu: super quick easy stability test and unigine heaven benchmark for a broader test
Often 100% disk usage indicates a failing drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
The reason the high disk usage occurs in this case is because Windows keeps trying to work around the bad or overly slow sectors.
If you still encounter problems and the above looks good, check Event Viewer, Windows Logs, System Log, for storage controller resets (ID 129).
Install this thingy http://www.hdtune.com/download.html the free version is fine. Run the scan, it'll check the hard drive for any damaged sectors. The other day was fixing friends laptop, replaced HDD as it had a bunch of errors after 11k hours, crappy Toshiba. Ran it on mine after, 0 errors on primary Kingston SSD after 30k hours, 1 bad sector on secondary Western Digital HDD after 40k hours.
That, my friend, is the sound of the head seeking new positions on the platter. Different drives make different sounds but if the clicks are only occurring when the drive LED is lit you are golden. If the drive was going bad the clicking would be in a discernable pattern and when you weren't actively accessing the drive or accesses would start taking much longer than normal. Check the SMART data (as mentioned earlier) to see if the drive itself notices a problem. You can use the free version of HD Tune.
Download HD Tune (free version on that page) and run a benchmark. Assuming you've had the drive at least a couple months, you should see a bunch of spots the speed drops a lot lower than the peak.
Can you describe the problem a little more? Is this when you view them online? When you save them? Both? How are you capturing them?
Some of these look like like data corruption errors. I would download the HDTune trial and run a check on your hard drive(s).
Most hard drives will start on the outside and work their way in. This gives you the highest performance possible.
If you want some solid numbers, check out a tool like HD Tune. Screenshots like this demonstrate read speed going down and seek time going up as you traverse the disk. The drop-off in speed and latency is pretty dramatic; with the inside generally having about half the performance as the outside of the platter.
Sweet April Child..
..It was way more than that back in the days.
The days of shitty MTBF mechanical HDDs.
When getting some bad sectors due to a power failure was the norm.
And you could accurately visualize the damage, and work around it!
How? By cleverly creating multiple partitions so that the drive would not touch those usually clustered together areas any more, hence prolonging the drive's life (because.. it would otherwise spread).
HD Tune is still present on every system dvd / usb / sdcard I make..
Dazu müsstest du die SMART-Werte der Platte auslesen, die geben Auskunft über den "Gesundheitszustand". Geh' am Besten mal rüber zu /r/de_EDV, die diskutieren gerade ein ähnliches Problem.
EDIT: Ich habe immer HDTune (Version 2.55) installiert, das gibt einen ersten Überblick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
You can use an application like HD Tune http://www.hdtune.com/download.html the free version is good enough to check on the smart data.
It basically gives you some data like how many times the hdd was powered on and how long it has been working and if there were any read errors, seek errors, if the drive encountered upon a bad sector, how many bad sectors the hdd has and how many have been relocated. If a hdd has bed sectors and the number of bad sectors is increasing chances are it will fail.
> There are programs out there, such as HDD Regenerator, that claim to "correctly magnetize" the drive or fix bad sectors on a drive. In my experience, these drives usually end up failing again.
That's because those programs are a scam.
If a drive is throwing SMART errors, and it's still under warranty, RMA it immediately.
Mechanical failures on HDD's tend to snowball pretty quickly, and cannot be "repaired" by software.
If your using Windows, HD Tune is great for looking at drives, and if your using *nix smartctl works great.
get a program called hd tune(http://www.hdtune.com/ ) it has a way to check for bad hard drive sectors(called error scan i think), and it also lets you check the smart sensor on the drive. smart isnt the best indicator but it works. also get a ssd for a replacement way faster :)
I'd be guessing the HDD bit the dust thanks to the kick(since it's working now, I recommend you check it's health with HDTune(click the free trial link), but it could also be due to a loose connection somewhere, if you can deliver clear pictures of the insides we can probably tell you if something looks missing/wrong.
Did you format/re-install windows when you got it? That is one of the first things I do with second hand PC's. I do this as you do not know what is on there from the previous owner. If this has been done, download and run HDTune it will tell you the health of the drive.
It looks like the HDD has bad sectors, you can confirm this by downloading HD Tune or Crystaldisk info. These programs will report the health of your HDD.
If you are looking to try recover data you can give testdisk a shot but no guarantee.
