- May 20, 2024
- 7
- 4
- 15
I had a fairly odd fault that almost lead me to replace the main SSD in my computer.
It started out with update problems. Every time there was a Windows update, it would either BSOD on the first reboot attempt, or the motherboard/BIOS would give me a “disk error: press any key to restart” message. It didn’t always happen right after the update, sometimes it was the next reboot after that.
The second symptom was that large file operations (moving things from one disk to another) had a tenancy to fail with a general error message. I had 2 internal disks, an SSD and a mechanical HDD, and as most people do these days, the boot disk is the SSD.
Finally, Windows started having problems with settings not always taking effect. Sometimes, it would act as though I hadn’t changed the settings in the first place, but they were still at their previous value. Other times, it would just behave as though it was on default settings: even though if I opened the settings app, they were still at the values I had set! Clicking the “reset to defaults” option would fix the problem. Unfortunately, it would eventually return.
I did some research to see what settings were held up by the CMOS battery on modern motherboards. It’s pretty much just the clock, and settings that you change in the BIOS, not through Windows. So, it was beginning to look more and more like my boot disk was going bad.
Even though my SSD wasn’t that old- after all, an SSD should outlast an HDD at least in theory -but on the other hand, it was a store brand rather than a “real” one like Crucial or Sandisk, so I was beginning to suspect it (Actually, I would have suspected it at this point regardless of brand-the “store brand” thing was another clue that was leading me in that direction)
On a hunch, I did try to reinstall Windows, after figuring out how to do so without erasing the entire disk (Yes, I had backups, plural, of anything irreplaceable) but unfortunately, even this didn’t help anything.
I spoke to a coworker about it, and he mentioned that, as uncommon as RAM failure is, it can cause strange symptoms when it happens. He mentioned that if I had 2 (or more) RAM cards, I should try swapping them between slots and see what happens.
Can you believe it? Problem solved! In fact, it would still boot and run just fine with the bad card now in slot 2. The kicker? It didn’t even completely freeze up if I started using more than 8 GB of RAM. The computer would just generally run noticeably slower if you were doing enough to be going into the other RAM card, yet no major problems would occur. So I got a new 8GB card to replace the bad one. (out of warranty)
Despite being a generic store brand SSD, it lasted a fairly long time. In fact, it still works, but I upgraded when I saw a larger one on sale, and it was a more well-known brand. It theoretically should have been a speed upgrade as well being an M.2, but my motherboard was too old for that to matter. It worked perfectly fine, it just didn’t do things noticeably faster. However, I was going for a size upgrade rather than a speed upgrade, so I wasn’t disappointed.
So if you suspect a hardware issue but you’re not sure what exactly is bad, just swap RAM cards between the 2 slots, assuming you have 2 RAM cards.
It started out with update problems. Every time there was a Windows update, it would either BSOD on the first reboot attempt, or the motherboard/BIOS would give me a “disk error: press any key to restart” message. It didn’t always happen right after the update, sometimes it was the next reboot after that.
The second symptom was that large file operations (moving things from one disk to another) had a tenancy to fail with a general error message. I had 2 internal disks, an SSD and a mechanical HDD, and as most people do these days, the boot disk is the SSD.
Finally, Windows started having problems with settings not always taking effect. Sometimes, it would act as though I hadn’t changed the settings in the first place, but they were still at their previous value. Other times, it would just behave as though it was on default settings: even though if I opened the settings app, they were still at the values I had set! Clicking the “reset to defaults” option would fix the problem. Unfortunately, it would eventually return.
I did some research to see what settings were held up by the CMOS battery on modern motherboards. It’s pretty much just the clock, and settings that you change in the BIOS, not through Windows. So, it was beginning to look more and more like my boot disk was going bad.
Even though my SSD wasn’t that old- after all, an SSD should outlast an HDD at least in theory -but on the other hand, it was a store brand rather than a “real” one like Crucial or Sandisk, so I was beginning to suspect it (Actually, I would have suspected it at this point regardless of brand-the “store brand” thing was another clue that was leading me in that direction)
On a hunch, I did try to reinstall Windows, after figuring out how to do so without erasing the entire disk (Yes, I had backups, plural, of anything irreplaceable) but unfortunately, even this didn’t help anything.
I spoke to a coworker about it, and he mentioned that, as uncommon as RAM failure is, it can cause strange symptoms when it happens. He mentioned that if I had 2 (or more) RAM cards, I should try swapping them between slots and see what happens.
Can you believe it? Problem solved! In fact, it would still boot and run just fine with the bad card now in slot 2. The kicker? It didn’t even completely freeze up if I started using more than 8 GB of RAM. The computer would just generally run noticeably slower if you were doing enough to be going into the other RAM card, yet no major problems would occur. So I got a new 8GB card to replace the bad one. (out of warranty)
Despite being a generic store brand SSD, it lasted a fairly long time. In fact, it still works, but I upgraded when I saw a larger one on sale, and it was a more well-known brand. It theoretically should have been a speed upgrade as well being an M.2, but my motherboard was too old for that to matter. It worked perfectly fine, it just didn’t do things noticeably faster. However, I was going for a size upgrade rather than a speed upgrade, so I wasn’t disappointed.
So if you suspect a hardware issue but you’re not sure what exactly is bad, just swap RAM cards between the 2 slots, assuming you have 2 RAM cards.
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