Long term PC issue

Onehate

Member
Mar 25, 2011
79
2
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I have been having this problem for over 6 months.

So I start off with a fresh format of Windows 7. PC runs great for a month or two, then the crashes begin. It starts with a screen lock like once a day, gradually getting worse over the next month to the point where it will lock up within 10 minutes of a fresh boot. The locks have the symptoms. I can move the mouse, any say open the start menu, right clicking or trying to open a program, the program will totally lock up. Following the lock the PC can reboot instantly to taking 30 minutes to finally power down.

In the even logs I see idle port errors. I have just been content on reformatting when this happens but I am tired of it, I have tried once or twice to fix this, last try was to RMA the hard drive. This was done afew months ago, now the problem is happening again I am thinking it might be the motherboard?

What I have noticed, I have put the windows 7 install disc in and selected new install. When it loads up the available drives, my main drive is not even being detected. 2 secondary drivers are, a 3rd is not being detected either.

Does this sound like a motherboard issue?

Cheers
 

mvbighead

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2009
3,793
1
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Need more information.

At a glance, it sounds semi-similar to my recent issue with new hardware and older Corsair Force F80 SSD. Pretty sure the SSD would've worked eventually with the board, but I needed to update the firmware which was not possible without AHCI and a non Intel controller. While I had one at my disposal, it was in use so i just bought a different SSD that worked without issue.

At minimum, I would suggest updating your boards BIOS and your harddrive's firmware should it have new firmware available.
 

Onehate

Member
Mar 25, 2011
79
2
71
Swap sata ports and cables.

Thanks for the response, that was what I did last time before I RMAed the hd. It is a WD Blue 7200 500 gig, and 2 months old. I bought new SATA cables and have switched out and tried other ports, does not resolve the issue.
 

Onehate

Member
Mar 25, 2011
79
2
71
Need more information.

At a glance, it sounds semi-similar to my recent issue with new hardware and older Corsair Force F80 SSD. Pretty sure the SSD would've worked eventually with the board, but I needed to update the firmware which was not possible without AHCI and a non Intel controller. While I had one at my disposal, it was in use so i just bought a different SSD that worked without issue.

At minimum, I would suggest updating your boards BIOS and your harddrive's firmware should it have new firmware available.

I can try that, one thing I did forget to mention though, was this PC ran flawless for about a year and half, running Windows 7. This issue just started about 6ish months ago...
 

Steltek

Diamond Member
Mar 29, 2001
3,222
991
136
When you install Win7, are you unplugging all of the non-system drives until the install is complete? Installing Win7 on a computer with multiple active hard drives is just asking for trouble (apparently, the Windows installer group is where they hide the low IQ drooling morons at Microsoft).

Also, it wouldn't hurt to run a few extended sessions of MEMTEST86+ to see if you have a bad memory module. File system corruption can cause all sorts of weird problems with Windows, and it is a common occurrence in systems with bad memory.

Finally, I recommend using a different Windows install media next time as well in case yours is corrupted.
 
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Onehate

Member
Mar 25, 2011
79
2
71
When you install Win7, are you unplugging all of the non-system drives until the install is complete? Installing Win7 on a computer with multiple active hard drives is just asking for trouble (apparently, the Windows installer group is where they hide the low IQ drooling morons at Microsoft).

Also, it wouldn't hurt to run a few extended sessions of MEMTEST86+ to see if you have a bad memory module. File system corruption can cause all sorts of weird problems with Windows, and it is a common occurrence in systems with bad memory.

Finally, I recommend using a different Windows install media next time as well in case yours is corrupted.

Deleted other thread, was not sure what board to post it on..

Anyways I have ran MEMTEST before the last format for 24 hours, everything looked great. I am installing that with the other drives attached, I can try having them unplugged. The install disc I have used has worked great for another PC, although that is only about a month and half old, but no issues with that.

If its not the multiple hard drives, does this sound like it could be a motherboard issue?
 

Onehate

Member
Mar 25, 2011
79
2
71
Download and Run this, see if it indicates some thing wrong with the hardware Drivers.

http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?q=pci-z&m=



:cool:


I have afew other hard drives, but like I said the computer runs great for about a month or two before this issue starts up. I have ran a MEM test for 24 hours, everything checked out good there....

I went ahead and reformated for now, the PC was totally unstable, would freeze at the login screen or within 3 minutes of loading into windows. Exact same thing the last two times, runs great for a month or two. The crashes start very slowly, and get worse to the point where it is totally unusable, which is where it is at now. Would running this off a fresh format show me anything useful?

Cheers
 

Onehate

Member
Mar 25, 2011
79
2
71
Ok scratch the reformat. I booted once into the windows boot menu and the master drive did not show up as an install drive. I rebooted into the installer, it did pop up as a valid drive. I started the reformat and it backed out saying it does not have a valid drive. I go to look at the available drive and it no longer shows up as an option here.

So the drive is having issues being read even in the installer. I think this might be the issue of the freeze and why I am seeing IDLE PORT issues. The drive must be getting disconnected from the motherboard somehow?

Under the driver to be installed page from the Windows 7 install disc it shows no available drives right now, after detecting the drive earlier in this session. I hit rescan and the error occurs "no device drives were found. Make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers, then click OK."

Some history here, this issue has come up before when I have reformated, I have just had to retry and it would eventually install. Also I have also used this disc to format another computer recently and it worked great, whereas the issue with failing to install has been around since this started.

Also I have had 4 drives plugged into the computer but it has only read 3 of them for awhile now. I currently only had the main drive plugged in for the reformat and windows 7 is not reading it, i lost connection about halfway through the windows 7 install, hitting rescan and windows is not detecting it now.
 

Steltek

Diamond Member
Mar 29, 2001
3,222
991
136
Is this a purchased system or a self-built one? If you built it, please provide a component list. If it is a purchased big box system, what is the make and model number?

I'm presuming you've run hardware monitoring software like Speedfan or HWMonitor to check for overheating?

I'm starting to lean towards agreement with you about a motherboard issue. About the only other thing I could think of hardware wise (as you've checked the memory) in absence of overheating is a bad power supply.
 
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Onehate

Member
Mar 25, 2011
79
2
71
Built this one itself. Here are the componetents

Here is the PC info
Motherboad
CPU
GPU
RAM
PSU

I have ran some monitoring programs, and everything seems to run at good temps... Cannot run them now as the boot sector is gone with that half install that failed last night.
 

Onehate

Member
Mar 25, 2011
79
2
71
I tried something else.

I took the battery out for afew minutes. Put it back in and booted into the install disc. It detected the hard drive. I started the install and it got to about 70% then threw an error:

Windows cannot install required files. The file does not exist. make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. error code: 0x080070003

I go back and look at the drives available, and the drive is gone, both partitions even are missing. This is making me think motherboard, if the Windows install disc is even having trouble detecting the drive consistently.
 

mfenn

Elite Member
Jan 17, 2010
22,400
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www.mfenn.com
Do you have another computer where you can test the drive? What if you do a Windows install on one of the secondary drives?
 

Onehate

Member
Mar 25, 2011
79
2
71
Do you have another computer where you can test the drive? What if you do a Windows install on one of the secondary drives?

Well the thing here is that this has happend afew times, every few months like I said, I think this is the 4th time this has happened. Last time this came up, about 2 months ago I RMAed that hard drive. So this is a new one from WD and the exact same thing is happening. I do not think this is a hard drive issue for that reason. To similar of an issue. I think I am going to RMA the board, and see where that leaves me. That and the PSU are the only two things I have not RMAed yet from this build due to this issue, lol.