What is Reddit's opinion of PassMark DiskCheckup?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

It's difficult to say without a bit more information. Did it randomly slow down on its own, or did it do so over a long period of time? Have you checked Task Manager to see how much RAM is being used compared to how much RAM is installed? I suggest installing DiskCheckup to see the health of the hard drive: http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

If you can, please post a log or screenshot of the results so we can see what the hard drive's SMART system shows. It's by no means a thorough test of the drive, but it will at least help us get an idea what may be going on.

Sounds like your harddrive is going bad. Back up everything ASAP, cause a clicking harddrive means it's on its last legs. Then run a SMART utility to test the health of your drive, but you might not even get through it if your drive is dead enough.

http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

Is this clean install from a generic Windows install disc, or from the laptop manufacture's "rescue" CD? I ask because the manufacturer often packs a bunch of shovelware into the desktop, with lots of stuff starting up with Windows and eating CPU and RAM resources.

There are also performance-reducing viruses that install themselves in the hard drive's master boot record, which is not wiped when you do a standard format or reinstall.

It could also be that the drive has a large number of bad sectors. I'd recommend a SMART drive utility to take a closer look at the drive's physical health.

It sounds like your hard drive, CPU, GPU, or overall high temps causing issues. Next time include your specifications for the computer you have. CPU, GPU, Case, etc. It helps these guys figure out how to help you.

Check your hard drive health: http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

Also check your CPU for damage or overheating. Get CPUZ: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Lastly, check the GPU temperature with GPUZ or any overclocking tool that you may have. GPUZ: https://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/

Oh boy, where do I begin...

First, update the BIOS, from https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5KE/HelpDesk_Download/

You are 2 years behind, for BIOS updates, that have stability improvements. Second, get rid of the junky RAM that you bought.

Lastly, you have nearly all your drivers out of date. From audio, to network, those need to all be updated.

So before you go off buying a new drive, download Slimdrivers, uncheck/decline the optional software, and update all drivers.

Afterwards, download http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm and run the SMART test to see what the health status is of your hard drives.

If the tests pass, we'll want to run, in an elevated command prompt, SFC /SCANNOW to repair Windows.

Let's start here, first, to see what other issues you may have left.

Mmm, the 2 problems are not likely to be related.

About the speed, check the disk for errors. I recommed running a SMART values check, such as http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

Is this a desktop? Are the failing USB ports in the front? Their cables could be disconnected.

Did you tried other USB devices on the failing ports?

If your not having any issues, you probably have nothing to worry about. If you just really wanna see your smart status..

In windows your gonna need third party software to get more than an "ok" here's one

Alternately you can insert just about any recent Linux disk and use the disk utility to check it. Ubuntu and other similar distributions are usually set to check more often and may warn you on boot if the disk is in any danger of failure.

On OSX you open Disk Utility and if your mac doesn't have an SSD then the smart status will be displayed.

The firmware on the drive knows to avoid the bad sectors automatically. chkdsk should have found the bad sectors though. What do you mean bad sectors are popping up? I would run a SMART disk monitoring tool like passmark to keep a close eye on the health of the drive. Don't put anything on there you wouldn't want to lose because after a drop, drives can become unstable.

Passmark monitoring software:

http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

Use a utility that will pull up the smart data and take a look at the drive.

if you don't have a utility that can do this: download http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm.

Select your drive and show us the smart info.

anything anyone else says means little to nothing without these results

I've been with a system builder for the past couple of years and we haven't had any issues with the Hitachi drives outside of the norm. I've had all sorts of issues with Seagate drives though.

One of my primary issues is with the way Seagates display SMART information, which is one of the ways I try to quickly get an idea of what's going on with a drive when we're remotely working with a customer. We've also had issues with them dropping out of RAID arrays when there are about 8 or more drives, which we haven't seen with either the Hitachi or WD drives.

However, I'm a fan of the hybrid state drive that Seagate put out. I gave it a shot since I was able to get it for pretty cheap and Windows has definitely been booting faster for me.

Definitely agree with staying away from the green drives. I ended up getting a 2TB green a few years back and had to change the power saving settings in Windows so the drives don't sleep. Without that change, the drive would spin down and actually get dropped by the storage controller.

No clue why Windows doesn't come with anything like that, which is why I've made a habit of installing DiskCheckup as soon as Windows is up and running.

It's doubtful that you're being penetrated.

Windows' error checking is fine for surface damage, but you might want to use something like DiskCheckup.

I don't see where a hard drive read test was done?

See if you can run seatools for a read pass. Also: http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm install that and post a picture of the smart status.

Back up everything you want right now. Don't turn off your computer!

Try running DiskCheckup to see if the drive is reporting errors itself. (no affiliation)

If not, its probably the motherboard controller. Try another sata port. I'd be ready to throw away that drive if I were you.

Check out techsupport. It could be a hard drive issue or a problem with the RAM; you might want to get a utility like PassMark to see whether it's in danger of dying. If so, and the mini is still under warranty, you should be able to pretty easily get a replacement drive.