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
>Caution drive is an ST3000DM001
You should replace this immediately.
>shows good health on Crystal Disk and is passing the Seatools tests but it randomly buzzes quite a bit sometimes.
Are you 100% certain it's the ST3000DM008 making the noise?
If it passes the Seatools test, it should usually be fine. Noise doesn't always indicate something is wrong, some drives are just noisy.
I would download the HDTune Pro trial here http://www.hdtune.com/download.html and, if nothing is stored on the drive, do a random erase then an error scan and see if anything changes. Seatools doesn't do any write tests, just reads.
I just did some searching on Google. Looks like it's not officially supported by Gigabyte, but people had it working with the latest BIOS. I think /u/ironfixxxer's idea is a good one here. Get a refurbished X5650 for $18 and maybe an upgraded cooler. Stick with the 390X for the GPU, it's great for 1080p. I wouldn't bother moving up to anything beyond that without doing a completely new build at this point.
Also, I probably should have started with this... Have you tried any tools like HD Tune Pro or Crystal Disk Info to verify that it's your hard drive having problems? I'd want to be sure about that before doing anything at all. It could still be something goofy like your PSU or mobo. Especially after 7 years.
Often 100% disk usage indicates a failing drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Edit: If you are stuck trying to reset Windows you can also use GSMARTMONCONTROL from the GParted Live CD or the HDAT2 image (YUMI can make USB bootable with these tools)
I don't trust that PSU...but let's check RAM and HDD first.
- RAM with Memtest86+, at least one pass: http://memtest.org
- HDD with HDTune:
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data. Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad: http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want more confirmation. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance. Red is bad in either case.
Often 100% / near 100% constant disk usage indicates a failing drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data. Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad: http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want more confirmation. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance. Any red is bad in either of these.
Often near 100% disk usage indicates a failing drive.
since it is only freezing occationally, it might not get picked up on a benchmark.
but the first thing you should do is to back up anything important you have on that drive, incase it straight up dies soon.
Then you can try and run and see if the hard drive manufacturer has a diagnostic program on their website.
other than that, you can try and run hdtune
no info for you on that as I did those tests above with a fresh disk that I had received in the mail about 2-3 hours prior to testing and the disk only had the OS installed on it along with some basic drivers, like the ethernet driver as well as like the basic drivers for my mobo. I would assume it only gets more apparent the more fragmented the disk was prior to partitioning.
If you have a decently fragmented disk and want to be a test subject for us, please go ahead and report back. You can find a free copy of HDTune here and combo it with Crystal Disk Mark to get all the info you need at a glance. Run it once on the whole disk while it is fragmented, run it once after defragging, then partition it and rerun a 3rd time in 500gb strokes. This is at least the method I would use to get results all the way across the board
But your average speed is probably not 180MB/s. depending where on the platter you are reading/writing greatly affects the speed due to the change in rotational speed.
Run HDTune and see the speed across your platter, send us a screenshot like this. I'm sure your drive is fast, but it's also 7200RPM so it should be.
Sounds like there is a pretty good chance you have bad sectors on your hard drive.
You're blaming Windows for something that is really unlikely to be Windows fault. Download and run an error scan with something like HDTune.
I'd seriously consider backing up your info to your HDD. That isn't normal behavior for your drive and sounds like it's starting to fail.
Try installing HD Tune http://www.hdtune.com/download.html and see what it says for SMART test. You're still under warranty if you still have problems give Seagate a ring
I've had this happen to me before. The "top" of my hard drive (data wise) developed over 1000 (!) bad sectors over the course of a few days making my main windows partition unbootable since all the system files were there. Luckily, I had a windows 7 beta installation on the "bottom" of the hard drive which was completely unaffected. I found out about the bad sectors mainly from using HDTune to check my SMART data and to run an error scan. Give the error scan a try; if you start seeing lots of bad sectors your hard drive should be replaced. (But be warned: the full error scan can take many hours)
cooling problem? Is your heatsink attached properly?
Otherwise try testing RAM - boot from a Memtest86 CD http://www.memtest.org/ and let it run for at least 2 full passes (couple hours maybe).
