Windows 7 has started to wake up as "Resuming Windows"

[crashtech]

You may wish to have him spec out a machine, then come to us with the parts list before buying. You'd be better assured of receiving the best build for the money that way.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I only wonder about that in terms of going back to him for a new one again. He did have a strong recommendation from a friend who knows lots and lots more than I do, and as a custom shop it is still in business after over 20 years.

That's actually a really good sign, that they've managed to stay in business for 20 years, even in the face of competition like Acer and Dell, sold online and in big-box stores.

My feeling is, they may have "cut corners" with some of your components, to fit a price-point. CPU-wise, you got a fairly powerful system, with a quad-core, and when those were introduced, they weren't really cheap. Heck, they still aren't. (Which is why I jumped on Ryzen R5 1600 when it debuted. Incredible value for money.)

May I ask, have you considered something all-new? Do you have the budget for it? $900 and up for a decent Ryzen rig, with dGPU.

But if you don't have the extra budget, or want to run your quad-core until the mobo dies, then keep it, and just replace the PSU and add an SSD, and maybe a bigger secondary data drive, you can get 2TB for $60, 3TB for $75, or 4TB for $89, on a good sale.

 

[sonoferu]

Yes, he has been a local shop mainly building systems [and providing services] for businesses in the area. So he cant be cutting a lot of corners, though indeed he needs to look at the customer's wishes for price and BFTB.

Anyway, yes I am going to consider all new. I can afford if it makes sense. The thing I want is to have something that works reliably and something new has the best chance for that. When I was younger and new to computers I was fascinated and wanted to know everything and learned enough to build my own, but now I have other needs and interests and just want it to work well and not worry for a good while. This machine has been like that - plenty of speed for my needs and no problem till this one. The only speed thing is my internet connection, but there is only one provider out here where i live so that's that.

New vs replacing components, I would have 2 concerns

1. I could replace HDD and PSU and then the board would be there, 5 years old. Would that particular board, ASUS P8B75-M/CSM, take an SSD? And would an old board then become the weak link? I expect there are new boards that would outperform it in some way, but not sure I care if I have anything faster than this one.

2. Somewhere I got the idea that if I replace the HDD, there are questions of the OS license. I still have the CD that came with it new, with Win 7 Pro. But would it look to MS like I am putting it onto a second device? Especially if 7 is sort of left behind now? I am guessing the shop would be able to move everything over. I hate to think of reinstalling some of the programs I have - or finding the install CD's. And if I go for new everything, can I put my own Win 7 on it? I really dont like Win 10 and have wanted to stay at 7 until I really have problems with it.

 

[sonoferu]

And for what it's worth I just noticed that the most recent disk errors, for as far back as I have memory to connect to the timestamps, have been at the time of coming out of sleep. I just put it in and took it out and got the error. This morning at the time when I sat down and woke it up, there were 8 of them, all within a block of 9 seconds. Looking back further where memory would be undependable, I see a good number of instances of 5 to 10 of the errors in a burst of a few seconds, often at an early morning hour that are very likely my waking it up to start my day.

So if they are predominantly happening at wake up, is that meaningful? Different from during a work session when it would be a random error event that means something different?

 

[mikeymikec]

Can you post the disk errors pls?

 

[sonoferu]

Dont know how much you want. Here is from Event Viewer

General:
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk2\DR2.

Details
- System
- Provider
[ Name] Disk
- EventID 11
[ Qualifiers] 49156
Level 2
Task 0
Keywords 0x80000000000000
- TimeCreated
[ SystemTime] 2017-12-17T10:26:21.424223000Z
EventRecordID 373353
Channel System
Computer felecha
Security
- EventData

\Device\Harddisk2\DR2
0E04800001000000000000000B0004C003010000000000000000000000082D000000000000000000085C3C0000000000FFFFFFFF060000005800000000000000FF0006120C000010000000003C0000000000000000000000C07A8A0780FAFFFF0000000000000000803B3F0D80FAFFFF0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Binary data: [do you want that??]

 

[sonoferu]

And a reminder that over time, the disk number in the error has varied. sometimes \Device\Harddisk2\DR2, other times \Device\Harddisk3\DR3, etc. By far the majority are 2 and 3, but I have seen 5 at times. And the number seems to stay constant for a while, then the next day it goes to a different number and stays at that number for a while. I cant see any pattern or meaning to it, I dont go around switching devices in and out or change where they are connected. ???

Sometimes the 2 numbers are different, like \Device\Harddisk2\DR3 or \Device\Harddisk3\DR9

The only changes I have done have been to disconnect the external drive last Tuesday and reconnected it yesterday. Same with the thumb drives. I cant see any activity that seems to be related to that.

I thought they must be the different storage devices, HDD, a couple of thumb drives, external hard drive, DVD player, and a card reader [is that what you call the slot where you stick in an SD card?]

There has been one oddity though, I just remembered. One of my 3 thumb drives which was ok before removal, told me it had to be formatted when I stuck it back in. No idea how that could be related either.

Sigh ...

 

[mikeymikec]

Harddisk2 won't be your boot drive, so I think that's coincidental. Harddisk0 is the boot drive.

 

[sonoferu]

Well then the errors have never been from the main HDD. C is the boot drive, is it not, since that is where Windows lives?

I am sure I have not seen any errors from a Harddisk0 drive. And none from any Harddisk1 either.

There is and always has been only one good old standard regular "hard drive" - the Seagate.

So the disk errors are from the red herring swimming around at the deep end of the pool?

 

[sonoferu]

Found a post online that pointed me to diskmgmt.msc [Computer management] which makes pretty clear that disk 0 is the C drive, and disk 1 is the DVD. The further numbers are the thumb drives and the external drive. So I am guessing that the errors that are sometimes 2 and sometimes 3 may well be from one specific thumb drive, and its number depends on when I put it in [meaning what was the next available number depending on what else is already in].

So that disk error looks like nothing to do with my original problem as posted.

Which also means there are no errors indicating a problem with the C drive.

So .... that would seem to point to the PSU after all, since you guys have referred to a rare but known issue there, with that symptom. I dont mind trying that as a solution, if as you say

I recommend replacing PSUs pro-actively after 5 years anyway,

So I could order from NewEgg. I see them in the $50 to $100 range, but what would be a good choice, and would I need to get one that goes with the motherboard? And with the case? Hopefully those things are standard, fits all.

 

[mikeymikec]

If possible, you could try disconnecting the extra HDDs and see how resuming from sleep goes. I would be surprised if they were involved, but it doesn't hurt to try taking them out of the loop.

 

[sonoferu]

I did disconnect them for most of this past week, with none of the problem. But then it has only happened maybe 10 times overall, in a period of several weeks, randomly scattered. I posted about it when I got it 3 times in 2 days, which got me really concerned. None since I posted. Since posting I have had it go to sleep 20 or 30 times? I havent kept detailed records. I put the devices back in over the weekend but they are back out now.

It's hard to test something when it is so infrequent.

And again, as a rookie I am looking at what I learned about the disk error message and device numbering - "HarddiskX" - and have guessed that disks are not really the problem.

BTW, mikeymikec - which superhero are you?