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Help: HDD freezes and unfreezes... or maybe CPU ?

ALEXANDER

ALEXANDER

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Jul 17, 2007
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RO ALEX ALEXANDER
I have a 1TB, 32 mb buffer HDD / Phenom 2 AMD processor

The thing is that sometimes, when I start programs, (particularly those that stress the HDD, ( ex Utorrent when it is 'loading' all torrents ) the system freezes, then I hear a reactor starting up - like sound (not that loud but the same pattern) and after 'the reactor' goes up for 2-3 seconds, I hear a click and then the system unfreezes and everything is back to normal. Although I am not 100% sure that the sound comes from the HDD... It could come from the CPU from all I know... It occurs like once in an hour or so

I just linked it to the HDD because of another problem I have with it. When I start the system after it was shut down for more than 4-5 hours, I hear another strange grinding metal sound that definitely comes from the HDD. The thing is that it stops by it's self after 1 min or if I tap it (ok, I admit, slap the central unit like a biach) after 30 seconds after start-up. SO, if I slap it right after I pressed the start button, the sound won't go away... I must wait a bit :) So that's why I have come to the conclusion that it must be heat related... just needs to warm up a bit and the sound disappears... disturbing problems non the less...

So if there are any hardware dudes out there, I would surely appreciate any help

EDIT

solved the second problem. The one with the girding sound when the system started. It was actually caused by the rams coolers (I got a special 3 cooler belt that went over the ram memory slots). heh I had no room to fit it on the ram sockets so I hanged it right under the HDD to cool it . neat huh ? those damn coolers were making that sound but I still don't know why... are they broken and need to spin a minute to not make that sound or do the vibrating metal supports did that to the bottom of the hdd's 'room' ... anyway I am glad that loud and disturbing noise does not come from the HDD. I still have the freezing problem though...

ALSO: some stress tests like : copying 200GB from the suspected HDD to an older HDD : caused no reactor like sound and click.
Utorrent 13mb/s download and 11mb/s upload at the same time: no problem.
Installing 15GB game from 2 mounted 8GB files : no freeze. unarchiving those 15 GB worth files : no problems...

Problem still seem to originate from the HDD (as the freeze and unfreeze come when 'accessing' it) usually when starting utorrent or opening C /D /E /F partitions some time and also winamp. What do these 3 sources have in common ? well they all address multiple files from the HDD when opened (ex utorrent addresses over 150 GB of files when opened and winamp does the same to about 5GB of music files) A thing that concerns me is that the sound does not sound like one a HDD could make, but the click does. I thus also suspect the CPU or PSU
 
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you want to make sure you have a good back up and look at replacing the HD. it might stay like that without failing for years, but basically its knackered.
 
Didn't found HDD name in your question, I'm blind? :confused:
 
Your hard drive is getting scratched, and the reader is working harder and harder to get past this.

Backup your data and replace the HDD as soon as possible. Whacking it just makes the problem worse in the long run.
 
ALEXANDER said:
I don't think that matters a lot ....

HDD Western Digital WD1001FALS, 1TB, 7200, 32MB, SATA2
Click to expand...
That matters, since that well known problem for some Seagate HDD with specific firmware.

You could try to check your HDD with Victoria or MHDD (was not updated for a while, as i knew), for example, but read whole manual before you will do that, if you don't want lost all your data.
 
all data is backed up (I regularly do that)... I think I will just return the damn HDD. Hopefully it will make the same sound when I test it at warranty
 
Bad disks in the HDD I dont thnk would cause the first problem with the pause... Sounds more like a cd spinning up doing that with the short time frame pause and then stopping the noise..

As far as a confirmed grinding noise from the HDD yeah replace that bad boy fast.. I have taken apart HD's that made grinding noises and have seen the platter actually have craked or broke in pieces from a build up of the coating on the R/W head makeing a wedge and stopping the disks cold, or snapping the heads of and jamming that way. 10k rpm in any mechanical failure =major damage when it cuts loose.
 
ALEXANDER said:
I don't think that matters a lot ....

HDD Western Digital WD1001FALS, 1TB, 7200, 32MB, SATA2
Click to expand...

You sure the HD isn't in fact a:

HDD Western Digital WD100FA1LS, 1TB, 7200, 32MB, SATA2

:D
 
First part of the post sounds like the standard HDD spindown for power management on modern drives. Just disable (set to never) the HDD options in your power management settings and that should stop.

Second part sounds dodgy. Being 1TB at a guess you should still have warranty left. Get the shop you bought it from to take a look.
 
your using amd :p thats your problem! :D

jk.

but the HDD sounds broken, you can fix it if it as it sounds to me like some of the parts are loled. fixing it can be a right pain in the holymother so getting an backup and changing it would be best. however try with an HDD you KNOW works and see if it all freeze still, if it does its most likley the HDD, if it still freezes with the new working HDD its not the HDD and something else.

dont see why the CPU should be freezing you like this, would rather belive its Ram, or some other hardware components, maybe even PSU. just test around to you find out wich part is faulty and take it from there :p
 
EDIT

solved the second problem. The one with the girding sound when the system started. It was actually caused by the rams coolers (I got a special 3 cooler belt that went over the ram memory slots). heh I had no room to fit it on the ram sockets so I hanged it right under the HDD to cool it . neat huh ? those damn coolers were making that sound but I still don't know why... are they broken and need to spin a minute to not make that sound or do the vibrating metal supports did that to the bottom of the hdd's 'room' ... anyway I am glad that loud and disturbing noise does not come from the HDD. I still have the freezing problem though...