Also test your HDD in Windows with HDTune; do the full error scan. http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe
download the free version of HDTUNE. This will benchmark the speeds of your raid. http://www.hdtune.com/download.html
Run this on your raid right now and I'm pretty sure you are going to get slower than the rated speed of your SSD
Raid 0 will go as fast as the slowest drive. 50% of the data is read off of each drive simultaniously and will have to wait for the mechanical HDD to catch up on the data before it continues to read from the SSD
Try checking your HD for problems. HDTune can run a surface scan to look for problems.
ANY red showing up on the scan is going to be a problem, though if it's just 1 or 2 bad blocks chkdsk may be able to hold you over. Inconsistent blue screens could be from the Windows Virtual Memory attempting to use some bad HD sectors (or probably several other causes).
If SMART checks says failure, the drive is about to fail very, very soon. Backup all your files to another drive ASAP. CRC Errors mean there are Bad Sectors where those files reside, and the data there is probably unrecoverable.
After safely backing up, download HDTune, not Pro. There are many diagnostic tests in this app. Go to the Error Scan tab, do a Full Error Scan. Not quick. This will take some time. If all of the blocks are green the drive is healthy. If Any of the blocks are RED, there is no reason to complete the test, this indicates Bad Sectors and the drive needs to be replaced.
> it makes a revving noise, in then stops; usually accompanied with a clicking sound
A clicking HDD means it has already failed. The clicking is a head that is parked and the needle is stuck on a Bad Sector. Shaking it will let it go a little further but will get stuck on another Bad Sector.
For a second opinion, download HDTune, not Pro, Take the Drop down Arrow at the top tool bar and select the troubled drive, if it is showing. Go to the Error Scan tab. run a Full Error Scan, not Quick. If all the blocks are Green, the drive is healthy. If any of the blocks are RED, that is a Bad Sector, if you get more then 2, your drive has failed, there is no need to finish the test, except to see how many RED blocks there are. Of course, it probably won't start or fail the test after a few minutes anyways.
BSODs are tough. You've eliminated it being purely software related for the most part by reinstalling Windows. A ram problem is possible, but it's not necessarily the ram itself. It could be the ram slots or even the memory controller on the CPU (although that is a lot less likely). You need to test your ram with memtest86+. This requires making a bootable USB. It if it gets through one pass with no errors, the only way to be 100% the ram is okay is to let it run for multiple passes. I usually recommend letting it run overnight. As soon you see an error you know there is an issue. If it passes after being left to run for 8 hours, the ram is good. If it fails, you now have to do the hard part. Testing each ram stick one at a time. Start with doing each stick in the first ram slot. If only one stick fails, you know the issue. If they all pass or they all fail, you then have to start testing each ram slot. For the latter you just have to test with one stick. Don't do each stick in each slot, that would take ages. If they fail only in one slot, you have a bad slot. If they all fail in all slots, you either have multiple bad sticks or a bad board. My guess would be bad board.
The other common issue is a bad hard drive/SSD. Download HD Tune and do the free trial. It's the only program I am aware of that works well for both HDDs and SSDs. Do every test it has available. Bad storage is a common issue. Even a reinstall doesn't fix it because files still end up corrupted when written to it.
would use hdtune to check smart info to see power on hours and other attributes
then would use its surface test to check if it is all gree or if there are bad blocks
This test can take hours.
The two things that have caused that for me are 1. dying hard drive, and 2. bad NIC driver.
Test the hard drive with HDTune or SpinRite if you have it. Keep an eye on the SMART reports.
The NIC can be annoying to diagnose. I start with installing the latest Chipset drivers for the motherboard, restarting the computer, run CMD as admin, execute:
netsh advfirewall reset netsh int ip reset netsh int ipv6 reset netsh winsock reset ...then restart again.
If that fails, I remove the driver and try whatever Windows 10 installs automatically. If that fails, I try to find the latest driver from my manufacturer website, and see if there's a firmware update too. Then I look at settings, disabling just about anything that mentions "offload." Then I start looking at BIOS. Then adding a PCIe adapter. Then I die of old age.
To confirm if it's the HDD download HD Tune (you can grab the pro its free for 15 days), check the SMART, and then run 2 benchmark tests one with a normal windows boot and one in safemode. In a perfect world the test should look like the image on the website but feel free to post pics if you want.
Test the health of the drive before you replace it. You can use HDTune to do that. If the drive is healthy, I would check the connection of the drive in the enclosure. Another test you could do is get another drive an put in the enclosure and see if it does the same thing. If the same thing happens, then you can be relatively sure it's the enclosure.
