- Apr 4, 2019
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Hello guys. I have a very old PC which, yes, I want it to be kept up and running. It is being used as a backup PC to my main computer and I back up my main's important files to the HDD in this old PC (It is a measly 160GB HDD but I don't have much important files to back up either). I mostly use this PC for the aforementioned purpose and some Minecraft gaming.
So here's the problem. I use a very old PC as I already told. I have only ever changed the CD drive in the tower because the OEM one had gone terribly bad and noisy. I got the PC back in 2010 (or at least from my remembrance, I think it is). It is an OEM PC from HP namely "Pavilion a6130in". I think I have to mention the specifications down below for further talking so you can understand what I'm talking about better.
Core 2 Duo E4400 @ 2.00GhZ (Can't and won't overclock it with the bad OEM Mobo BIOS)
HP (but made by Asus) P5LP-LE motherboard
2GB DDR2 (2x Samsung 512MB sticks and 1x Transcend 1GB stick)
A something LG CD drive
300W PSU from "Hipro"
No GPU cause I don't need it
160GB Seagate Barracuda HDD
Runs on integrated graphics with Intel 82945G chipset
So well, the first problems started popping up when I would get random freezes alot of time 3 to 4 years ago. I didn't know what I'd to do. I tried power cycling my machine, running the machine without any USB devices connected, etc. which all did nothing. Then what I did was the "Reseat your RAM" technique which worked for me alot of times in fixing various problems across the lifespan of my computer. It didn't fix only the freezing, but also alot of random shutdowns (which annoy me the most) and more stuff like graphics glitching which occurs very rarely (when I turn on the computer, there are very scary looking corrupted and glitchy graphics that doesn't even show any real on screen items but shows 0's and 1's with symbols near them like &, #, $ and more and they are spread throughout the screen. These are shown throughout the startup instead of the beautiful and calming "HP Invent" branding on the BIOS POST).
I would want to explain the problems in a timeline manner:
All around 2016 and 2017: The all above mentioned problems
End of 2018 and until Q3 of 2019: These were the years which gave me the most headache ever with this PC. At the end of 2018, my PC began to do some freezing again, which I fixed by RAM reseating. Then it started the most apocalypsing shutdowns which were insanely furious cause it will just shutdown within 2 minutes and restart and then again shutdown and restart and making me have the PC unusable. I was still using Windows 7 at the end of 2018. Then I was all annoyed by what the hell in the oofing world was happening. I decided to reinstall the software. I switched to Windows 10 around the beginning of 2019. I installed it from my hard drive by having the setup files in a separate partition and running the setup.exe file from the Windows 7 OS (the random shutdowns stopped chasing me a bit in like a month later and I decided to install Windows 10 at that time before the problem came again [Spoiler: well it did] ). No hiccups went through the installation process. It did take me 1 hour or so to install it. Then for like 3 months everything went very smooth and I was happy. Then again came an even worse apocalypse. I was UNABLE to use my PC at all. It would randomly shutdown all time and restart. It was severe that I can't even go to safe mode because it will restart even when in that pre-boot advanced repair environment (I setup dual boot with Phoenix OS on a separate partition and never blame me on that. NO hiccups were caused by dual boot. And yes, I use EasyBCD to configure dual boot options. Then one time, it didn't manage to shutdown very quickly. I went to msconfig and made the system to always boot into safe mode. I was good then for some basic tasks. Remember that I said I play Minecraft? I was UNABLE to play Minecraft in safe mode as you know, the basic VGA drivers are only loaded. I need to use Intel's GMA driver to load real 3D applications. Well, I tried reseating RAM to fix this. But it didn't get fixed. Then I thought it was the HDD that was the problem, cause whenever a "click" sound, which is very audible, is heard, the system freezes (yes sometimes the PC also freezed alot if it didn't shutdown). Then the REAL UNUSABLE situation that happened to me. The PC would always BSOD at startup with error code "INACCESIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" everytime. Then I assumed that the problem was the HDD and gave my PC to my trusted friend who repairs PCs. He did charge me nothing to fix my PC. (Well, now I can't take advice from him anymore cause he's no more when I'm writing this post 😖). What he did was he totally formatted the HDD and installed a Windows 7 copy made by Asus (I guess the motherboard and the OS connection makes sense for some sort of compatibility, I don't know). The whole OS is Asus themed. What he also did was completely blow all dust off all components somehow (they didn't even have one single dust trail, I think he reassembled the whole PC components). If you are thinking that he destroyed all my backups, no. I also have all my backups in a USB drive for portability. Why I have my files in the PC is to have faster access speeds and not losing the backup easily. Then it was not too late that the freezing happened again with the shutdowns. Luckily it was not too rigorous as last. I precautionally enabled msconfig to boot in safe mode, knowing it will always crash in normal mode (Note: My PC never crashed in safe mode, even never ever in the past, that's also a reason why I assumed the HDD is the problem). I reseated the RAM and it worked again.
