What is wrong with my PC

[nweston01]

Everyone,

thanks for the help in advance. here is my situation. I have had my (self made) rig up and running for more than two years. Last week, all of the sudden I started having a problem that I can not diagnose.

My system

MB = Asus P5W DH Delux
CPU = Core 2 Duo 2.4
Mem = 2 Gig Corsair DDR2
Video Card = Geforce 9600 GT
OS = Win XP sp3
HD = SATA Raptor
HD2 = SATA Cavalier

So basically what has started to happen is applications that normally would load in seconds are taking 10-15 mins to start. And things that normally sang, are Chugging.

Some symptoms are, when I go to System Properties, it will take 2-3 mins to recognize the Memory amount and the CPU NEVER shows up (not sure if it ever did).

Specific examples. When I load up Galactic Civilizations 2, this would normally load up in 10-15 seconds. If I hit "Start" on it now, it will sit there and wait 15 min at least before booting up. And then it will crash after about 10 min of gaming. Also, NWN2, which I was playing fine before, all of the sudden won't even load past the point where the screen goes blank and just before the mouse get's changed. I also tried loading an OLD game (fallout 1) and the graphics went to blank screen and nothing happened.

I have scanned for viruses, but found nothing. Also spyware (both based on ZoneLab firewall software).

I am pretty sure my system isn't over-heating because this happens regardless of how long my machine is up (just or for 4 hours). It might be memory, but not sure how to test/verify that. I am 99% sure it is not the Video card as I upgraded that about 3 weeks ago (a full 2 weeks before this happened) and everything ran fine. I can access both SATA Hard Drives with no problem, so I am pretty sure that isn't the issue.

Oh, and something else peculiar. EVERY TIME I go to shut down, the MS shut down menu indicates that there is a software update. No matter what I choose, either to download it or to ignore it, I will invariably get the same message all over again the next time I shut down.

Please help as I am so frustrated with this thing now that I don't know what else to do.

 

[lxskllr]

Check the SMART status of your HD. If that looks alright, try a chkdsk /r

 

[nweston01]

Thanks. Tried that and still getting the same (lack of) response. Again, it takes 10-15 min to start an application that would normally take seconds.

 

[lxskllr]

You checked the SMART status also? It doesn't always predict a dying drive, but sometimes it works. It really sounds like a dying drive to me. You say you can access both drives. If you transferred a largish file, is the transfer speed snappy?

 

[nweston01]

not sure how to check SMART. Please explain.

 

[nweston01]

Checked SMART Status. Everything looks good except space which is at 19%. What else can I try?

 

[pcgeek11]

19% of what? Free space? What size drive it could be choking for lack of space.

pcgeek11

 

[nweston01]

I would hope not. 19% is still 13 gigs. And it didn't change fundamentally between now and when the problem started. Any other ideas?

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: nweston01
Checked SMART Status. Everything looks good except space which is at 19%. What else can I try?

SMARTs not infallible. It's one of those things that if it says your drive's bad, it's bad, but it doesn't always see problems.

Try downloading the free HDtune and see how your drive's performing compared to similar drives.

 

[nweston01]

So I finally got some stuff working yesterday, although it took about 10 min to start. I am de-fragging my hard drive and I got rid of a LOT of temporary files to free up some space. If, as it seems from the comments, that it is a hard drive issue, I will have to suffer through that for a while as times are tough. Hopefully it will hold out until they get better.

Is there any reason to suspect that this could be a Memory or CPU problem? The reason I ask is there is a real deal on DDR2 stuff that I could afford but don't want to spend the money if that is categorically not the problem. And if the issue is CPU, then spending a dime more on the rig is kind of useless.

Thanks for the info and feedback.

 

[pcgeek11]

I am de-fragging my hard drive and I got rid of a LOT of temporary files to free up some space.

If this improved the symptoms then you very well may have a space problem. I asked before as you didn't state how large your OS drive was. 19% on a small drive isn't very much space.

pcgeek11

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: nweston01


Is there any reason to suspect that this could be a Memory or CPU problem? The reason I ask is there is a real deal on DDR2 stuff that I could afford but don't want to spend the money if that is categorically not the problem. And if the issue is CPU, then spending a dime more on the rig is kind of useless.

Thanks for the info and feedback.

Definitely not memory(defective). When you have a problem with that, the computer crashes hard, or won't even start. It could be something odd like your FSB set way too low, or some kind of ridiculous timings maybe. You would have had to go into BIOS to make things that bad, and I just don't see it.

CPU? I don't think so. I never seen a bad one, so I'm not sure. I've heard of them just burning up, but I don't think they slow down, other than when they overheat.

Try installing Speedfan and checking your temps. If the heatsink came a little loose, or lost contact with the CPU, and possibly the north bridge, you could get some nasty slowdowns. The overheating would be almost instantaneous, so you could be too hot as soon as you reach desktop.

If nobody comes up with anything better, a reinstall might help. I'm thinking it won't, but at least you'd know :^/


Edit:
You can probably disregard the reinstall suggestion. I'm not seeing how a fubared O/S would cause slowdowns like that. Maybe a little slowness, but when things get bad the O/S just crashes.

Do install Speedfan, and post your temps. I have the same board, so it'll be easy to compare numbers.

Edit2:
To fix link. Not sure what happened there :^/

 

[sonoma1993]

I would try changing out your sata cables and also if you have any free sata ports, connect your hdd to those to see if their any difference. Oh also try running a chkdsk on your drive

 

[nweston01]

So my OS Hard Drive is 60 Gigs. I have freed up almost 30% of it. I also did a Disk Defrag which apparently it really needed. But I am still seeing 8-10 min between start up and game load which is different from 2 weeks ago when it was simply 20 seconds at most.

I will install the Speedfan as that may reveal more stuff. I will also see about switching out my SATA cables and cross my fingers.

Thanks for all of the great suggestions so far. Please if there is anything else that I might check, I always appreciate any advise.

 

[nweston01]

so it looks like it was my SATA cable. I switched the one on my OS drive for the one on my secondary drive and am having NO problems any more.

Thanks for all of the assistance.

 

[Ken90630]

So how does a SATA cable 'go bad'? I've never heard of that before. Unless you physically damaged it while tinkering inside the PC or something.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Ken90630
So how does a SATA cable 'go bad'? I've never heard of that before. Unless you physically damaged it while tinkering inside the PC or something.

Doesn't necessarily have to "go bad." It can just be a loose cable, which reseating the cable could fix.

 

[Swampster]

Ken,
I would have to agree with Jeff . . . he didn't say he REPLACED a cable, he just switched them, thus unplugging and replugging all connections and thus taking care of any connection problem (loose or dirty).