Whew that sounds like some mighty HDD failure right there.Stop using the drive unless you have to, especially if you care about the data.
Download and run HdTune to test your drive for faults. If possible download it onto a flashdrive from another machine.
Assuming your drive is failing(plausible) it's time for a replacement.
To rule out your HDD, download and run hdtune and check the results. If they come back fine, then your issue may be a fan going out. Listen close to each fan and see if you can pinpoint which one it is.
Looks like there might be a few logged errors in the read errors, but probably all normal for a drive that age.
I always found HD Tune (pro version isn't free) to be much easier to read then Crystal Disk Info.
Keep an eye on the values, if they start to change then it might be time to replace the drive.
I've had 2 Western Digital Black drives die on me, but they where defective. My oldest drive is around 40,000 power on hours, but i've had a few that have died due to board issues after around 35,000 power on hours, these are usually sudden and you loose all the data on them.
I would consider "big" parts to be stuff like CPU, motherboard, and Graphics card. Personally I switch those parts out generally ever 18 months to 2 years if you want to keep up with the latest performance gains.
I would have to say, at least in most games, max settings really are not worth the requirements it takes to run games with all the sliders maxed out. check these two videos out about the topic Are Ultra Settings REALLY Worth it? Ultra Settings Suck
Obviously graphics settings and stuff like that are relative to the user, but personally, I'll play my games like battlefield 1, Rainbow Six Siege, GTA V, PUBG, Ghost Recon Wildlands, etc, with a mix from medium to very high settings so i can get the right balance between graphic quality and max frame rate.
Your RAM usage is just fine, especially since you see it at 30% when your using it, thats a good sign that your computer is on and working, lol. mine right now is currently sitting at 25% with chrome, discord, and about 48 other backround tasks. Very few games I own have issues with the amount of RAM i have (16GB) and I'm able to stream, host servers, and play games all at the same time, never having issues with running out of ram.
For the hard drive, some hard drives just make noise. there is a disk inside of it spinning 7,200 times every minute, thats really fast. so yeah, it will make some noise. But, if it is very audible grinding or clicking, you might want to back up important data, run the software HDTune and do an error scan. that will check your drive for bad sectors, or other issues. if something comes up, your drive should still be under warranty and you can get it sent in for a replacement.
Glad I could help, if you have any comments or questions please reply! Thanks!
To answer your questions:
1) Generally this is fine.
2) If you think there are virus on the HDD, then I would scan it first. As long as you don't boot to it, Windows should show it as another drive.
3) If you feel it has possible electrical damage, then get a SATA to USB converter and attach it to your PC that way. But, it shouldn't cause any damage.
4) You shouldn't need to do anything special. Once you install it, be it internally, or externally via SATA/USB, it should show in This PC.
And once you get what data you need, doing a re-format should erase anything that is left. Doing a health check of the drive is a good idea as well. You can use something like HDTune to check the SMART status and do a scan for bad sectors.
I hope this helps.
Is it failing? As in showing bad sectors, etc. What is the SMART status of it? If caution, or anything other than good, I would not use it. HDtune is a good tool to check drive health.
To see if your HDD is failing, download and run this. Be sure to look at the Health tab and run the Short Test on the Error Scan tab.
But, moving to a SSD for your OS and main programs is a very good idea. Then you could use the HDD, if it's in good shape, for storage.
That CPU is still perfectly fine for 60Hz gaming. You'll have to spend quite a lot on the CPU to get something that beat it in gaming performance, even with some newer parts.
I'd really aim to keep it (along with the board and RAM) since it'll save you quite a lot of money.
The GPU could use an upgrade for 1080p/60FPS/high-ultra settings, but it isn't too bad either. You are probably able to reach 60FPS at 1080p on medium-ish settings already.
As for the freezing issues, there can be multiple sources : simple overheating, the RAM being faulty, the boot drive being faulty, the PSU starting to fail, simple software issues (bugs, softwares, programs running in the background, etc..), and probably others that I'm forgetting.
Start by checking your temperatures under load.
If you don't have a SSD already, now would be a good opportunity to get one so you could install Windows fresh on it and this will already eliminates all the potential software issues, as well as the HDD being bad.
You can test the HDD separately : run HDTune scan on the whole disk (it's a long process) to see if there are bad sectors.
