Friend with a Core2Quad is having issues.

[VirtualLarry]

One of my friends with a fairly ancient Core2Quad and a GTX460 2GB card, is having issues.

He said that it has been freezing up solid on him, especially when he's playing D3, and "stuttering", and last night, when he left the PC running, he woke up to a black screen, about missing a boot disk.

I had him run CrystalDiskInfo, and it gives "caution" for the HDD health. It's a Hitachi 640GB, apparently, with over 2400 days of runtime. (Over 6 years!).

Reallocated sectors was only 3 for the raw value, and Pending sectors was zero. So not in horrible shape, in theory.

The "stuttering", could be caused by the HDD having to re-read or re-seek to get data, but it could also be caused by heat buildup in the CPU, due to not being cleaned regularly.

The black-screen / no boot HDD, could be caused by the HDD in the process of failing, but I'm wondering if a flaky PSU could cause that as well.

I installed a RaidMax 80Plus Bronze 730/750W PSU a few years back as a Christmas present.

Just wondering if maybe that's failing now?

So, without having physically examined the PC, I'm wondering if the HDD needs to be changed (I feel almost certain about this), the PSU needs replacing (but, if that was failing, wouldn't he see power-offs, rather than just black-screens?), and maybe just a good dusting / cleaning?

Or, maybe the mobo is just getting a bit old. It is a Core2 rig, after all.

Suggestions?

Edit: Friend is currently unemployed, so money right now IS an issue. I quoted him $45 for a brand-new 1TB HDD, and $30 to clone his old drive, so $75 total. Which I feel is pretty reasonable, but he can't afford right now.

Edit: One other solution that I suggested, was to install a fresh copy of Win7, on an SSD ($60 for 120GB, new), and keep the Hitachi HDD around as a secondary drive, and copy stuff off of it as he feels like, with the caveat that it might die on him. But if that's no longer the primary HDD, it shouldn't blue-screen or black-screen or freeze the OS if it dies, right?

 

[jcwagers]

I would start off with the cheapest options, which would be cleaning out the CPU and power supply and checking the voltages on the PSU with something like HWMoniter or use a multimeter/voltmeter. After that, you might go with the hard drive option. Another option would be to get him the 1tb drive and install Win 7 on that and then transfer what he can of his information over. That would be cheaper than the SSD (albeit slower) but sometimes storage needs trump speed. If he has any super important information that needs to be backed up, he might try a flash drive if he has one just in case the drive dies while he is trying to move information.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The "stuttering" while playing D3, seems to be an issue with my friend's internet speeds fluctuating below nominal speeds, according to him. He rebooted his modem/gateway, and speeds are back up to nominal, for now, and it seems that the game hasn't stuttered much.

Still, that leaves the "freezes" and the black screen / no boot drive issue, which I don't believe slow internet speeds alone could have caused.

 

[deustroop]

The black-screen / no boot HDD, could be caused by the HDD in the process of failing, but I'm wondering if a flaky PSU could cause that as well.

Edit: One other solution that I suggested, was to install a fresh copy of Win7, on an SSD ($60 for 120GB, new), and keep the Hitachi HDD around as a secondary drive, and copy stuff off of it as he feels like, with the caveat that it might die on him. But if that's no longer the primary HDD, it shouldn't blue-screen or black-screen or freeze the OS if it dies, right?

I agree with the drive analysis. Regarding your second question, if the deteriorating secondary drive is accessed at a problem location it may well throw up a disk error requiring a reboot, and degrade further.

 

[Ketchup]

I agree with the drive, but you may just need to wait until he realizes he "needs" it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I agree with the drive, but you may just need to wait until he realizes he "needs" it.

That's kind of what I'm afraid of. "Hey, Larry, help me get my irreplaceable pictures off of this failed, clunking, HDD!"

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I went ahead and ordered some arguably-"new" HDDs off of ebay. At least, they were brand-labeled (WD, with specific model numbers), and listed as "new", and the pictures showed the WD anti-static shrinkwrap on them.

Smaller capacity, they were (relatively) inexpensive, as far as absolute cost. Going to try to hook my friend up with one cheap. The reason I went with WD, was that I could use their free Acronis TI WD Edition to clone his old Hitachi drive. At least, I think I can. I downloaded that too. So when the drives get here in a week or less, then I can tell him to bring his rig over, and I'll at least get it working for him again. (And I have a PSU too. If I replace the HDD, and he's still having trouble, I'll replace the PSU too. If he's still having trouble after that, I feel it's likely to be the motherboard, which, being from the Core2 era, is probably not worth replacing... Although, I think I DO have a replacement on my shelf, that he could have for peanuts. It came out of my server. Still has a Q6600 in it, too.)

