Odd problem (possible i/o failure?)

[Replicon]

I'm having potentially massive problems with my Dell Inspiron 5150, was wondering if anyone had any experience with this kind of stuff...

At some point, I was going into standby mode, and it took forever, and stopped with a little 'click'. Then, coming back on, it gave me a blue screen. Now, every now and then, when i boot up, it gives me a blue screen. Also, sometimes, disk I/O hangs... like, I'll go to run an application, and it'll sit there for maybe 5 seconds before doing anything (I'm worried it might be like a fried DMAC or something like that).

Anyway, here's the part where you might be able to help:

Another odd behaviour is that, after a while, when I look at the usage graph of process explorer (replaced my silly process manager with this tool), when the system is idle, it looks like it's getting lots of interrupts... the graph is like a low wave that has little peaks at 7-8% CPU usage. Does anyone know how I could monitor interrupts, and see which interrupts are being generated? I have to find out whether my hard disk is on its way to being fried...

My old computer had this kind of problem and worked fine otherwise (didn't have the random bsod's though), but it's really frustrating. Hopefully, my dialup modem is borked, and I just need to not use it, which means all is well... but I don't think that's the actual problem *sigh*.

any insight? thanks!

 

[montag451]

To see if it is your hdd,
download the diagnostic tool from the manufacturer's website

 

[aGreenAgent]

I don't know of a way to monitor interrupts specifically, but a modem could be doing that, so take out the modem and see if it still does it

 

[Replicon]

UPDATE:

Turns out the interrupts are, indeed, caused by the dial-up modem (just disconnecting showed it haha). I don't know why it takes that much out of my CPU, but that's how it is hehe. Unfortunately, that really doesn't explain the other problem I had... Might be cause I was dicking around with DirectX (was learning, and wrote some pixel-plotting app)... but that shouldn't be the case... Perhaps it was because I shut it down while the dialup was still running, and microsoft's drivers don't cover that case... Oh well, we'll see what happens. I've backed up everything that's mission-critical, so I can experiment with that directX app offline, and see if the problem recurs. Here's hoping =). Thanks for the info. I'll run those disk diag's too...

 

[montag451]

If it is a software modem, then it will use more cpu resources than a hardware modem.
If it is a hardware modem, but has got a little box 'software' ticked, then it will work as a software modem

 

[Replicon]

Gah, it happened again! I just right-clicked a text file... and then... it hung, for like a minute! Everything you do is still queued (so after a minute, all the clicks I did while monkeying around were executed and all that), but it's pissing me off. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the modem. I wonder if the Dell website has the diagnostic I need to test disk and memory.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Have you run the Dell diagnostic yet? The click you mentioned in the original post could be an indication of a failing hard drive. Run the diagnostic and run the Hard Drive controller test. OR, alternately, just download the hard drive manufacturer's drive diagnostic utility and do the full (advanced) test.

If the HDD is failing with timeout erros, it would explain your pauses. You need to look into this ASAP because if the drive is failing, yhou need to backup your data before your lose it.

If the HDD has failed to the point it's corrupting data on the drive, it would explain your other problems.

 

[Replicon]

I figured it was a HDD problem, so I already backed up everything of importance. I ran the EXPRESS diagnostic test, which included a HDD confidence test, and it all passed. I will run all the HDD-related custom tests tomorrow. Until then, here is the BSOD info (well, what was in the dialog after the reboot, that is...), in case it helps solve my problem:

BCCode : 1000008e BCP1 : C0000005 BCP2 : 8060AB13 BCP3 : EF4939AC
BCP4 : 00000000 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 1_0 Product : 256_1

I've seen this kind of "pausing" problem on a previous computer I owned (a desktop this time), and it didn't fail further, it just stayed that way... still frustrating =).

 

[aGreenAgent]

I'm starting to think spyware. It could be using system resources and causing the delay, as well as BSOD's. Maybe a trojan.

Get HijackThis.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

You should also check your error log in Event Viewer. It may give you an idea what's going on. If you see a lot of hard disk timeouts, that pretty much will confirm it's a HDD problem.

You need to do the full (advanced) diagnostic on the drive. I suspect you have bad sectors. The computer is pausing when trying to read a bad sector. It may be successfully reading them (for now) - albeit slowly - but it'll only get worse.

 

[Replicon]

Ok, I ran all the HDD tests, all the memory tests and all the video card tests, and all seem to pass fine. I ran updated NAV/spybot/ad-aware in safe mode (have yet to try out HijackThis), and they found nothing.

Where can I view the sytem logs/EventViewer logs and such?

Also, how come I can't find ScanDisk? Does Win XP not come with it, or is it just pointless in NTFS? I can't see it in the system tools, anyway, i can always look for it in the directory...

thanks!

 

[aGreenAgent]

It's called chkdsk now. If you go to your drive properties, you'll see it in one of the tabs, though.

 

[montag451]

Might want to add the Microsoft Beta Anti Spyware and TrojanHunter.
Both pick up things that other miss, and miss other things that are picked up by others

 

[montag451]

Oh -

And when you install everything, update it, then reboot into SAFE MODE to do all the scans

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Replicon
I figured it was a HDD problem, so I already backed up everything of importance. I ran the EXPRESS diagnostic test, which included a HDD confidence test, and it all passed. I will run all the HDD-related custom tests tomorrow. Until then, here is the BSOD info (well, what was in the dialog after the reboot, that is...), in case it helps solve my problem:

BCCode : 1000008e BCP1 : C0000005 BCP2 : 8060AB13 BCP3 : EF4939AC
BCP4 : 00000000 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 1_0 Product : 256_1

I've seen this kind of "pausing" problem on a previous computer I owned (a desktop this time), and it didn't fail further, it just stayed that way... still frustrating =).

You can send me the dumps (in c:\windows\minidumps) and I'll look at them if you'd like. Run MPSREPORTS too and send me the resulting yourcomputername.cab file, too. More info found in my .sig.

The dumps are generated every time you get a BSOD and tell why the PC crashed.

 

[montag451]

You can find the event logs:

Control panel
Admin Tools
Event viewer

Supply the event ID, Source, and any Text description

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Please refer to my detailed Spyware removal/scanning procedure: http://theflyingpenguin.com/spyware-removal.shtml

Hope this helps...