You can also test the RAM separetely with MemTest (it's a live tool that works independantly of Windows. It boots directly of a DVD or a USB driver) : It's also a very long test, which you can leave running as long as you want. Realistically, leaving it running overnight will be enough to unearth most errors if any are to be found.
If the test read as failing then it is indeed dying and you should copy your stuff off, if you wanted to find out about how much life could be left, install HD Tune and that can give you a read speed test and a SMART test.
I have a few ideas:
1) update to the fall creators update, I had a few store issues on the spring update
2) see if your HDD is failing, do a test with HD Tune the trial will work
3) pull out your gpu and try playing a game, it won't run on high settings but if it lasts longer than 15 minutes that could tell us your gpu is going
Download HD Tune (not the pro version, scroll down to HD tune).
Once installed, run it, check the health section and post a screen shot of it.
This will help to see if there are any issues with the HDD.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
If you can't get it detected in HDTune, try Seagate's own SeaTools: http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/
Often 100% disk usage indicates a failing drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
The reason the high disk usage occurs in this case is because Windows keeps trying to work around the bad or overly slow sectors.
I'd check S.M.A.R.T. on it ASAP. Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Often 100% disk usage indicates a failing drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
The reason the high disk usage occurs in this case is because Windows keeps trying to work around the bad or overly slow sectors.
First check for hardware problems. Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
If everything seems fine there then try using Testdisk to recover the old filesystems.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
This happening after an install could just be a coincidence.
I suggest doing a surface scan of the drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Hmm, double-check everything is OK with the HDD's sectors, just in case:
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
If everything is OK there then I'd just reboot into Ubuntu Desktop live environment and delete the files that way.
Often 100% disk usage indicates a failing drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Often 100% disk usage indicates a failing drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Looks like there are 32-bit and 64-bit versions of FIFA 17. Are you sure you're running the 64-bit version?
Also, often 100% disk usage indicates a failing drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Often 100% disk usage indicates a failing drive.
Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
If the disk checks out OK then I would check your startup entries and services using Autoruns: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns Verify all the entries by going to Options > Scan Options > Check VirusTotal.com, which will submit all entries to VirusTotal.com and highlight ones that may be infections.
Last, you can also do a boot trace to figure out why it's slow: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158252-trace-why-windows-8-boots-shutsdown-or-hibernates-slowly/
While in Safe Mode try creating a new account and then reboot and try logging into that. If that is successful then it's likely your old account profile has become corrupt.
I'm also worried your HDD may be failing if SFC is also getting stuck. Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data for each drive (under the S.M.A.R.T. or "Health" tab): http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad and shows an unreliable drive that should not hold any important or critical data. Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want further confirmation--if any red appears here then it's definitely dying and should be replaced ASAP. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance, or use the Benchmark tab on the older version. Red or too much orange in the Speed Map can also indicate a drive nearing the end of its life.
Just to be sure I'd check the older drive with HDTune: Download HDTune or HDTune Pro and check the S.M.A.R.T. data. Any errors or warnings involving sectors is bad: http://www.hdtune.com/download.html Do an Error Scan (without Quick Scan checked) if you want more confirmation. If you use HDTune Pro then you can also click on "Speed Map" after the scan for a map of the drive's performance.
Download HDTune, check the health tab. Post the results. This sounds like drive failure.
If you can, also, run a full READ test from the benchmark tab (not file benchmark) and post the results.
Also, avoid editing your registry manually. You may fix one issue and cause loads of others. It's almost never a good idea to edit the registry to fix a performance issue.
Yes you would benefit a bunch from a new SSD for sure. The price of those came down by a lot as well. You can get over 1TB SSDs for $220 these days.
Anyway, you could in theory run both programs with a hybrid drive that you currently have. But I would not recommend it. Those two programs are purely for the SSD. Also, for the future, don't buy hybrid drives anymore. They're really not that useful for "normal" consumers. I mean, honestly.. they're a pretty good marketing gimmick in general. They cost more without giving much of a benefit.
SSD + a normal HDD is the way to go!
But if you want to test your hybrid drive, I would recommend to download HD Tune. HD Tune also got the S.M.A.R.T check! Which is the most important one.