Edit: Would it be worthwhile to use Intel's chipset built-in motherboard RAID (ICH9R, I think), to make a RAID-1 mirror, of two WD 320GB 7200RPM HDDs? I wonder if it supports RAID-10, that could be interesting. (I ordered four drives.)

His existing drive is a 640GB, so a RAID-10 of 320GB HDDs would be of equal capacity. Then again, he'd have the heat/noise from FOUR freaking 7200RPM HDDs in his case, all chattering away. He probably doesn't want that, and it's probably just cheaper and easier to throw in a single 1TB HDD. (Unfortunately, I'm all out of WD 1TB HDDs, so I wouldn't be able to use Acronis WD Edition, unless I temporarily connected a WD HDD to the rig, to install and clone the other drives, then removed it.)

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

Check the motherboard for bulgy or blown caps. Mobos from that era are notorious for crappy electrolytic capacitors. I had a customer with one about that age where 4 of them popped...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Check the motherboard for bulgy or blown caps.

Yeah, good thinking. I was contemplating if that could be the issue too. I have a pair of Gigabyte boards from that era, and although they haven't been powered on recently, they were working fine the last time that they were. Those boards have solid caps, though. (So does my ex-server board.)

I don't know if my friend has a Gigabyte board with solid caps or not. I'll ask him if he knows what mobo he has, tommorrow if I get a chance to talk with him again.

 

[VirtualLarry]

http://winsupersite.com/windows-7/replace-your-hard-drive-using-free-windows-7-tools

Guess I don't need Acronis to do the clone. (Yeah, yeah, I know, Macrium Reflect has a free edition, too.)

Could give him an in-stock Seagate or Toshiba drive, instead of waiting for the WD drives to arrive in the mail. (Yeah, I was out of stock on the WD drives. They're popular. For the extra $5-10 over a Seagate, I would prefer them for my personal machines. Retail-boxed Toshiba HDDs aren't so bad, either.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, apparently, he says he's good now... his Comcast is operating up to par, and now his game is playable and not stuttering. He apparently doesn't care about the black screen boot / no boot drive scenario, or feels that the issue was just his Comcast connection.

Good luck to him, I guess. Next time he asks for help with this issue, the prices are doubled.

Edit: Obviously, he doesn't care about the fact that his HDD has been spinning for 6+ years, and now shows "Caution" for health in CDI.

Probably the same reason he never sees a reason to maintain his vehicles.

Edit: I guess I'm just frustrated, that he's such a dumbass at times. Gaming to him, is more important than his vehicle, or keeping a job. (He always buys the newest games, but never maintains his vehicle or PC.)

I figure that if his PC completely dies on him, that gaming is so important, that he'll go crying to some of his relatives, and try to get them to buy him a new PC at BestBuy. If he wants my help advising him on which PC to get for gaming, I'm going to charge him, if he's not going to buy one of my custom rigs, or have me build one for him to his specs.

Edit: He claims the reason that he can't do anything, is because he has no money. So I offered to give him a 500GB external desktop HDD to back up with. Let's see if he takes me up on the offer, or just lets his PC and/or HDD die.

 

[deustroop]

http://www.portvapes.co.uk/?id=Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps&exid=thread...-of-men-to-video-games.2511133/#post-38984676

 

[PliotronX]

This might sound crazy, but have you tried throwing in new SATA cables? I've encountered a couple of systems with this problem and new data cables solved it for them. (The drive detection issue, not stuttering gameplay)

 

[VirtualLarry]

This might sound crazy, but have you tried throwing in new SATA cables? I've encountered a couple of systems with this problem and new data cables solved it for them. (The drive detection issue, not stuttering gameplay)

That's actually a good thought, and that's a cheap-enough solution to try out. (I've got tons of SATA cables, bought a stock of them when they were $0.49 ea. at Newegg.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I offered my friend a G3258 @ 4.20Ghz rig, with a GTX950, with the caveat that he would have to pay me $170 for the GPU (list price), initially, and then changed that GPU out for an R9 250X GDDR3 2GB model, and then said that he could have it free outright, without paying me a thing, and he got all pissy and said that it might not even be worth his time and expense. (Gas money, for a free gaming rig, that's like 5-8 years newer than his, and not falling apart, with an SSD even? And he's gonna say "nope, not without a more powerful GPU"? Shrug. It's not like you can't upgrade it in the future.)

I mean, what do you folks think? Is moving from a non-overclocked Core2Quad Q9400 or so, with 8GB DDR2, and a GTX460 2GB and a 640GB HDD, to a new G3258 @ 4.20Ghz, 16GB of DDR3, an R9 250X GDDR3 2GB card, and a 120/128GB SSD, a sidegrade?

