[SOLVED] PC has keeps fatally crashing hard drives??

[ollyfitz]

Hi All

I bought a prebuilt PC last year and it has fatally crashed both the original HDD and a replacement HDD to the point where it will not find them to boot from!

Originally it had the following spec:

NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti 4GB GDDR5
Core i5-2400
DDR3 SDRAM
2TB Seagate Barracuda
Edit: I’m using Windows 10

After just 9 months with no problems I was playing Total War one evening and it suddenly started lagging badly so I turned it off.

Although screen turned off the computer was on for another 5 or 6 hours so I forced a shut down.

Next day it wouldn’t boot up and was telling me no bootable device was found.

I know very little about computers but have done a few things here and there so I thought the hard drive was faulty and so replaced it with a cheap hitachi 160gb just to see it I could make it work again.

It worked but fast forward a few months and it has crashed the hard drive in exactly the same way!!

Just keeps clicking and whirring for a few hours until inevitably I get the message: no bootable drive found.

It actually crashed a few weeks ago as well, but I was able to delete all files via a reset and that somehow fixed it?

So...

I actually have a 500gb HDD I was going to install at some point any way and hopefully that will be a temporary fix. However, obviously this computer has a problem!

Do any of you guys know what it might be?

Thanks for reading this.

 

[Vic 40]

Maybe bad psu, so ripple destroys the hdd's.

So what psu in that build? =maker+model+wattage.

 

[ollyfitz]

Thankyou for replying.

That does sound worth investigating.

I can’t find the psu spec on any of the paperwork so I’ll have to take panel off and make a note of it.

It randomly booted up about an hour ago so I backed up my save data from a game I was playing and tried to restart.

It made a few unhealthy clicking noises and eventually went through the windows 10 “diagnosing your pc” process as it normally does when it crashes before taking me to the troubleshooting screen.

I’m currently resetting PC like I did last time as it worked and I have the save data, which is all that was on there that I’m bothered about.

But obviously this can’t go on. I’m just curious if it’s the psu would it go for months working fine like it has been doing?

PS I only play very undemanding games. Was playing fallout 2 when it crashed and that came out in 1998! Not sure if this information helps any...

 

[Vic 40]

Bad riple doesn't trigger safety measures afaik so yes it could go on for months.

 

[ollyfitz]

Right so I’ve reset the pc and deleted all files like I did last time and appears to be back to normal.

The psu is ATX-500B with 500w output.

Having done a search online, it seems a few people have had similar problems with this psu.

I think I’ll look at replacing this component and see how I get on.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Vic 40]

If this psu,
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ATX-500-...24-Pin-3-x-SATA-12CM-Silent-Fan-/254597571390
get rid of it and get something good.

If you mean with 4pin the one for the cpu, just use the 4pin in the matching part of the 8pin connector don't use an adapter, but i really would just scrap that psu.

 

[cryoburner]

A 160GB hard drive is likely to be rather old by this point, so that drive could have easily been on the verge of failure before you even put it in the system. So I wouldn't necessarily say the system is killing drives based on that. It's also possible for relatively new drives to fail on their own as well.

 

[ollyfitz]

Fair point and you could be right.

I think I still want a more robust psu though.

It looks like a dodgy psu could damage your hard drive but not the other way around, so I think I’ll start there.