My computer has been acting very strange lately and I've been trying to diagnose the problem. Here is what I posted in the Steam Forums.
Symptoms:
- After initiating download for a game, the download will be normal but then gets choppy, with the disc usage getting low and network usage becoming choppy like skyscrapers far apart. Pausing and resuming the download is a bandaid that doesn't always work.
- After awhile, my PC freezes up and becomes very slow; my memory and disc usage at 99-100%. This continues even after stopping the download and exiting steam and letting my PC be completely idle. After 5-10 minutes, the disk may go down to 0% but will return to 100. This continues unless I shut down my PC. Even after shutting down and my monitor going dark, my PC stays on for a couple more minutes before shutting off.
What I've done to fix it:
- Used Norton to deep scan my whole file system and used the power scanner thing it has as well. No threats detected.
- Cleared download cash.
- Changed "Games" folder to uncheck the Read only.
- Updated all drivers.
- Reinstalled Steam.
- Followed instructions from Steam Help on the following pages: Download issues, Programs Which May Interfere with Steam, Troubleshooting Network Connectivity.
Other notes:
My HDD is nowhere near full capacity, my rig isn't overheated, and this only happens when downloading from Steam, nowhere else. My internet connection is 40 down 6 up. When downloading I get around 5.5 mb/s which is good until it crashes. I plan on getting 8 more gigs of RAM which should arrive within the next week.
There are other things I didn't mention in that post. Here they are:
- If I leave my PC on and go anywhere for a few hours, the PC is very laggy and slow even if I didn't leave a download going. Being idle for an extended period of time seems to slow down my PC.
- Before going to bed last night I shut down my PC and display cut out, but it was still running. My fans were going, keyboard and mouse were on.
- PC startup is slower
- Just before making this post I looked through my Event Viewer and found a few errors which I will paste here:
SettingSyncHost (8884) {356B740A-8CEC-4A2B-8DA4-178E1CC5D11E}: A request to write to the file "C:\Users\Garrett\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\SettingSync\metastore\edb.log" at offset 352256 (0x0000000000056000) for 4096 (0x00001000) bytes succeeded, but took an abnormally long time (15 seconds) to be serviced by the OS. In addition, 1 other I/O requests to this file have also taken an abnormally long time to be serviced since the last message regarding this problem was posted 79 seconds ago. This problem is likely due to faulty hardware. Please contact your hardware vendor for further assistance diagnosing the problem.
SettingSyncHost (8884) {01A4D306-4067-45F7-952C-E5D1353DB494}: A request to write to the file "C:\Users\Garrett\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\SettingSync\remotemetastore\v1\meta.edb" at offset 0 (0x0000000000000000) for 16384 (0x00004000) bytes succeeded, but took an abnormally long time (24 seconds) to be serviced by the OS. This problem is likely due to faulty hardware. Please contact your hardware vendor for further assistance diagnosing the problem.
I suspect it could be my HDD going bad but I'm not totally sure.
Symptoms:
- After initiating download for a game, the download will be normal but then gets choppy, with the disc usage getting low and network usage becoming choppy like skyscrapers far apart. Pausing and resuming the download is a bandaid that doesn't always work.
- After awhile, my PC freezes up and becomes very slow; my memory and disc usage at 99-100%. This continues even after stopping the download and exiting steam and letting my PC be completely idle. After 5-10 minutes, the disk may go down to 0% but will return to 100. This continues unless I shut down my PC. Even after shutting down and my monitor going dark, my PC stays on for a couple more minutes before shutting off.
What I've done to fix it:
- Used Norton to deep scan my whole file system and used the power scanner thing it has as well. No threats detected.
- Cleared download cash.
- Changed "Games" folder to uncheck the Read only.
- Updated all drivers.
- Reinstalled Steam.
- Followed instructions from Steam Help on the following pages: Download issues, Programs Which May Interfere with Steam, Troubleshooting Network Connectivity.
Other notes:
My HDD is nowhere near full capacity, my rig isn't overheated, and this only happens when downloading from Steam, nowhere else. My internet connection is 40 down 6 up. When downloading I get around 5.5 mb/s which is good until it crashes. I plan on getting 8 more gigs of RAM which should arrive within the next week.
There are other things I didn't mention in that post. Here they are:
- If I leave my PC on and go anywhere for a few hours, the PC is very laggy and slow even if I didn't leave a download going. Being idle for an extended period of time seems to slow down my PC.
- Before going to bed last night I shut down my PC and display cut out, but it was still running. My fans were going, keyboard and mouse were on.
- PC startup is slower
- Just before making this post I looked through my Event Viewer and found a few errors which I will paste here:
SettingSyncHost (8884) {356B740A-8CEC-4A2B-8DA4-178E1CC5D11E}: A request to write to the file "C:\Users\Garrett\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\SettingSync\metastore\edb.log" at offset 352256 (0x0000000000056000) for 4096 (0x00001000) bytes succeeded, but took an abnormally long time (15 seconds) to be serviced by the OS. In addition, 1 other I/O requests to this file have also taken an abnormally long time to be serviced since the last message regarding this problem was posted 79 seconds ago. This problem is likely due to faulty hardware. Please contact your hardware vendor for further assistance diagnosing the problem.
SettingSyncHost (8884) {01A4D306-4067-45F7-952C-E5D1353DB494}: A request to write to the file "C:\Users\Garrett\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\SettingSync\remotemetastore\v1\meta.edb" at offset 0 (0x0000000000000000) for 16384 (0x00004000) bytes succeeded, but took an abnormally long time (24 seconds) to be serviced by the OS. This problem is likely due to faulty hardware. Please contact your hardware vendor for further assistance diagnosing the problem.
I suspect it could be my HDD going bad but I'm not totally sure.
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