He told me that his current PC, he left it running overnight, and woke up to a black screen saying "no boot disk found" or something. I figured he could use a new PC.

I'm on the new machine right now, and CPU-Z 1.80's Benchmark, shows this rig has a 463 ST and 909 MT score. (Thought I had hit 1000 MT during an earlier boot.)

They don't have any Core2Quads on the list to compare with, but they do have an E8500 Core2Duo @ 3.16Ghz, which scores 272 ST and 530 MT.

So, if a Core2Quad is twice that in MT, that means that this G3258 @ 4.20Ghz, is almost twice as fast in ST, and comparable in MT. His Core2Quad isn't clocked at 3.16Ghz though, more like 2.66Ghz, so the MT score wouldn't be twice the E8500 CPUs, it would be a tad lower.

Edit: Heaven 4.0 benchmark gives 8.2 FPS. Which, I thought, when I benchmarked this card in a G4560 rig, I got 4.x FPS. So this G3258 has some pep to it. Although, perhaps the score was off, because I had Waterfox and CPU-Z and GPU-Z open.

Edit: He explained that the reasoning behind saying it wasn't worth his time, was because he was concerned about the e-waste, and that he was planning on getting a replacement HDD for his current rig from another friend, and then running both machines side-by-side, which meant that the Core2 rig I gave his GF for free a few years ago, had to get junked somewhere other than his room, which his "landlord" would get pissed at.

 

[Ketchup]

It's a good enough reason I guess. Is there not a dump he can take it to? The ones I have been to normally have an e-waste section. Have you ever pointed out to him how much heat and energy usage is coming from the build he has now? Might be enough to get more of his interest.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's not so much the Core2Quad rig he's worried about the e-waste (specifically, sitting around the building), but the Core2Duo rig, that I bought refurb for like $100 a few years back, and gave to my friend, and he gave to his GF, because she needed a PC to do some online sales stuff.

He's not really worried about the "green-ness" of it all, or the energy usage. Just his "landlord" getting pissed, at stuff laying around.

 

[jcwagers]

Sounds like the ball is in his court as far as what to do. You've gone above and beyond to find him a cheap and suitable solution(temporarily at least). If he's unwilling to take you up on it, I'd let him muddle through his problem on his own. In my opinion, you don't go out of your way to expect things like that from your friends. You either accept the help and be thankful or you say no thank you and fix the problem on your own. You seem to have quite a few that take advantage of your generosity and willingness to help. I commend you on trying to help and I hope they stop trying to take advantage.

Hopefully your friend will come to his senses and realize that you're giving him a couple of hundred dollars worth of parts for FREE. That's not something to sneeze or turn your nose up at. I hope he sees that. You definitely try to give people the benefit of the doubt and I think you have a good heart Larry. I sure hope all of these people that you help see that and appreciate it. Good luck!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks! Yeah, sometimes some of my friends can be a bit self-centered.

 

[Pick2]

Thanks! Yeah, sometimes some of my friends can be a bit self-centered.

It's Way past time to Dump the Chump.

 

[Iron Woode]

I mean, what do you folks think? Is moving from a non-overclocked Core2Quad Q9400 or so, with 8GB DDR2, and a GTX460 2GB and a 640GB HDD, to a new G3258 @ 4.20Ghz, 16GB of DDR3, an R9 250X GDDR3 2GB card, and a 120/128GB SSD, a sidegrade?

I think your friend doesn't grasp what a great upgrade that would be.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, maybe it's not such an upgrade after all. I dunno. I had him benchmark his rig tonight, with CPU-Z and Heaven, and the CPU-Z scores, for the G3258, were about double the Core2Quad Q9400, for ST, and roughly the same if slightly lower in MT.

But in Heaven (Extreme), his rig with the GTX460 2GB, scored 18.9 FPS, my G3258 rig scored 8.2 FPS (8.3 FPS, with Core clock increased +50Mhz, and Power Limit increased +20%)

So, I'm still offering him the PC, but he might want to take the video card out, and swap them.

Who knew that the GTX460 was so powerful? Or conversely, that the 250X was so weak, but I guess that's because of the GDDR3.

It might also be because the 8X tessellation favors Nvidia in this instance, and in real games, there wouldn't be as much difference.

Edit: Also, his HDD may not be failing at all. He said that there was an CD or DVD in his drive, when it failed to boot and gave a black-screen. So, that could easily have been the reason, and maybe the PC just rebooted, or power glitched, or something, and it tried to boot off of the optical drive.

Hard to say at this point.

He's supposed to call me tomorrow, and I'm supposed to lay out some options for him. He might just want an SSD and a new video card for his existing PC.