ALSO: some stress tests like : copying 200GB from the suspected HDD to an older HDD : caused no reactor like sound and click.
Utorrent 13mb/s download and 11mb/s upload at the same time: no problem.
Installing 15GB game from 2 mounted 8GB files : no freeze. unarchiving those 15 GB worth files : no problems...

Problem still seem to originate from the HDD (as the freeze and unfreeze come when 'accessing' it) usually when starting utorrent or opening C /D /E /F partitions some time and also winamp. What do these 3 sources have in common ? well they all address multiple files from the HDD when opened (ex utorrent addresses over 150 GB of files when opened and winamp does the same to about 5GB of music files) A thing that concerns me is that the sound does not sound like one a HDD could make, but the click does. I thus also suspect the CPU or PSU
 
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If you did strees test on hdd , and all was fine , then its not the hdd and not the psu...

But well you should try one starting in save mode (f8 when you start) , it sometime solve problem ( i wonder what it do while the save mode start)...
Then if it still same :
1remouve all hardweare from machine , and put back the minimum you can...
cpu , 1 ram bar , video card if you dont have one integrated in mother bord..and test...
if still same , swap your ram with an other ram.. still same , swap ram to another slot...
then you will need other GC or material...

still , i had a problem of freezing one time last year... i did spend some day to do test... and i not managed to find the problem... i did decide a stupid format C:and re instal... and all was working perfect... i assumed problem was one of the xp file got corupted and created some crap...
 
I had two clicking and freezing sata HDD and changing the data leads for different ones solved it for me.
 
ALEXANDER said:
Problem still seem to originate from the HDD (as the freeze and unfreeze come when 'accessing' it) usually when starting utorrent or opening C /D /E /F partitions some time and also winamp. What do these 3 sources have in common ?
Click to expand...

check the for frgamentation. i've seen machines freeze up for minutes because of heavy fragmentation and windows has a habit of dispersing large downloads very widely across the disk.

not to rule it out, but if it were the CPU or PSU you'd more likly see a complete crash/shutdown.
 
aridash said:
check the for frgamentation. i've seen machines freeze up for minutes because of heavy fragmentation and windows has a habit of dispersing large downloads very widely across the disk.

not to rule it out, but if it were the CPU or PSU you'd more likly see a complete crash/shutdown.
Click to expand...

upon further investigation... (gosh I am such a noob ) It seemed that one partition of the OLD hdd was kinda fragmented... 'kinda' meaning @45% damnn... The link between this and my 2 sec freeze problem would be that the old hdd stored @ half of the torrents :D
Let's see now if I still have that freeze thingy

What have we learned today ? Occam's razor witch states that the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one... I have yet to learn that one since every problem I encounter in IT is treated like rocket science... pff
 
ok so a little update on the situation. As I said before, the only problem I have now is the freeze one... I still think it comes from the HDD as the things that trigger the freeze are HDD duty apps. Also I noticed a specific sound of the HDD (I guess), the normal sound it makes (like the one a dvdrom does when it spins the cd/dvd, but not so loud, thus the conclusion that the sound is HDD native and normal). Ok that normal sound goes on , and from time to time it sounds like the small disk inside slows down. And then I am sure that if I open C/D/E/F drives or winamp or uttorent, the system freezes for 2 seconds while the disk starts spining at high speed again, then the click and everything de-freezes

So, if this theory is correct, why is this happening ? I am guessing the HDD slows down if the HDD is not used a lot but why that freeze and click when it goes back to speed ? And I don't think the warranty boys will replace it if it does not show a problem right at the test site...
 
ALEXANDER said:
So, if this theory is correct, why is this happening ? I am guessing the HDD slows down if the HDD is not used a lot but why that freeze and click when it goes back to speed ? And I don't think the warranty boys will replace it if it does not show a problem right at the test site...
Click to expand...


Someone already pointed this out earlier in the thread, but this is consistent with how power save works on normal modern harddrives...

The system freezes because it gets blocked when trying to access the HD, because it is in power save mode, and the system has to wait for it to come up to speed, which can take up to a couple of seconds.
The click is when it unlocks the head most likely, which is the point where the system can start getting data, and can unfreeze..

Just turn off power save on your HD if it annoys you.
 
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well power saving settings are set to high performance.... and I have an option to set at how many minutes of inactivity does the hdd stops... So I set that to 180 min from 40. hope this works
 
Well, at the beginning of all this, it seemed that my HDD was almost dead...
Now after searches and debates, I came to the conclusion that it is 100% healthy :)
yes, the grinding sound was from the faulty ram coolers.
The freeze was from the idle mode it entered once every 40 min
 
you could take alot of stress off that big tb hdd and move your paging file to a seperate old small hdd. Will give your tb hdd a longer lifetime
 
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