Straight forward to present: With all that happened, I didn't know WTF to do. I decided to just stick to Windows 7 without doing anything else. Now talking about something happened very recently. 4 days ago, my PC again started restarting. I reseated the RAM and it worked fine the whole day. Then the next day, it did it again. I did Reseat the RAM again and it worked fine the whole day again. Then the next day, nothing happened. Then nothing happened the next day, and I sighed. The next day, that is yesterday, it did the crash again and I did the Reseat again. It worked fine until, I noticed something. I always use headsets to hear stuff. I was playing my favourite Minecraft server which has music playing in the background. While I shutdown the PC, I didn't notice the sound too, I was talking. Then later the day, I wanted to do some backuping. I did some backup files and suddenly, the PSU fan (I mostly mostly think it is) started to make loud fan noise (it never did it before). It was sort of a grinding noise. I don't know how to describe the noise, but it's simply louder than usual. I also noticed that when the PC starts up, none of that sound is heard, but when I fire up Minecraft and join a server (which would be somewhat too demanding for this iGPU considering the world it has to load), a few moments after I start walking around the demanding world, the PSU starts making that noise. I feel like the load is making the PSU to turn it's fan on to supply more juice and stay cool. I haven't done anything to the system yet to combat this problem. This is all that happened to date.
So here's my main suspects:
Let's start with the HDD.
I said that the HDD was very old and made clicking noises. My feeling is that although after 2 reinstalls of different OS'es (Only talking about Windows), the system crashes and freezes. I assume that the HDD is somehow corrupting the OS data and always making it crash and freeze. But I think it the least because it has handled insane workloads like alot of terabytes of file transfers in it's lifespan, it DOES always make that "clicking" sound everytime once during posting in BIOS all from when I first bought the PC, it is indeed that the drive is from a reputable brand I love alot and is not from a Chinese brand which would do those corruption stuff. I'm still so curious how the hell the drive even still works after 13 years (the PC was made by HP back in 2007, I think).
Then let's go to the RAM. Let's be honest here, the HDD can't do those corruption stuff alot times. It's mostly the RAM that might cause the corruption. Then doesn't like reseating the RAM do like a reset so the RAM works properly? I hope that makes sense for you, but it does for me to work by doing it. Is the RAM the culprit here to create the problems?
Let's also see the motherboard here. The RAM connects to the motherboard. What if the motherboard is not properly able to communicate with the RAM and the motherboard is creating all the problems?
Or am I all but just not able to provide sufficient cooling to the PC, cause I only have one case fan and one CPU cooler and PSU for all the cooling. But I don't think it so, cause my CPU does stay at average 35°C in idle and upto 70°C under full load. I think that's perfectly reasonable. And the fans are I think is good except for the PSU's.
I'm having my most suspects on the PSU. The loud noise might be just cause of a bad fan bearing that just became bad. Maybe I didn't handle the tower properly and the PSU fan got it's bearing bad due to some vibration that occured when I kept down the tower on my desk to reseat the RAM. Even that isn't a huge problem. What if the PSU is starting to fail and is losing its capacity to fully deliver the power the components need and if that's what had been causing all the freaking problems this whole time??? I highly do suspect.
Well, I can provide any additional information you would need for this situation guys and well I don't want to do any purchases and spend any money to fix the problem. And don't tell me "bruh, that's a trash PC lol throw it away xDDD" or "just upgrade ur PC is faster and better". Tell me the solution I need. Not being rude, but everyone who is posting here knows that if they need to upgrade, they will. Why would they ask you all help to solve their existing problem if they are just gonna buy a new PC and trash the old one? I really hate people who do that, because they don't solve the person's problem but tells them to do a whole different thing to upgrade everything/buy a new PC.