Allow me to post a critique of your self troubleshooting. * what kind of BSOD is important. It can tell you a lot about why it failed. The litany of problems can be from anywhere between "lack of power" to "bad sectors on HDD". * Were these problems present when your "friend" had the PC? (in my humble opinion, friend who doesn't warn you about issues with the thing they're selling, ain't friend) * How about mentioning Graphics card, HDD/SSD if any, power source and it's output, motherboard make/model, ram speed
As for the memory test, it is truly more reliable way to test the memory with bootable memtest (usb/optical disk) than just switching RAM's. Switching RAM's is a last resort when your PC doesn't POST (i.e. doesn't show BIOS boot screen). Switching sticks that way to diagnose whether your RAM is faulty means waiting several hours or even days before it crashes.
Additional test you can do is hdtune surface test, since these problems can also occur when your HDD is having dead sectors.
Great update. How did the iCloud for Windows calendar syncing work? The calendar and contacts are what I am hoping works seamlessly.
Also can you comment on HD tune? Is it this site? http://www.hdtune.com
I ask because I am on train headed home where a FedEx delivered SB awaits.
Unfortunately it doesn't sound good.
Short DST is pretty important, and if it's not wanting to complete that then there's likely an issue with the drive.
I'm assuming you ran Seatools through Windows, you could consider booting it from a CD or DVD, bypassing Windows, for more / better testing functionality.
You could also try completely formatting the drive, in case it's just an issue with the filesystem (becoming slightly corrupted).
As for getting it replaced 3 months after purchase, likely you'll have to pay for shipping one way, with a small chance of them providing postal.
HD Tune (free version) is a handy tool to check how the drive is performing.
That 2TB Seagate should be able to read and write around 100 MB/s or more consistently.
That might be a sign that the HDD is failing. Install HDTune http://www.hdtune.com/download.html (sorry for the lack of hyperlink, I'm on mobile) and run a read test (not a write test). It will let you know if there are any bad sectors. It also has warning systems to let you know if there are any other problems with the drive.
Lots of programs display the disk in squares, each square representing a sector. I would guess you're talking about HD Tune Pro since that's fairly common. It let's you scan for bad sectors on the drive and displays it like you said.
Easiest way to check a drive is to use the S.M.A.R.T. info though. Something like Crystal Disk Info shows that in a fairly easy to understand way.
If it's an SSD and the issue is that it's running slowly though, could it be that it's full perhaps? Depending on what SSD you have they don't tend to like it when you're at or close to full capacity.
Then it's nearly certainly a dying hard drive. Now that you're successfully on an SSD, it might be worthwhile connecting the HDD again and running HD tune on it to see whether it's salvageable as a media drive. http://www.hdtune.com/
I guess the only way to be sure would be to run read/write tests (not a benchmark) on the SSD, the only utilities I know that do this reliably are paid utilities (I used to have one made by Eurosoft, it was called PC-Check) perhaps another user knows of one, I've heard that HD-tune works quite well but I've never used it myself.
A possible course of action could be to get the retailer to exchange the SSD. Its not out of the realm of possibility that it was simply a DOA part in some weird way. Get the suspected part exchanged and see if the symptoms persist.
Good luck man, I gotta go to sleep now. I'll probably check back in the morning to see if you still need help.
Most likely, the worst case scenarios here are:
Hard drive going bad, needs replacement
or
Corrupted files on hard drive, needs to be reformatted
You can check health of your drive with a program. I don't have much experience with this, the only one I've used is HD Tune. If you go to the downloads, skip over the Pro version and download the free version. Or you could use a different program if you want. And there's even a way to check your S.M.A.R.T. status through the command prompt, which I think is basically the same thing.
Weird slowness can indeed be caused by a failing hard-drive. Give http://www.hdtune.com/ a shot. The health tab is useful for any smart errors. For the benchmark make sure the computer has been "idle" for a while to eliminate any processes still starting in the background.
SMART is a set of diagnostic values provided by the drive. It contains information about hardware errors that happened, as well as stuff like temperature or how many times the drive was turned on & off. Meaning of each value varies by manufacturer, so you'd want your OEM's tool such as intel ssd toolbox, western digital data lifeguard, crucial storage executive, etc, depending on who made your ssd. + HD Tune as the oem ones not always show the raw value
The values are current raw value, current normalised value (usually base is 100 or 200 with that being the best), worst normalised value recorded by drive and threshold. Normalised values become smaller as the drive wears out/breaks, and when they become lower than the threshold it means the drive is in critical state (temperature is exception here).
