Computer dying?

[Traxan]

I'm fearing an impending death right about now. At first it was minor things, like a random BSOD when the computer was idle, or hard drives disappearing from Windows when the BIOS sees them. This morning i woke up to find it frozen, and after rebooting it twice, my start time has gone from 35 seconds to 152 seconds and it is not seeing my data drive, which I need. The hardware specs are in my sig. So, where should I start with the diagnostics to see if I am facing impending failure?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Honestly, sounds like the drive or mobo is dying.

I would remove the data drive and slave it to another PC, one with a known-good working mobo and PSU. See if you can access it. If you can't, it may be "gone", and require professional data-recovery.

Then try booting your questionable PC, without that drive connected, and see if it boots faster. If it does, then it could have been the drive. If it doesn't, then suspect the mobo.

 

[Ketchup]

Replace all drive SATA cables. Try them in different SATA ports.

I could probably give you more if I knew what the blue screen messages were.

As VL mentioned, this is typical of a drive dying, or not communicating well with the board. I would be quite surprised if the board is actually dying.

The SSD is OCZ, which is a go-to reason for problems like this (the "old OCZ, not the "new" OCZ (I have no idea why Toshiba kept that name, but that is for another thread)).

 

[Traxan]

Well I noticed something. The D drive was missing. Even the BIOS didn't see it. Now yes, it has lots of data but it's 2 years old and sees very little IO. Also, the E: drive, a backup drive, would routinely disappear.

So I took the case off, disconnected both the SATA and power cables for both drives and snapped them back into place real good. The computer started right up, there was D, and it booted in 32 seconds (I use the Wise System Monitor, so it tells me this on start). Thus far, no problems.

I'll look at new cables, because that's cheaper and easier than replacing a 2 year old motherboard. I doubt Fry's even carries it any more.

 

[Traxan]

Well this problem is back. I've had two blue screens this morning, again both happened while the PC was idle, and the PC locked before a DMP file could be generated.

In the case of the old BSODs, it turned out to be a dying HD. A Seagate 2TB, as it turns out, one of the bad batches post-Thailand floods. Could it be the SSD this time?

 

[Ketchup]

Could be. Have you tried swapping SARA cables yet? Are you able too see /write down the message from the blue screen?

 

[XavierMace]

Does this case have a drive backplane? I had a similar issue with my HAF Evo XB which ended up being the backplane failing.

 

[Traxan]

Nope, I guess the cables are the next experiment.

 

[lazybedone]

You could check the problem starting from your disk drive. Try to insert it on to other device and see what it comes up with.You may have been affected that is why it works like that. Try connecting to a vpn, maybe it would help.