Wierd PC Behavior

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Last night I shut off the monitor and left the PC on all night long. Today when I turned the monitor on and moved the mouse nothing came up. So without any other option I just shut the PC off and turned it back on. It was on for awhile trying to load windows then it shut off again. Then I turned it back on again and a message came up saying to back up the hard drive because failure was imminent with a timer. The time expired and then the PC proceeded to try to load windows and it took like 5 - 10 minutes and then it loaded fine. If I restart the computer everything works and loads fast as if nothing ever happened now..

The computer shut off one time before when I right clicked in someones profile in aim and occassionally it does take a really long time to load windows, but then everyhting is fine.

What are these symptoms of?

Im thinking something with the power supply. I have 2.4ghz pentium 4, 1 hardrive, 2 DVD drives and one agp 4x video card. So i think the 350 watt supply should easily be enough..

Could also be maybe be a memory module going bad? Im not really sure where to start looking for what hardware to point my finger at.

 

[racketboy]

doesn't sound like memory (but you could run memtest86)

might be PSU.

I would backup all your important data soon though just to be safe

 

[ExCyber]

Then I turned it back on again and a message came up saying to back up the hard drive because failure was imminent with a timer. The time expired and then the PC proceeded to try to load windows and it took like 5 - 10 minutes and then it loaded fine.

It sounds like your HD is reporting (via the SMART feature set) that it's likely to fail soon, and your BIOS is letting you know. Back up anything important to you ASAP and if the drive is under warranty you should be able to get it replaced.

 

[Dyne]

i agree. when it says HDD failure iminent thats a pretty good clue that......HDD failure is iminent. has nothing to do with the memory or psu.

 

[Alexvrb]

What brand/model of PSU, out of curiosity? You definitely need to swap that drive out. SMART is there to warn you in advance so you don't wake up one morning to the clack clack clack of doom. Of course it doesn't always catch things in time, but if you've got bad sectors and it lets you know ahead of time, you can do something about it.

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

It is defintiyl the hardrive, I was at work when this all took place. My g/f was on the pc at the time so I was just trying to make sense of what she told me. After I restarted it again I got the smart thing telling me that the drive would fail soon and data lose was probably iminent.

Its a 120 gig oem drive from New egg. I got it around february of this year so I assume I can still exchange it?

The other sysmtoms make sense, ie the slow loading of programs, windows taking 10 minutes to load one time and then fine the next.

Would a failing drive like that cause the computer to just shut off? Or is somehting else wrong? Im wondering if the drive was ruined because the computer shut it self off several times improperly or if the drive caused the whole thing.

The psu is an enermax psu.

 

[Dyne]

newegg is usually pretty leaniant on returns so you should have no problem. if that fails, check the manufactures site. my bro's HDD failed and i typed in his s/n on Western Digitals site and they could tell right then if it was still under warranty. unfortunately it missed by ONE DAY!

 

[racketboy]

yeah it should be under warrenty still

what brand is it?

improper shut downs might corrupt data, but I don't know about hurting the drive physically -- unless it was because it was dropped while writing or something. Is it staying cool enough? Heat can be a big killer. I have a fan blowing right over my two drives -- especially during the summer.

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

This is also a western digital drive.

I dont think heat is a problem, it has a fan that is blowing close to it. close enough that there should be decent air flow plus there is ample space between the drive and anything else.

Strangly enough I just turned on the pc again and no errors? :huh

Im still not taking any chances, Im going to back up all the data now and see whats going on with the waranty. Im sure if nothing was wrong I woudlnt have gotten that error in the first place.

I just wonder what would have caused the pc to restart itself, does windows XP have any features that shut down the PC if hardware starts to fail?

 

[racketboy]

overheating or power problems are the only thing I could think of.

Do you have a UPS? Some power conditioning never hurt anyone.

 

[Alexvrb]

Originally posted by RitualOfTheTrout@Jun 14, 2004 @ 09:54 PM

I just wonder what would have caused the pc to restart itself, does windows XP have any features that shut down the PC if hardware starts to fail?

I have heard of XP handling critical errors by rebooting, but not shutting down. Could still be quite possible, I've never had the pleasure of seeing that in action. If SMART ever tells you that there is something wrong, I would be inclined to believe it. But in the meantime, you can back everything up and then scandisk it. If you find ANY bad sectors at all, that just totally confirms it. One you start getting bad sectors from a head crash or something, it can only get worse over time.

Although I do agree with Racket that keeping temps low and power stable will make your components less likely to break (hence why I asked what PSU you used, though that is only part of the equation), sometimes something is just defective or crappy. The Enermax PSUs are OK, though I've heard of them sometimes developing high-pitched whines. SPEAKING of which, my Western Digital WD400BB has decided it wants to emit a high-pitched whine. Still works perfectly, but it's frickin annoying.

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Well the computer did just restart itself, not shut off, sorry for the confusion. As of right now the disk is working perfectly again.. nothing out of the ordinary... I checked at Western Digitals site and the drive is under warrenty until 2006. Im going to run scan disk and see what that turns up. I think either way im just going to try and return it. I hope that it doesnt need to fail with those western digital tools to get a replacement because as of now It says the drive is working normaly.

One other time my pc restarted due to a a video card. I had an old PCI Radeon video card in. Windows XP couldnt seem to handle running until I installed the supplied drivers for the card. Of course that was alot harder than you would think because everytime I clicked my computer to get to the driver install file the pc reset. (I ended up just using the run command to install it from the cd)

 

[Alexvrb]

Yeah WinXP shouldn't do that, but it does. I mean, come on, is that supposed to be more "user friendly" or something?? At least if I get a BSOD I might be able to figure the problem out a bit faster. If the PC just resets, that doesn't help me any 🙁. I don't know if there's a way to disable that, as I don't use XP. Anyway, tell us how the full scandisk (surface scan) turns out.

 

[IBarracudaI]

Originally posted by Alexvrb@Jun 16, 2004 @ 07:09 PM

I don't know if there's a way to disable that, as I don't use XP.

Here 🙂

 

[Dyne]

so you're saying to uncheck "automatically restart" right?

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Well the scan disk at first along with the extended test that comes with western digitals data life guard both found no errors.

But then I was looking in my bios to see if maybe someting was wrong in there (there wasnt) and I restarted and I got the Smart Error again. So I ran the data life guard tests once I finally got into windows, it found an error and a webpage popped up for me to go to file for an RMA. I did, so im assuming a new drive will be on its way once my credit card is verified. I did the advanced replacement, with that they put a hold on the current market value of the drive and ship you a new one. If you fail to return the faulty drive within 30 days they charge you. If the drive manages to last until the new one gets here it will make getting all my data transfered much easier, but if not I have everything backed up.

There is some thing to fill out for customs... I assume since I live in the US and it is being shipped to somewhere else in the US i dont need to worry about that.

 

[racketboy]

let us know how their service ends up.

 

[IBarracudaI]

Originally posted by Dyne@Jun 16, 2004 @ 11:28 PM

so you're saying to uncheck "automatically restart" right?

yup, I've forgot giving that detail 😛 :lol:

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Well they have shipped my new drive, and it should arrive this monday. So it seems like they are taking care of my problem in a speedy manner.

Ill let you know if the drive is up to standards when it arrives. I hope they are sending me a new drive and not somebody elses retruned refurbished drive.

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Well my new drive came today. Everything seems to be fine with it. I had no problems getting the replacement drive and I have 30 days to ship the old defective one. I really am pleased with the service from western digital.