After you get your OEM tool to decode smart, look for a value indicating total writes (not power cycles), on my intel ssd its E1-Host Writes (with ~30MB unit), on crucial it would be a more precise E7-Cumulative Host Write Sector Count (with 512B unit), don't know about other manufacturers.
To get daily usage you'd just save that value, next day check it again and calculate the difference.
Then you'd google the expected endurance of you drive, for example intel 530 (2.6 Reliability on p12) says it's expected to work 5 years with 20GB writes per day
> value (627), now (100), and worst (100) when looking at power cycle count
here it just means you powered off&on your laptop (while this drive was connected) 627 times. Normalised value for this one is ^(I think) irrelevant
I would probably say dead sectors on the HDD
Do the error scan with Quick scan unticked. If you get one red sector then the HDD is dying. Get your data off it ASAP and then get a new HDD ordered.
Sounds like you will need to push the power button in and hold it in until you hear the system power off. Then you will need to boot from your boot disk.
If you are able to get it back up and running then:
Download and install hdtune. Scroll down the page and get the free version. You don't need the trial.
Run it and select your hd in the drop down for disks. Click on the error scan tab and uncheck quick scan. Start the scan. Green blocks are good red blocks mean that area of the hd is failing.
We want to double check your drive isn't failing.
Download and install hdtune. Scroll down the page and get the free version. You don't need the trial.
Run it and select your WD in the drop down for disks. Click on the error scan tab and uncheck quick scan. Start the scan. Green blocks are good red blocks mean that area of the hd is failing.
Your WD may be failing.
Let me know what you get.
It sounds like a failing hard drive. If you can, start it in safe mode with networking. If it responds a little better then download hd tune and run it. Click error scan and uncheck quick scan.
Click start and see what it finds. Red blocks mean bad parts of the drive.
You can download and run hd tune.
Click on the error scan tab and uncheck quick scan. Click start and let it run. It will take awhile. Green blocks good. Red blocks bad.
Spending any money on their part for service is bad for them. They will try and do anything to prevent a system from coming back in to fix.
Windows thinks there is something wrong with the drive and is checking it. If it's taking longer than an hour there may be something wrong with the hard drive.
Give it another hour or so and if it doesn't seem near completion than turn off the system and turn it back on.
However, you need to check the hard drive itself. If it comes back up, download and run hd tune.
Scroll down the page and download the free version. You don't need the trial.
Run it. Click on the Error scan tab. Uncheck quick scan and click start. It will take a while to run. Green blocks good. Red blocks bad.
To get explorer back running again, type alt-ctrl-del. All three keys at once. Select the task manager option. When task manager comes up click on the file menu option.
Click run new task. Type explorer.exe and click ok.
explorer should start running again showing your icons and task bar.
Regarding your hard drive and clicking. Just because the clicking stopped doesn't mean the drive isn't still failing.
Backup your personal data and prepare to accept the fact at some point the drive will fail.
Download and run hdtune. Scroll down the page to get the free version.
When it runs, click on the error scan tab. Uncheck quick scan if checked. Start the scan. It will take a bit. Green is good. Red is bad.
IMHO you are running on borrowed time with that drive.
For free, I'd go with Passmark DiskCheckup first. Otherwise there's HD Tune, it's good for benchmarking and a few other things as well.
Okay, that's definitely throttling. It's difficult to be absolutely sure that's causing your problems though, sometimes a little throttling doesn't have any noticeable influence, while other times it can make the machine stutter like crazy. If the CPU temperature is low, have a look at the VRM heatsink(s) (around the CPU), are they still firmly attached and largely free of dust?
Also have a look at your hard drive with HD Tune, is the graph from the drive a nice downward curve without any spikes? Good, Terrible.
When is the last time this computer was formatted? Aka reinstallation of Windows. Might be a good time to reinstall a fresh clean OS. Possibly even consider joining the linux crowd ;-)
You should test your ram and hard drive for defects.
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso http://www.hdtune.com/download.html http://hddscan.com
Also try using msconfig to disable software you don't need at startup. Might breathe some life into your old laptop.
