PC "hiccups" with HDD light solid, random hangs at POST?

[aolforbroadband]

Hey guys, long time no talk.

Recently, I've been having this issue where my HDD light I noticed, goes solid while everything I do studders or hiccups every 10-15 seconds. Whether it's just moving my mouse, playing a game, or listening to music...it will periodically studder while the HDD light is solid. I tried reinstalling, defragging, virus scans, etc. to no avail. I built my PC a little over a year ago, so I doubt it's because of age.

Anyway, what I've also noticed is the system will sometimes hang on the BIOS splash screen. I have an Intel mobo, so I boot it and it will sometimes stop right there. One time it even started booting Windows XP, then the HDD solid light came on again, and nothing loaded...despite the fact the activity bar was still moving. I didn't hear any noise from the HD, but the light was still solid. Weird thing is, it tends to go away on its own after anywhere from a few minutes to nearly half an hour. It works fine after that, but the problem keeps coming back.

My PC specs are in my sig, except I have a Mad Dog 450W PSU powering it now. I got it last May from them as a replacement for my original Mad Dog PSU, that was too loud(although I was probably just being paranoid.)

I'm really stumped guys, this looks like it could be a number of things. When I think it's my hard drive, it hangs on the BIOS splash screen...then when I think it's my temps, I notice they're all running the same as they always have...then when I think it could be my RAM, why would bad RAM cause my HDD light stay solid? I'm totally confused on how to approach this situation troubleshooting wise.



P.S. - Everythings running stock speed and has been since I bought all the parts in late 2006.

[jonc2006]

long time indeed. right click your hard drive icon in the my computer area and go into properties, once there run a scandisk to check for errors.

[aolforbroadband]

I did, and it completed fine. Hmm..

[PCXL-Fan]

Its likely 1 of 2 things a hdd issue or a mobo issue. (perhaps the southbridge ide controller)

Try running of a linux boot disk, or a dos boot disk, or try using another harddrive. Or put the hdd in another computer and see if it causes that system to hang too.
This will help eliminate which of the 2 is the culprite.


Another thing I'd suggest doing though is disabling the splash screen and quick boot mode (with can be done in the bios) so you can see the various boot up processes happening and see which particluar boot check activity the system hangs at.

Also inspect your mobo very closely. Make sure there aren't any signs of damaged or leaky capacitors or anything out of the ordinary.

If it is a hdd issue it could be the hdd is dieing in which case you'll wanna backup the data on it as soon as possible.

If its a motherboard issue you might wanna ask yourself what could have caused the mobo to go bad. What mobo is it btw? It could be you powersupply is going on you and damaged the mobo, or it could be from a powersurge that even if you have a surge protector overwhelmed the surge protector and hit your system.

Also your not overclocking are you?

[3x3cUt0r]

Try using HD Tune to see how healthy the driver is, but maybe isn't your HDD could be something else, try testing the rams (memtest86+ 2.01) and cpu/ram (orthos). btw yes a ram problem can cause the led to stay "solid", if the pc hangs while reading the disk the light stays on (not always).

[aolforbroadband]

Alright first off, I think I did try something like Ubuntu around the time I got this PC. I attempted to boot off a disk then and it wouldn't load. I read up on it and apparantly it didn't play nice with Core 2 Duo's or something. I'm assuming if it doesn't do the same thing there that it's a hard drive issue?

If you have a site that has a Linux bootable off a CD I'd appreciate it, I've been away from my usual PC tech roots for a bit.

Secondly, I'm using Intel® Desktop Board DG965WH...and I just spent about 5 minutes in the BIOS changing different options to try and get the normal text only boot splash but didn't see it. I know what you're talking about though, every other board I've used besides this has had that option...don't know why I don't see an option for it on this board.

Oh, and 3x3cUt0r, if the RAM was the case wouldn't it just lock up in Windows with the HDD light on? Instead right now the HDD light stays on, everything keeps working while I'm in XP...but it studders/hiccups in regular intervals for a bit.

Ack, I'll check the caps tomorrow. IIRC though when I cleaned it over a month ago I didn't notice anything, but I'll check again.

[PCXL-Fan]

I have the same processor as you and Ubuntu loads fine. I thought iw wasn't playing nice as well but you have to give it time (takes upwards of minutes to load and give no indication its actually doing that so it seem the system has frozen)


Make sure you get one of the latest versions of Ubuntu. THe one I used that worked was the 64bit version.

[3x3cUt0r]

I recently RMA'd a pair of ram that caused me random BSOD, but sometimes when the ram started to fail (making mistakes) everything slowed down. It's pretty wierd but is possible, you should eliminate all the possibilities.

[aolforbroadband]

Alright, updating everyone:

Haven't really had this issue much as of late. In fact, not really much in the past few weeks since the night I made this thread. Then yesterday it happens twice. So I swap in my friends raptor drive which he lent me to test out to see if my HD is going bad. Everything's working fine then I notice the system hiccuping in the same way it did with my original HD... later I try rebooting and the system hangs right after the splash screen like 4 times in a row. I'm like OK, screw this... I switch back in my original HD and try using a different SATA port on the mobo and also using a different SATA cable. My friend lent me those too, and I think they're actual Western Digital brand cables or something, and I know the cable I was using before was some cheap cable-to-go brand from newegg that I got last year.

When I first fire it up it loads windows, but explorer.exe didn't respond so I restarted again and here I am. I don't know what the fark is going on, but I seriously am sick of this issue. Not sure if switching the SATA cable and using a different port on the motherboard makes any real difference yet, but I'd figure I give it a try...

Oh, and I inspected all the capacitors with a flashlight and none appear deformed from what I can see. There's hardly any dust to speak off, and temperatures look fine. Any help is greatly appreciated, and at least now we know it doesn't appear to be a bad HD issue.

[Lil Idehe]

If explorer.exe stops for any reason for me, I usually go into the Windows Task Manager (by using ctrl + alt + del), go into the Applications Tab, click "New Task..." and type in "explorer.exe" to restart explorer.exe directly.

Try booting in Safe Mode and see what happens. If its fine in Safe Mode than its probably a program that added itself to the startup list or the registry. If that's the case, than you can try going into the Windows Task Manager to check the Processes Tab for your CPU usage as well as any programs that might be taking up the processor.

I once had to manually delete a virus, and an imposter system file. The virus wasn't detected on my anti-virus, but I knew something was wrong. So I ended switching between normal boot-up and Safe Mode, and deleting any file that was created after a certain point. I ended up deleting a file that the virus needed to function, thus preventing it from starting up as a system file, which allowed me to delete the virus itself. The imposter system file, however, had the exact name of a system file except that it had an extra letter in the name.

I hope you don't have to do any of that, but watch out for an imposter explorer.exe tied into the system files as this caused me some troubles of my own and may be the cause of yours.

Hope some of this helps.

[ebem]

Hey, sounds like you have an interesting problem.

My personal recommendation, (and what we use at our shop) is to download

"the ultimate boot cd"

when the cd boots up run memtest located under mainboard tools

then on the same cd run the "ibm hard drive test" under "hard disk tools"

If memtest gives one error then its bad ram. I repeat, one error.

If the ibm fitness test detects a bad hard drive you will get a red screen which is impossible to miss. If it is good, green screen.

If ram and hard drive are good. Then Unplug usb, firewire, and remove pci cards one at a time from the motherboard to see if any of those are causing problems.

Either way a good ram and hard drive test will at least put your mind at ease about your equipment.

A power supply in my opinion either works or doesn't, not much middle ground. If it can power on the machine to post it is usually good but might have bad connector.

Hope this helps, if not just ignore my post.