Well hope you would help me and I don't think this is a too lengthy post.
So here's the problem. I use a very old PC as I already told. I have only ever changed the CD drive in the tower because the OEM one had gone terribly bad and noisy. I got the PC back in 2010 (or at least from my remembrance, I think it is). It is an OEM PC from HP namely "Pavilion a6130in". I think I have to mention the specifications down below for further talking so you can understand what I'm talking about better.
Core 2 Duo E4400 @ 2.00GhZ (Can't and won't overclock it with the bad OEM Mobo BIOS)
HP (but made by Asus) P5LP-LE motherboard
2GB DDR2 (2x Samsung 512MB sticks and 1x Transcend 1GB stick)
A something LG CD drive
300W PSU from "Hipro"
No GPU cause I don't need it
160GB Seagate Barracuda HDD
Runs on integrated graphics with Intel 82945G chipset
So well, the first problems started popping up when I would get random freezes alot of time 3 to 4 years ago. I didn't know what I'd to do. I tried power cycling my machine, running the machine without any USB devices connected, etc. which all did nothing. Then what I did was the "Reseat your RAM" technique which worked for me alot of times in fixing various problems across the lifespan of my computer. It didn't fix only the freezing, but also alot of random shutdowns (which annoy me the most) and more stuff like graphics glitching which occurs very rarely (when I turn on the computer, there are very scary looking corrupted and glitchy graphics that doesn't even show any real on screen items but shows 0's and 1's with symbols near them like &, #, $ and more and they are spread throughout the screen. These are shown throughout the startup instead of the beautiful and calming "HP Invent" branding on the BIOS POST).
I would want to explain the problems in a timeline manner:
All around 2016 and 2017: The all above mentioned problems
End of 2018 and until Q3 of 2019: These were the years which gave me the most headache ever with this PC. At the end of 2018, my PC began to do some freezing again, which I fixed by RAM reseating. Then it started the most apocalypsing shutdowns which were insanely furious cause it will just shutdown within 2 minutes and restart and then again shutdown and restart and making me have the PC unusable. I was still using Windows 7 at the end of 2018. Then I was all annoyed by what the hell in the oofing world was happening. I decided to reinstall the software. I switched to Windows 10 around the beginning of 2019. I installed it from my hard drive by having the setup files in a separate partition and running the setup.exe file from the Windows 7 OS (the random shutdowns stopped chasing me a bit in like a month later and I decided to install Windows 10 at that time before the problem came again [Spoiler: well it did] ). No hiccups went through the installation process. It did take me 1 hour or so to install it. Then for like 3 months everything went very smooth and I was happy. Then again came an even worse apocalypse. I was UNABLE to use my PC at all. It would randomly shutdown all time and restart. It was severe that I can't even go to safe mode because it will restart even when in that pre-boot advanced repair environment (I setup dual boot with Phoenix OS on a separate partition and never blame me on that. NO hiccups were caused by dual boot. And yes, I use EasyBCD to configure dual boot options. Then one time, it didn't manage to shutdown very quickly. I went to msconfig and made the system to always boot into safe mode. I was good then for some basic tasks. Remember that I said I play Minecraft? I was UNABLE to play Minecraft in safe mode as you know, the basic VGA drivers are only loaded. I need to use Intel's GMA driver to load real 3D applications. Well, I tried reseating RAM to fix this. But it didn't get fixed. Then I thought it was the HDD that was the problem, cause whenever a "click" sound, which is very audible, is heard, the system freezes (yes sometimes the PC also freezed alot if it didn't shutdown). Then the REAL UNUSABLE situation that happened to me. The PC would always BSOD at startup with error code "INACCESIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" everytime. Then I assumed that the problem was the HDD and gave my PC to my trusted friend who repairs PCs. He did charge me nothing to fix my PC. (Well, now I can't take advice from him anymore cause he's no more when I'm writing this post 😖). What he did was he totally formatted the HDD and installed a Windows 7 copy made by Asus (I guess the motherboard and the OS connection makes sense for some sort of compatibility, I don't know). The whole OS is Asus themed. What he also did was completely blow all dust off all components somehow (they didn't even have one single dust trail, I think he reassembled the whole PC components). If you are thinking that he destroyed all my backups, no. I also have all my backups in a USB drive for portability. Why I have my files in the PC is to have faster access speeds and not losing the backup easily. Then it was not too late that the freezing happened again with the shutdowns. Luckily it was not too rigorous as last. I precautionally enabled msconfig to boot in safe mode, knowing it will always crash in normal mode (Note: My PC never crashed in safe mode, even never ever in the past, that's also a reason why I assumed the HDD is the problem). I reseated the RAM and it worked again.
