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| Thread ID: 67179 | 2006-03-19 23:57:00 | HD Problems or Something else? | ryanmartin42 (10024) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 439315 | 2006-03-19 23:57:00 | Hi, I was hoping I could get some advice on this. I have had this custom built pc for maybe 4 month now. Up till now I've had no problems with it at all. Recently however problems arised where my hard drive seemed to be failing. It would start trying to read / seek, and in doing so produce a short audible beep (just 1) then stop seeking and try again. Sometimes the same would happen again until it finally managed to read, each time making this beep. This seemed to get worse over time, and also when this happened the pc would often freeze, sometimes the mouse pointer would become invisible (only a restart cured this). The beeps got more common so I ordered a new hard drive, which unfortuately seemed DOA (making lots of clanking and clicking noises constantly). While waiting for a new hard drive I have since been using an old 80gb hard drive from my old pc. This is the same as my failing drive (seagate barracuda) but with less space (80gb as opposed to 160gb). At first all seemed fine with this, until just now the same thing has started happening to this drive I have noticed... Am I just being unlucky with HD's here or could it be something else? I'd like your opinions please... My Mobo: ABIT AV8 Windows XP Pro SP1 1 Gig Ram 3400+ Amd athalon 64bit 500W PSU PS- Tried looking up error codes on motherboard site but it appears to be down for me at the moment. |
ryanmartin42 (10024) | ||
| 439316 | 2006-03-20 00:43:00 | Sorry for the double post but I just thought something of which is probably worth mentioning is that the pc seems fine when left idle (no beeps etc). When browsing the net it makes the beeps every now and then usually when trying to load a webpage, not always, but maybe every 20mins or so it'll start doing it while trying to load a site. It seems worst when I try to play a game, to the extent when trying to load a level it can go crazy constantly gives these short single beeps, then I hear the hard drive spinning down, then it spins back up again and tries again until it eventually manages it. If the game has a loading bar you can see how slowly it takes to fill and load the level when this is happening. |
ryanmartin42 (10024) | ||
| 439317 | 2006-03-20 00:48:00 | Try running Seagate's disk diagnostic utility, downloadble from their site. | Greg (193) | ||
| 439318 | 2006-03-20 01:20:00 | The beep is unusual. You might want to take a look in the event viewer, assuming you're running something like XP which supports it. Right-click "My computer" Manage Computer Management -System Tools --Event viewer ---System Look for type "error", in particular if it mentions your hard drive, and post here |
kingdragonfly (309) | ||
| 439319 | 2006-03-20 03:32:00 | Potentially your motherboard's IDE or SATA controllers are failing. If you put the drive into another system (as a slave) does it show the same behaviour? Try different IDE/SATA cables too. Maybe it could be power supply issues.. As Greg says: don't guess whether the Hard Drive is actually physically faulty - run the proper tests - extended test. |
gibler (49) | ||
| 439320 | 2006-03-20 14:12:00 | Unfortunately I cant really test it in another pc, my old one has a lot of missing components like ram for a start (this ram i use in my newer pc is too much for it according to the mobo manual), however I find it odd that its doing the same thing as my old hard drive now (to the letter), but only after about a week of use. During that week it was fine and I thought I'd solved the problem and that it was just the HD. In the meantime I have tried doing seagates full diagnostic but never get past 0% as the beeps keep repeating and mouse seems frozen. Although I wasnt able to do a full diagnostic I did manage a controller test ('Determines that there is a communication between your drives and controller'), which it passed. I have made an audio recording using my laptop mic of the beep you can hear here: www.mysharefile.com Its not very loud but you can make out, you can often here the spinning up and down of the HD. Trying more tests now like system memory and temperature recordings, will post results ASAP, in the meantime does the recording mean anything to anyone? I could make another if needed. |
ryanmartin42 (10024) | ||
| 439321 | 2006-03-20 14:18:00 | Imo, rip the HD out, slave it to another comp, Run the diagnostic app on it, This is the only course of action I would take at this time, If suspicsion is pointing at the HD then do what needs to be done to either identify it as the culprit or discount it. Looking elsewhere for issues will be inconclusive while the HD is suspected but unproven... |
Metla (12) | ||
| 439322 | 2006-03-20 15:07:00 | Beeping... check RAM and Vid card. | Rob99 (151) | ||
| 439323 | 2006-03-20 19:54:00 | more of ping sound as opposed to cmos beep ( going by the wav file) That sound seems to be hard drive but the cause maybe the controller as others have metioned. Do you have a cdrom on a seperate channel if so plug the the hard drive into that and see if that noise continues. |
beama (111) | ||
| 439324 | 2006-03-20 23:34:00 | Here's an excellent thread started by SurferJoe46 regarding hard disk noise pressf1.pcworld.co.nz The "beep" could be a warning chirp due to over-heating. Some video cards / motherboards will start chirping: quicker chirping means hotter temperatures. Some will eventually turn off the PC if it reaches some pre-determined temperature. |
kingdragonfly (309) | ||
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