Very likely. Install either CrystalDiskInfo or PassMark DiskCheckup to easily read the SMART data on the hard drive. Here's a guide on HowToGeek on using CrystalDisk's software and how to interpret it. It's more user friendly than PassMark but I prefer PassMark since it gives me all the data without navigating around too much.

Things to look out for is Reallocation Event Count, Current Pending Sector Count, and Uncorrectable Sector Count. These three things attribute to physical failures and it's best to backup and get a new hard drive.

Hmmm... not sure why it wouldn't show up. You might try something else like this.

Regarding safe mode/another user - yeah, those could be impractical for testing if you are limited on time. However, if one or both of them work fine, then it would limit a lot of problems out and would be quite useful from a diagnostics standpoint.

Nunca esta de más estar seguro:

http://www.seagate.com/la/es/support/downloads/seatools/

http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

Con una formateadita deberia andar todo bien si el hardware esta bien.

Is the drive a solid state (SSD) or platter? Have you run an error diagnosis on the drive? What are the SMART results?

Download http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm and run it.

Click on the SMART Info tab, click on EXPORT, Select all the boxes, select All Attributes, Click OK. Copy and paste the contents of DriveInfo.txt to either PasteBin.com or here.

Next, run chkdsk by following these instructions - let us know if it fixes anything https://windowsinstructed.com/run-chkdsk-windows/

Always keep backups!

Always!

Use a S.M.A.R.T. monitor (PassMark has one) and check for any red flags. Assuming it's good, you can use it as offline storage (i.e. disconnect it from your PSU and motherboard), or keep it plugged in to use as a normal drive, or (if you're a masochist) set it up under RAID. (Seriously though, don't use RAID unless you are a person who is willing to learn from their mistakes.)

Check the status by downloading this.

If the drive is alright, then its the connector, get a new SATA cable but yah make sure everything is alright. Like all things data, you should have a backup xD

You said you were in a car crash some time ago with your PC with you, right? Have you tried scanning your HDD with something? ( http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm ). I've pasted a link of a good piece of software for it, though you can use something else. And please list which games are on HDD and which are on SDD.

EDIT: Last line.

Use this program http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm. Click on the disk. Check the SMART info for errors. Go to disk self test and run a short test.

What motherboard is in the other computer?

You can use a SMART utility to examine data about your drive. I like PassMark's DisckCheckup. One of the important pieces of data is the model number. Get the model number and search for it and make absolutely sure it is actually a 2TB drive.

From what you're describing, though, I can't foresee a reason why the drive would only be recognized as 1TB rather than 2TB unless it is actually a 1TB drive. As far as I can recall, there wasn't ever a BIOS-imposed limitation that would prevent recognizing a 2TB drive as a full 2TB. Those limitations were at 512MB and 2TB, if I'm remembering correctly.

Just download this (free trial) you can use other software I just know for a fact that its not filled with malware crap.

http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

run the SMART test and then go to the "SMART Info" tab and send a screenshot if you want.

With your budget and current system, I would probably go with either a GTX960 or R9 280x/285. The general consensus is that the 965, because it's getting long in tooth, will not be fast enough to support the higher end GPUs. If a 6850 fit in your motherboard, either of the aforementioned cards should as well, and give you a noticeable boost in FPS.

For the hard drive, use this tool to check and make sure your hard drive is still healthy. If it is, pick up a 240-256gb SSD from a reliable manufacturer, as it will give you a noticeable speed increase in day to day use. It will not affect your game's FPS whatsoever but it will speed up loading time and everything else. If your hard drive has any SMART errors or just generally shows up as unhealthy, an SSD may not be large enough for your game library - a WD Blue 4TB is within your budget.

Good luck.

Huh, I don't have that from my drive...I'm actually a bit concerned about your drive health now.

Run this program on your computer to check the health of your drive, that ticking may indicate an oncoming issue.

OK that problem can indicate many things, such as hard drive problems, video card problems, or memory problems. First, download http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm and run it. Click EXPORT and paste the contents here.

A quick check to see if you're having any SSD issues, would be a S.M.A.R.T. test using a program such as http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm or http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

Both of these programs are enough for checking the status of a SSD

I generally take the lifetime of a drive as around 5 years barring knocks, though some are more reliable than others. The only way to know for sure is to analyse the SMART data on the drive. There are plenty of tools that do this, here's one - http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

It's hard to say... Personally, I'd suspect RAM or HDD failure, but maybe it's just Windows acting up or you caught something. I guess what I'd do is reinstall Windows. If that doesn't solve the problem, then it's probably a hardware failure - run MemTest for a few hours to check the RAM and also take a look at the HDD with DiskCheckUp.

I would personally just wipe the computer and reinstall because it will save you the headache of trying to repair, granted, you'll have to reinstall your programs, but if you can back up all your data and steam games, then it shouldn't be too much trouble.

