psl99

Hi - My PC is unstable and I need help, because of this my hard drive corrupted after a freeze.

I need to prevent this happening when I purchase a new hard drive and to understand the cause of the problem.

I built my PC myself but have been experiencing the same problem ever since day 1.

MY PC SPEC:
- DFI Lanparty nF4 SLI-DR Expert Motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64 bit x2 Dual Core Processor +4400 Processor
- Northbridge Heatsink
- GeFORCE 7800 GTX Graphics Card (PCI EXPRESS, 256MB)
- Geil 4GB RAM (x4 1GB PC3200 DDR400)
- SONY Double Layer DVD R/RW DRU-700A
- Scythe Ninja Heatsink
- Greenerger SSN Technology Design Power Supply Unit
- Hard Drive – Maxtor drive just corrupted - I will be purchasing new IDE HDD...
- Operating System - Vista

Problem:
When I switch my PC on and get into Windows the PC runs absolutely fine for a period of 5-10 minutes then it freezes. It happens in both XP and Vista. This freeze halts my mouse completely, I cannot use the keyboard (and if sound is playing it cuts the sound to one long never ending sound). The only way to restore the system is to reboot via the reset or on/off button on the front of the computer case.

When I reboot, just after the option to get into the BIOS, a DOS style message appears which says that the PC did not shut down properly then it counts down from 30 seconds before it loads Windows up again. After the second boot-up the system runs perfectly and will not freeze again until I leave the PC off for a long time and the components cool down again.
If I shut the PC down over night and turn it on the next day the PC again will follow this pattern – boot up, freeze, I will re-boot and then it is fine.

The components of my PC were so loud I took steps to reduce the noise, im sure you appreciate that it was driving me nuts. I bought a fanless heat sink and a fanless Northbridge heat sink and installed them. The case has no fans and the Power Supply Unit has a large loud fan pointing onto the Motherboard and Graphics Card which is adjustable – I normally leave this off as it is loud too.

I want to just emphasise that this problem was happening even when the case/processor/power supply fans were working at a maximum speed previously so I do not think this problem is because of cooling, although the freeze always happens after a cold first bootup.

Recently it froze again and during the second bootup a DOS message appeared saying A disk error occurred, Press Ctrl, Alt and Delete. I put this drive into a USB enclose to try to save files and move them onto a laptop but even though it recognised the drive, the laptop could not ‘explore’ the drive and asked me to format the drive.

My problem is not the drive (it was old anyway and I will replace it)... it is what causes these random freezes?

Any analysis on this problem is appreciated - I am at my wits end!

Thankyou

Paul

Robdog

Hello Psl99,

I have the feeling that the problems exist on the HDD. Go through the process of elimination. Try putting in a known good HDD into the PC. If the PC does not freeze then you can be certian that the problem exist when that particular HDD is being used.

dai

Greenerger SSN Technology Design Power Supply Unit
passive cooled psu's are usually low wattage
what wattage is yours,i would think you are running on about half the power output required
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...corsair%2b650w

psl99

Thankyou, my power supply unit is 450W.

Thinking about it, if my PSU is not powerful enough then why, after a second boot-up does my PC does not freeze again and runs normally (!?) Is this a typical PSU symptom?

Im so confused with this problem.

dai

yes it is an indication it's the psu faulty or underpowered
the h/d corruption can have the same cause
you need a 650w quality supply like the link i posted
450w would not cut even without the water cooling