Straight forward to present: With all that happened, I didn't know WTF to do. I decided to just stick to Windows 7 without doing anything else. Now talking about something happened very recently. 4 days ago, my PC again started restarting. I reseated the RAM and it worked fine the whole day. Then the next day, it did it again. I did Reseat the RAM again and it worked fine the whole day again. Then the next day, nothing happened. Then nothing happened the next day, and I sighed. The next day, that is yesterday, it did the crash again and I did the Reseat again. It worked fine until, I noticed something. I always use headsets to hear stuff. I was playing my favourite Minecraft server which has music playing in the background. While I shutdown the PC, I didn't notice the sound too, I was talking. Then later the day, I wanted to do some backuping. I did some backup files and suddenly, the PSU fan (I mostly mostly think it is) started to make loud fan noise (it never did it before). It was sort of a grinding noise. I don't know how to describe the noise, but it's simply louder than usual. I also noticed that when the PC starts up, none of that sound is heard, but when I fire up Minecraft and join a server (which would be somewhat too demanding for this iGPU considering the world it has to load), a few moments after I start walking around the demanding world, the PSU starts making that noise. I feel like the load is making the PSU to turn it's fan on to supply more juice and stay cool. I haven't done anything to the system yet to combat this problem. This is all that happened to date.
So here's my main suspects:
Let's start with the HDD.
I said that the HDD was very old and made clicking noises. My feeling is that although after 2 reinstalls of different OS'es (Only talking about Windows), the system crashes and freezes. I assume that the HDD is somehow corrupting the OS data and always making it crash and freeze. But I think it the least because it has handled insane workloads like alot of terabytes of file transfers in it's lifespan, it DOES always make that "clicking" sound everytime once during posting in BIOS all from when I first bought the PC, it is indeed that the drive is from a reputable brand I love alot and is not from a Chinese brand which would do those corruption stuff. I'm still so curious how the hell the drive even still works after 13 years (the PC was made by HP back in 2007, I think).
Then let's go to the RAM. Let's be honest here, the HDD can't do those corruption stuff alot times. It's mostly the RAM that might cause the corruption. Then doesn't like reseating the RAM do like a reset so the RAM works properly? I hope that makes sense for you, but it does for me to work by doing it. Is the RAM the culprit here to create the problems?
Let's also see the motherboard here. The RAM connects to the motherboard. What if the motherboard is not properly able to communicate with the RAM and the motherboard is creating all the problems?
Or am I all but just not able to provide sufficient cooling to the PC, cause I only have one case fan and one CPU cooler and PSU for all the cooling. But I don't think it so, cause my CPU does stay at average 35°C in idle and upto 70°C under full load. I think that's perfectly reasonable. And the fans are I think is good except for the PSU's.
I'm having my most suspects on the PSU. The loud noise might be just cause of a bad fan bearing that just became bad. Maybe I didn't handle the tower properly and the PSU fan got it's bearing bad due to some vibration that occured when I kept down the tower on my desk to reseat the RAM. Even that isn't a huge problem. What if the PSU is starting to fail and is losing its capacity to fully deliver the power the components need and if that's what had been causing all the freaking problems this whole time??? I highly do suspect.
Well, I can provide any additional information you would need for this situation guys and well I don't want to do any purchases and spend any money to fix the problem. And don't tell me "bruh, that's a trash PC lol throw it away xDDD" or "just upgrade ur PC is faster and better". Tell me the solution I need. Not being rude, but everyone who is posting here knows that if they need to upgrade, they will. Why would they ask you all help to solve their existing problem if they are just gonna buy a new PC and trash the old one? I really hate people who do that, because they don't solve the person's problem but tells them to do a whole different thing to upgrade everything/buy a new PC.
Well hope you would help me and I don't think this is a too lengthy post.
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