Solved HDD problem?

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demoment

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Jun 29, 2024
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Hello, first time posting here so apologies if I'm in the wrong sub-forum for this problem.

I've been dealing with what I think has been a hard drive problem for the past year, maybe even 2, and I've shrugged it off and kind of just dealt with it.

Whenever I'm using my hard drive at all (in some cases I can use it a little bit), it will peak at 100% usage and remain that way constantly while it's being used. I've done my bit of research and found it could be either faulty or damaged in some way. This is what I think causes my pc to completely lock up sometimes and results in majority of the programs running to just start not responding for seemingly no reason, and also causes programs that should run smoothly on my pc to run extremely slowly and sometimes not at all.

Also to note, on boot, my monitor has a series of black flashes in random intervals and quick succession, some flashes lasting longer then others (gpu problem?), and also for some reason my on screen keyboard pops up only for the "Welcome" screen when logging in.

Any help would be muchly appreciated, already been to another pc help place and they didn't respond unfortunately.

Thanks heaps.
 
If the computer is a desktop can you post the brand and model name or number of the power supply (PSU).

Download then run Speccy ( free ) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s.

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.

In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.

Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.
 
phillpower2 said:
If the computer is a desktop can you post the brand and model name or number of the power supply (PSU).

Download then run Speccy ( free ) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s.

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.

In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.

Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.
Click to expand...
That should be it

 
phillpower2 said:
If the computer is a desktop can you post the brand and model name or number of the power supply (PSU).
Click to expand...

Not sure how you missed it but can we have the above, you have a few things going on there but before elaborating can you provide the information for what is the most important component in a computer;

Can I ask that you do not quote every reply as we have to read the full post to make sure nothing gets missed,, thanks.
 
Sorry about that, I concluded in my head that the top was for more standardised desktop computers and not custom builds. Do you need both brand/model and PSU number or just one. I've attached (what I think) is the brand/model of my PC.

I wasn't sure if you two were working independently or not as you were asking two different questions so I thought to respond to both separately.
 

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No worries, as said the brand and model name or number of the power supply if you will.
 
Since the PSU number isnt visible on the outside, will I have to take my glass side panel off? Since I don't handle computers much on the inside, when taking off the glass is it best to leave it plugged in or out or? I'm just not too sure and don't want to mess up anything.

(also where would my PSU even be, I just have a long black box running along that bottom of my pc that seems to cover it up)
 
The fact that you are having issues providing the information for such an important component does not bode well, for example,you have a high end GPU. an additional monitor hooked up, three storage devices + multiple USB devices of various sorts, so who and how was the PSU ever checked to see if it is capable of supporting all the above mentioned hardware.
 
The PC was built by a computer store in my local area with parts chosen by the store themselves, having givin a budget, since I'm not too knowledgeable with building PCs. I could try and find the receipt papers for the PC, but since it was built almost over 4 years ago I'm not particularly sure where they would be (its 12am, so I could look for them properly tomorrow)
 
Good that you got the picture to us but bad news about the PSU itself, Cooler Master are on the avoid list as they have not made a top end unit for years.

Golden rule of gaming rigs is that you 100% need a minimum of a Gold efficiency rated PSU from one of the following, Corsair RM range, EVGA, Seasonic or Super Flower, minimum of a seven year warranty but preferably ten.

The present PSU is rated as – Tier B • Mid-range here and your PC even though four years old is far from Mid range.

There are other things that need to be taken care of but I would definitely look to swapping in a 750W or above Gold efficiency rated PSU from one of the four previously mentioned.
 
Thanks so much for the info, it's hard to know who to trust in regards to PC specs as someone who knows very little about what goes on inside of them and what's good and bad.

I hear a lot about compatibility, so would all of those brands be likely compatible with my rig or does it vary, if so, where and how should I find out if it is compatible or not.

As for the 100% hard drive problem, could that happen as a result of the power supply or is that a separate issue?

Again, thank you so much! I greatly appreciate all the info.
 
demoment said:
Also to note, on boot, my monitor has a series of black flashes in random intervals and quick succession, some flashes lasting longer then others (gpu problem?),
Click to expand...

The present PSU is most likely the cause of the above behaviour and as long as you follow the advice given above you will be fine with an ATX PSU from one of the four brands.

We will get to the other issues but I have a question for you first, did the same shop also put the present RAM in the PC, if they did I`m real surprised that you have not had serious problems well before the 1 or two years that you mention.

You are welcome btw :)
 
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Good to know, I'll have a look at getting a new PSU soon.

Regarding the history of my RAM, I've already had a replacement of my RAM sticks due to them being found faulty about 2 years after purchase of the PC upon having issues (cant remember the exact issues I was having) and got the two sticks I have now, which were identical to the ones I had previously (took about 4-6 months to get here though). So I'm surprised to hear that these also aren't up to par. What exactly is the issue you're seeing with them if you don't mind me asking?

The issues I listed at the bottom have only been going on for about 2-3 months at the very most if I'm not mistaken.

Something that doesn't happen any more for some reason but used to until about a week ago (lasted a few weeks), was when a video was fullscreened on my monitor, it would cause both my monitors to constantly flicker (more violently then my boot flashes) until I unfullscreened the video.

Sorry for the info overload btw, I know you guys probably want to stick to the main issue but I'm just trying to understand as much as possible about my messed up pc before we wrap this up 😵‍💫
 
The RAM is not appropriate for your CPU, AMD state here up to 3200MHz/MT/s and if you have DOCP/XMP enabled the RAM will get auto OCd past what the CPU can handle and the PC will become unstable.

Something to keep in mind for the future, a CPU must be compatible with a MB whereas the RAM has to be compatible with both the CPU and the MB, this because a MB can be compatible with faster CPUs than the one in your list of parts and MB manufacturers often state RAM speeds that far exceed that which any compatible CPU can handle, this is misleading at the least or dishonest at worst.

Couple of other things for you to do but for now do as in my canned steps below;

Restore the MBs default factory settings in the BIOS, they are sometimes listed as one of the following " factory defaults" "most stable" or on newer boards "optimized" please note that if you have both the "most stable" and the "optimized" options in the BIOS you should choose the most stable" option as in this instance the "optimized" settings are a form of overclocking that can cause instability.

Save the new settings, exit the BIOS, restart the computer, test by using the computer as you normally would, post back with an update once you have done this.
 
I see, good to know. Makes me wonder how many of these computer stores have screwed people over.

Since it's late and I've unplugged my pc from everything and plan to do a clean of it tomorrow (I haven't cleaned it in over 2 years, yes I know it's bad), I'll give all of that a go tomorrow and post back up on here.

Thanks for all the help, I'll get back to you later.
 
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