This is really strange. A few weeks ago I formatted and partitioned a sata drive so that I could dual boot vista and XP. After I had installed Vista on the sata drive I started to get a strange clicking noise followed by what sounded like a powering up noise, quite similar to when you first switch on your PC. I ran vista fine for a few weeks. Even played Oblivion through just fine for hours and hours, something I was unable to do on XP since it would freeze when entering/exiting doors. Vista eventually started to exhibit strange behavior. My onboard network controller would randomly stop working and I would get random BSODs. I was unable to uninstall and reinstall my nvidia video card and motherboard drivers and my Vista installation eventually became hosed since I was unable to boot into it or safe mode at all.
I ran various diagnostic tools like orthos on the CPU (which passed 17+ hours) and WD's hard drive diagnostic tools in windows. All of them passed just fine. I suspected the NB chipset might be overheating since the my onboard networking controller was malfunctioning in vista so I replaced it for a pure copper fan. I even added 2 120mm intake fans to the front of my SilverStone TJ07 case. My temps are about as cool as possible with a fan setup (NB chipset is 38C cpu is 26c etc) Anyways, I began to suspect my XP hard drive was malfunctioning because oblivion would freeze (and still continues to freeze) when I entered and exited doors. Basically whenever it would load a new area. I didn't have this issue on the Vista drive so I thought surely it must be my 5 year old 60gb C: drive that was dying.
Trying to track down the issue, I ran a hard drive diagnostics test in DOS mode. I ran a test on the C: drive, it passed fine in both the quick test and extended test. I sat for 15 minutes with my ear next to the hard drive trying to reproduce and listen for the click and power up noise. Absolutely nothing. So I ran the test on the Sata drive, which had contained Vista, and bam, just as soon as the test begins I get the loud clicking noise that I had experienced before. I ran the test through and the clicking noise repeated perhaps 3-4 times during the 15 minute test. Once when it started, once about halfway through and once when it stopped.
Here's where it gets tricky though. I partitioned the sata drive specifically for vista and data backup and never experienced this issue until I installed vista. I'm wondering if maybe the partition is some how causing the drive to stop while it switches to the next partition thus causing the click and power up sound. Could it be defective, or is the partition to blame?
Now onto the 60gb IDE drive. This is my main boot drive. I've used it for years with XP. When oblivon was released I began to experience an issue where it would freeze up whenever I'd enter or exit a door. I figured it was some kind of problem with the game so I just quit playing it. I made a few hardware changes in the mean time installed vista on that sata drive and decided to play it again and it worked perfectly. I could play for 8 hours straight without issue. I wanted to try it in XP so I could get some performance improvements, so I moved my saved files over to xp and it froze within 10 seconds of exiting the first door. So I'm not sure if this hard drive is malfunctioning as well.
I'm really not sure what to do here. I'm kind of broke at the moment. About ready to pull the trigger on two Seagate S-ATA 300 drives but man, I really can't afford not to fix this issue. I'm between projects right now (went a while without any work, which is why I'm broke...), now working on a few as we speak so it's imperative I have a working pc and that I get this fixed as cheaply as possible.
Here are my PC specs
Opeteron 170 (dropped it to 2.6ghz from 2.8ghz. Othros passed 17+ hours)
DFI LanParty expert with better chipset fan
2 7800GTX 512 cards in SLI
G.Skill PC 250mhz 3-4-4-8 ram
1 WD 60gb IDE drive (XP/Boot drive) 1 WD 120GB IDE (slave) 1 WD 260gb Sata (Partitioned and used to have vista on it)
Chaintek DRU-710 sound card
Fortron Epsilon 750w PSU
Silverstone TJ07 with two added 120mm intake fans in kama drive bays
Any help at all would be tremendously appreciated.
I ran various diagnostic tools like orthos on the CPU (which passed 17+ hours) and WD's hard drive diagnostic tools in windows. All of them passed just fine. I suspected the NB chipset might be overheating since the my onboard networking controller was malfunctioning in vista so I replaced it for a pure copper fan. I even added 2 120mm intake fans to the front of my SilverStone TJ07 case. My temps are about as cool as possible with a fan setup (NB chipset is 38C cpu is 26c etc) Anyways, I began to suspect my XP hard drive was malfunctioning because oblivion would freeze (and still continues to freeze) when I entered and exited doors. Basically whenever it would load a new area. I didn't have this issue on the Vista drive so I thought surely it must be my 5 year old 60gb C: drive that was dying.
Trying to track down the issue, I ran a hard drive diagnostics test in DOS mode. I ran a test on the C: drive, it passed fine in both the quick test and extended test. I sat for 15 minutes with my ear next to the hard drive trying to reproduce and listen for the click and power up noise. Absolutely nothing. So I ran the test on the Sata drive, which had contained Vista, and bam, just as soon as the test begins I get the loud clicking noise that I had experienced before. I ran the test through and the clicking noise repeated perhaps 3-4 times during the 15 minute test. Once when it started, once about halfway through and once when it stopped.
Here's where it gets tricky though. I partitioned the sata drive specifically for vista and data backup and never experienced this issue until I installed vista. I'm wondering if maybe the partition is some how causing the drive to stop while it switches to the next partition thus causing the click and power up sound. Could it be defective, or is the partition to blame?
Now onto the 60gb IDE drive. This is my main boot drive. I've used it for years with XP. When oblivon was released I began to experience an issue where it would freeze up whenever I'd enter or exit a door. I figured it was some kind of problem with the game so I just quit playing it. I made a few hardware changes in the mean time installed vista on that sata drive and decided to play it again and it worked perfectly. I could play for 8 hours straight without issue. I wanted to try it in XP so I could get some performance improvements, so I moved my saved files over to xp and it froze within 10 seconds of exiting the first door. So I'm not sure if this hard drive is malfunctioning as well.
I'm really not sure what to do here. I'm kind of broke at the moment. About ready to pull the trigger on two Seagate S-ATA 300 drives but man, I really can't afford not to fix this issue. I'm between projects right now (went a while without any work, which is why I'm broke...), now working on a few as we speak so it's imperative I have a working pc and that I get this fixed as cheaply as possible.
Here are my PC specs
Opeteron 170 (dropped it to 2.6ghz from 2.8ghz. Othros passed 17+ hours)
DFI LanParty expert with better chipset fan
2 7800GTX 512 cards in SLI
G.Skill PC 250mhz 3-4-4-8 ram
1 WD 60gb IDE drive (XP/Boot drive) 1 WD 120GB IDE (slave) 1 WD 260gb Sata (Partitioned and used to have vista on it)
Chaintek DRU-710 sound card
Fortron Epsilon 750w PSU
Silverstone TJ07 with two added 120mm intake fans in kama drive bays
Any help at all would be tremendously appreciated.