What procedure did you go through to reset the computer? You probably did one of these:
Manufacturer Reset (Booted to a reset partition using a key when the computer was booting)
Windows Refresh (Selected the Refresh option in PC Settings, it would have been the one that offered to save some of your installed programs and your user data)
Windows Reset (Selected the Reset option in PC Settings, it would have been the one that offered you an option to "Fully Clean" the drive which Windows warned you could take up to a few hours)
Depending on which of those you did there could be a couple different underlying issues. However, the first thing you need to do is a hard-drive surface scan so that you can be sure doing any work on the operating system is worth it at all. To make that process a little bit easier/faster follow these instructions:
Go to the 'Error Scan' tab, Select your internal Hard-Drive (Probably the one that is selected by default), and Click the Start Button.
Wait until the scan completes and pray you have no red blocks!
Let me know how it goes and I can advise from there!
That's a lot of errors and reallocated sectors. I know it says "ok" on the right, but that still doesn't look right. HDTune Help Backblaze on which SMART stats to look at
My advice? BACKUP NOW!
i use HDtune, in error check mode. http://www.hdtune.com/
Once a disk scans clean, i then do a speed check with HDtune, and make sure there are no strange dips in the graph. It should be nice and smooth line that slowly curves down for spinning rust disks, and for SSDs should be pretty well dead flat.
Check the SMART data of the drives for warning signs of a failing disk. You can use HDTune (get the non PRO version) or CrystalDiskInfo (get the ZIP version as the EXE version comes with Ads). If you don't understand the SMART data, post screenshots.
Open Event Viewer (View event logs) and see if there are any errors/warnings under "Windows Logs\System".
Try running a surface scan with HDTune. You can download it HERE.
If running a full surface scan with HDTune comes back with any RED blocks you are going to want to replace the hard-drive immediately.
Clicking noises could potentially be your case fan, but I think that it's probably your hard-drive. Power-cycling is likely just bypassing a low-level hardware issue inside of the drive. Definitely still backup any data you care about right away.
EDIT: Probably wouldn't hurt to run HDTune on your external drive as well.
> How can I check the event logs of the hdd ?
I believe it's Windows key + w, then type in Event Viewer and click it. From there you just sift through the results until you find something that looks hard drive related. You should be able to focus on stuff immediately before a crash, which you'll see in the logs.
> And what software do you reccomend yo do a S.M.A.R.T. test
I like http://www.hdtune.com, but a quick and dirty way without stress testing is the wmic command line utility (diskdrive get status will get you S.M.A.R.T. results, but most 3rd party utilities will do some stress testing in addition to that)
> And why do I have to backup my date to run such test ?
Such utilities generally include stress tests that can crash a failing drive.
As /u/DimThexter said above, most blue screens are caused by hardware issues or driver crashes. Most other programs that crash will just crash to desktop.
When you say, "I didn't let the last bsod run to completion so I don't have any memory dumps that I can see". By the time you see the bluescreen all processes have stopped. The only thing the system is doing is creating a log and saving it to the hard drive so that you might be able to figure out what caused it.
You should look into what's causing this instead of just trying to prevent one (with a method I don't think will work). I'd start with memtest86 to check the memory, then find a program to run a surface scan on your HD to check for any bad blocks (I use the free version HD Tune). If those both come back clean, you might look at the log files and see which driver might be giving you issues.
BTW, if you get to the point of checking drivers, most "Driver Updater/Doctor/etc" programs are filled with adware. The best place to find drivers is from the manufacturer of your computer.
Source: Worked in a repair shop for 3 years and diagnosing 'random' bluescreens happens regularly.
Have you tested the drive to make sure it's giving you the speed you expect? Something like HD Tune is good enough, though there are many other speed testers out there. Did you make sure you're on a SATA3 6Gbps port? If both of those check out, give a read on this article, it might be a service that is hanging or slowing you down, not the drive. How full is the drive? It should always have at least 15% free space for maximum performance and the health of the drive.
Kind of, SMART is built into your hard drive.
Speed fan can read the SMART information built into your hard drive. However, a program like HD Tune or Disk Checkup is more appropriate for diagnosing your hard drive problems.
iostat and sar are the basics that I use.... if you're looking for benchmarking then there's a ton of linux options... iozone, iorate, fio, bonnie++. Of all of then, bonnie is the only one I've used on a regular basis. On windows I've used hdtune extensively. http://www.hdtune.com/
Try testing the hard drive. This ought to help. The trial edition will work fine. Run an error check and see if it finds any bad sectors. If none, I would try using a live linux distro for a few days and see if it persists.