Strange hardware Issues

[Massv2]

Ok my computer started to have some issues the other day while gaming. I was playing GTA5(which had been working fine for a week) and started to get freezes,game crashes and even a few blue screens)...so I updated drivers, checked for spyware/malware, ran registry cleaners, ran sfc.exe scan, and a few other 'software' type fixes.
Still had tons of problems to where the game wont even boot and noticed other games and even programs like firefox having strange crashes.

So today I deleted my raid array and made a new one, reinstalled windows 7.1 pro on it and already noticing odd things happening just trying to get everything installed again. GFX driver(amd 14.12 omega) install crashed halfway during first install, restarted, cleaned drivers with driver sweeper, installed again and it worked. Then when I went to update windows patches its having problems installing patches, had like 190 updates to install, it restarted the computer about 50% through updating and now the windows update wont connect to the server/check for updates.

So I'm thinking hardware issue now. So i prime 95 stress for about 20 mins and get no issues. I leave for a few hours with nothing running but computer on and when i get back it has been restarted at some point(kinda odd)

So I deicide to try to go ahead and install steam to try to download GTA5 again and test, get about 10% in and noticed steam stopped the download, try to restart download and steam says something about a corrupted archive, had to delete 'downloading' folder to get the download to restart fresh, its 40% done now with no issues, but I dont have high hopes.

So what could be causing issues like this? given that prime95 did not fail for 20 mins I figure the cpu and ram are not the issue. starting to think this could be a hard drive issue because of corruption or PSU because of weirdness? Chkdsk did not show anything wrong with drive when i ran it on a boot though. Not sure what other testing I can do to narrow it down?

Hardware:
Asrock Extreme 4 Mobo
2700k sandybrige
2x crucial m4 SSD 64 gb in raid 0 array 128k stripe for 128gb
2x Sapphire radeon 6970 2gb in crossfire
8gb Gskill ripjaws in 1600 cas 7
CoolerMaster Silent pro 850 PSU
asus Blu-ray

Can provide more info as needed. Will update as I learn more.

 

[profoundnoah]

It doesn't appear to be your PSU, since prime95 really tests it and the system. What we're looking at is most likely lack of room/a raid issue on those SSD's. My first thought would be to try running the system with one SSD (if possible). If that works, then try the other. If both of them work, my thoughts are that it is a faulty RAID array with the Motherboard. Potential fixes would be just to buy a single, larger SSD for the boot and some games, then a WD Blue 1 TB for mass storage. Try running them in Raid 1 for increased safety. If they still do crash, then its probably the drives starting to fail.

 

[Massv2]

It doesn't appear to be your PSU, since prime95 really tests it and the system. What we're looking at is most likely lack of room/a raid issue on those SSD's. My first thought would be to try running the system with one SSD (if possible). If that works, then try the other. If both of them work, my thoughts are that it is a faulty RAID array with the Motherboard. Potential fixes would be just to buy a single, larger SSD for the boot and some games, then a WD Blue 1 TB for mass storage. Try running them in Raid 1 for increased safety. If they still do crash, then its probably the drives starting to fail.

Kinda what I'm learning toward, I dont know much about how SSDs fail compared to regular drives, these were my first solid states and they have been ran pretty hard for 3-4 years on raid 0(computer has gamed alot, ran bitcoin miners, video encoding software and cad software). They are from a fairly early stage of SSD adoption I think so might be some issues with life expectancy there, I think they use sandforce controllers.

Will add too that before I wiped the first OS install sfc.exe scan picked up quite a few corrupted windows files, leads me to think the drives also.

 

[profoundnoah]

Yeah, I think it's due time for a SSD upgrade. Samsung makes some great SSDs. I would recommend a single 840 120 GB SSD so you won't have to RAID

 

[Massv2]

ok I think its memory issue, Ran memtest86 all night from a bootable disk, came up with 200k errors. Have no idea why prime95 ran for 30 mins just fine. Going to have to check which stick tonight but probably just have to buy all new pairs.

 

[profoundnoah]

Yeah I would recommend a RAM replacement before we go with a complete storage replace. You still may want to buy a new SSD sometime in the future. Keep me posted

 

[Massv2]

yea I need to get a newer/bigger one at some point. I have liked my raid 0 though. reads at 1.1 Gb/s. But they have 26k hours of use on them, and I would like to be able to put more programs on SSD..so yea new ones in order sometime soon. In the process of remodeling a house so fun money is kinda low right now.

 

[profoundnoah]

Thats understandable. Those SSD's should last at least 1 more year so you should have time.