His current video card, gives him "kernel power error" messages, regarding the video card, in Win7 64-bit. You know the ones. I told him that older Fermi-based video cards, running newer NVidia drivers, can have those errors sometimes, from what I've read. His card doesn't seem to be failing.

He says he hears a "click", just before they happen. So I'm wonder if it's the video-card fan stopping or being stopped, or the HDD, or the PSU doing something? Or just a glitch in his audio stream, as the bus is locked to reset it or whatever happens during those kernel video driver reset things.

Edit: Maybe I was a little harsh on my friend. Although, I wish he had informed me that there was an optical disc in the drive, when the PC failed to boot with the black screen saying something about a boot disk. Then I wouldn't have spent money on some replacement drives for him.

 

[Iron Woode]

Well, maybe it's not such an upgrade after all. I dunno. I had him benchmark his rig tonight, with CPU-Z and Heaven, and the CPU-Z scores, for the G3258, were about double the Core2Quad Q9400, for ST, and roughly the same if slightly lower in MT.

But in Heaven (Extreme), his rig with the GTX460 2GB, scored 18.9 FPS, my G3258 rig scored 8.2 FPS (8.3 FPS, with Core clock increased +50Mhz, and Power Limit increased +20%)

So, I'm still offering him the PC, but he might want to take the video card out, and swap them.

Who knew that the GTX460 was so powerful? Or conversely, that the 250X was so weak, but I guess that's because of the GDDR3.

It might also be because the 8X tessellation favors Nvidia in this instance, and in real games, there wouldn't be as much difference.

Edit: Also, his HDD may not be failing at all. He said that there was an CD or DVD in his drive, when it failed to boot and gave a black-screen. So, that could easily have been the reason, and maybe the PC just rebooted, or power glitched, or something, and it tried to boot off of the optical drive.

Hard to say at this point.

He's supposed to call me tomorrow, and I'm supposed to lay out some options for him. He might just want an SSD and a new video card for his existing PC.

His current video card, gives him "kernel power error" messages, regarding the video card, in Win7 64-bit. You know the ones. I told him that older Fermi-based video cards, running newer NVidia drivers, can have those errors sometimes, from what I've read. His card doesn't seem to be failing.

He says he hears a "click", just before they happen. So I'm wonder if it's the video-card fan stopping or being stopped, or the HDD, or the PSU doing something? Or just a glitch in his audio stream, as the bus is locked to reset it or whatever happens during those kernel video driver reset things.

Edit: Maybe I was a little harsh on my friend. Although, I wish he had informed me that there was an optical disc in the drive, when the PC failed to boot with the black screen saying something about a boot disk. Then I wouldn't have spent money on some replacement drives for him.

over all system is way faster than core2.

How about benching the 950 in it?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I pulled out my surplus clearance Sandy Bridge i3-2130 3.40Ghz Lenovo desktop, of which I put in a 1TB HDD (and mothballed the factory HDD, in case the PC needs to get re-sold), Windows 10, GTX750ti 2GB, and 2x4GB DDR3.

Heaven (Extreme) was 27.x FPS. Not too shabby. I was actually slightly surprised that the 750ti out-did the GTX460, but I guess that's the way it is. Maybe the CPU factored in too, although I had Windows Update running in the background, checking for updates.

I haven't run the CPU-Z benchmark yet on it. I should.

Maybe this one would be "good enough" for my friend to accept for free. :|

Edit: This one cost me $189 for the base unit, and $120 for the GTX750ti (IIRC), and $30 for the RAM, and $50 for the HDD, so $390 total. I don't think it's worth that now, necessarily, but maybe $320-350. Since it is technically new and not a refurb.

In CPU-Z, ST was 313, MT was 800-something.

I also offered my friend my spare GTX750ti 2GB card, to put into his Core2Quad rig, in the hopes that it would stop the "kernel video driver error" or whatever that pops up occasionally.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Here's a question for the experts:

I know that it has been discussed online in various forums, how NVidia's newest / current drivers, CAN sometimes cause "VPU recover"-type messages on Windows 7 (on Fermi-generation cards), on cards that were stable with older drivers, only, you need to use the newest NVidia drivers for Blizzard games every time they patch (according to my friend).

But... why would my friend hear a "click" noise, when it VPU recovers? GPU fans stopping and being restarted / reset?

PSU glitching out?

Or possibly... the HDD *IS* on the way out, and when a game goes to load something, the HDD has trouble, and resets itself, causing the "click" noise, but hangs the ATA bus when that happens, which causes the GPU to timeout, which causes the VPU recover errors.

Does that seem like a workable description of the problem?

I'm thinking, a new (smaller) HDD, brand-"new" off of ebay, and a fresh install of Windows 7 and NVidia drivers, might just do the trick. If it still VPU recovers, then maybe it's the card or PSU.