Before blaming it on your SSD, I would figure out if it was actually causing the issue. To do this, you should boot to your hard drive with your working copy of Windows and then download a program to look at the S.M.A.R.T. data of the SSD.

EDIT: This piece of software is good for that.

Run a harddrive check program it should check the SMART features of the drive and test it as well. Here is a free one DiskCheckup

Believe the ultimate boot disk also has similar programs on the disk/usb that can do the same thing out of windows.

Hmmm, okay, one more thing along these lines. Download and run Passmark's Diskcheckup. It'll read the SMART data and run tests against the drive.

Another thing to check is memory. Start task Manager, go to the Performance tab and start Resource Monitor. Click on the Memory tab and in the lower part of the screen look at "Standby" and "Free" memory.

Resource Monitor will also tell you what programs are using the drive. So if one particular one is thrashing the drive it should show there.

That price seems fine to me, a 500GB WD drive tend to cost somewhere btween 40-50 bucks depending on the model which leaves him with about 10 bucks profit for the job, which considering how easy it is to change a harddrive might be a bit on the high side but I don't really find it unreasonably expensive in any way.

As for checking the disk after the fact, you could use a tool like DiskCheckup which will usually tell you the serial number and model of the disk you have in your computer, which should make it clear if it is genuine or not.

You can try tracking down Lenovo's support site specific to your model here, but you might have to do a little digging and check the label on the bottom to see which "sub" model number matches.

Once you identify the laptop you should install the latest available drivers for video, audio, chipset, BIOS, etc. It could be that your freezes are due at least in part to a bug in the older drivers that's since been fixed.

I'd also suggest running a hard drive diagnostic like DiskCheckup to see if your drive may be dying (I've had dying drives freeze the system for ~30 secs at a time or so and sometimes eventually BSOD). A system memory diagnostic wouldn't be a bad idea either.

If it hasn't been recently dropped or hit, I would guess that your reallocated sector count has exceeded the number of spare sectors you have. (When a sector goes bad, data is moved to a spare sector. Each time this happens, the 'Reallocated Sector Count' increases by 1.) You can install the drive into another computer, as a second hard drive where you will still boot to that computer's original drive, and run a program like PassMark DiskCheckup if you want to confirm this. It will be shown in the 'SMART Info' tab. If the drive has mechanical problems, it may not be detected though.

The most noticeable symptom of this is very sluggish performance (as the drive attempts to move data to the spare sectors.) Whenever you reach the reallocated sector threshold (meaning you used up all your spare sectors), it is likely that whatever caused the bad sectors to go bad will continue to do this, meaning complete failure is imminent.

That being my best guess based on limited information, I would recommend installing as a second drive in another computer (or using eSATA or SATA-to-USB adapter) to try backing up anything you want to save and buying a new drive.

Uninstall unnecessary programs. Try cleaning up the startup to see if it helps:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796

EDIT: Check SMART status to see if the HDD is failing. You shouldn't run startup repair unless the machine isn't booting.

Couple of programs that can read SMART:

http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

<strong>J Maths Language</strong> - for when a bit of casual maths twiddling is needed

<strong>Autoruns</strong> - startup monitor

<strong>DiskCheckup</strong> - reports disk condition using SMART info

hmmmm... that seems to suggest there might be an issue with your HDD, try using a free HDD utility , google search for others, and see if the SMART data is ok. Not sure what else would cause intermittent lag.

I'd be tempted to completely remove and reseat the peripherals and the motherboard in case there's a stray screw or part of the case shorting (make sure you have a motherboard install kit that has spacers and other stuff to keep the motherboard up above the bare metal).

Before that though you could try running something like DiskCheckup once booted into Windows to see whether there may be a problem with the hard drive; I've had dying hard drives with bad sectors cause intermittent freezes and problems booting.

Also ensure the latest drivers are installed for the motherboard, video, network and other hardware. Particularly any motherboard chipset drivers, there might be a bug in the currently installed version that could be part of the problem.

You could install and run DiskCheckup to see whether any of the S.M.A.R.T. thresholds have been exceeded in case the drive is on its way out. Usually you'll get a warning urging you to back up your data prior to a complete failure, but in case things are just starting to get really screwed up, this may reveal it.

Be sure to back up your data, and also check reviews on Newegg or elsewhere for whatever drive you're getting; many people had issues with Seagate drives some years ago which proved to be failing or dead shortly out of the box, I guess Western Digital might be the latest to have some quality control and/or design issues.

Don't worry about the raw values colum. You don't want the "current" and "worst" to drop below the "threshold".

I use diskcheckup (no affiliation) to read SMART from my drives, it gives a predicted failure date from the numbers.

If you are concerned about your RAM run memtest for a while. It can't hurt.

I'm not sure but it sounds like your might not be booting your OS off of the new suspect drive, if that is the case back everything up off it and format that sucker.

A corrupt partition table can screw with windows, even if it isn't the boot drive. Run chkdsk on that sucker and be ready to throw it under a truck at the first sign of failure.

You can also use diskcheckup to see if SMART is showing any errors (no affiliation).