What could be causing this? Help appreciated!

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Performa

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Jan 13, 2006
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Heyas. Not really sure where to post this, but...



Basically the problem is, that all of a sudden my CPU is going horribly slow. Boot-time is increased by 2-3 minutes (might not sound like much, but it is a huge difference from before), and most things take ages to use. The games that I until this happened played on high settings very fine, are now experiencing short lock-ups and freezes regardless of graphic quality settings.

So, what I need help with is actually figuring out why this happened. It happened very suddenly, I had not installed anything, changed anything, or done anything that affects my system AT ALL.

However, a few days before this happened I was playing a pretty demanding game, when I entered an area with pretty extensive graphics, and a big explosion thingy went off, causing my graphics card to overheat. This has NEVER happened before, and nothing on my system is overclocked. I emmediatley turned the computer off, left it for a while, and then checked inside the case for any dust and stuff like that. Everything seemed okay. After a while i restarted my cpu, and everything was back to normal.

And everything kept being normal for two days, when the above mentioned performance loss occured.

Also it might be worth mentionig that about at the same time as the performance loss occured, I heard some weird clicking noises, pretty loud, from inside my computer, which kept a steady "beat" for about 15 seconds.

So basically what I'm wondering is,

Why did my cpu suddenly go from nice to crappy without me doing anything?
Could it possibly have anything to do with the gpu overheating a few days before, even tho all things are functioning properly according to systemchecks?
(It might also be worth mentioning that my 3dmark05 score has not changed at all, but I notice lock-ups and freezes even in those tests.)
And if it has anything to do with the overheat, why didn't I notice anything until after two whole days of extensive computer-using?

I'm hoping that it's just some oddness that will be cured by formatting, but for some reason I fear something has happened to some hardware.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
 
It sounds like your hard drive may be dying.

Backup your important data to CDs, DVDs or an external HDD ASAP then replace the drive.

Please post your full system specs.

Good luck! 😀
 
The nastiest is the clicking, if your lucky (1 out 200) it was a cable on a moving fan, But, it doesnt sound like it. Save anything you cannot replace and look for another hard drive.
And have you found anything Hot? including the hard drive (do you always run it with the side on?)
 
Are your cooling fans running, graphx card, chipset ? maybe clicking was fan going bad, or wire keeping it from turning.

chip may be getting hot. any dust or animal hair down on, or in heatsink fins ?

may be hd.........? process of elimination. start with the easy stuff first.
 
open up the case and find out where the clicking is comeing from. My bet is the HDD, so save what you can and get a new one.
Also if your running that hot on your video card then you ( I would hope ) that you would improve the airflow through your case ( if you can't then get a new case and better fans)

good luck with your unwanted project..I know it suxs
 
My computer is always running quite cool, all fans are working fine, and I regurlary clean them from dust, and check for unwelcome things. That's why the overheat is weird, because the inside of my case was REALLY HOT when I opened it up afterwards.

When opening up my case I can't see what's causing the clicking, but the fans look allright, no cables in the way, and as I said I keep them clean. I fear you're right in it being the HDD, the sounds seems to be coming from the front aswell.

However I think that checkdisk should've found some problems with my disk if there were any?

Anyway thanks alot for giving you're opinions, I'll back things up, format, and see if that helps. (This means about one weekend of downloads and installs, that's why I'm reluctant.)

So thanks alot for your help, even tho I don't like what you're saying. :)
 
Power surge maybe?

Try resettign the heat sinks on your card and video card using new compound. Check your motherboard chipset as well.

Also, check the memory, as that can be pretty subtle.
 
In addition to his HDD problem its starting to sound like a case airflow problem.
It mite be enough when your room temp is cool but when your room temp starts to creep up so does your case, proc, video card temps as well.

If you can get some better fans ( bigger is better ) to push more cfm through the case. And a aftermarket vga cooler for that video card
 
Well, the problem is, you might say, solved.

The clicks from my harddrive was apparantley morse-code for "Help me, I'm dying."

Alas! there was nothing I could do, and a few hours ago I watched my long time friend die. He fought valiantly to the bitter end!

So here I am on my five year old laptop...

Anyway, there is one problem still left unsolved.

Why did this happen? I do have a theory tho...

About 5 months ago I bought a new graphicscard. Not the best one out there, but better than what I had. A x800xl to be axact. Now, this little fella needed to be connected to the powersupply.

And after reading some stuffies I found on the internet, apparantley it is not the best idea to share the cord-divider that the harddrive use, which is exactly what I did.

You guys think that might be the reason? Or, maybe I've just accidentally bumbed my cpu, or someone else in my family...

Anyway, thanks for your help, now I'm off to learn more about harddrives and what to buy... :)
 
You have deduced well, and it is a rational conclusion of the events.
Also, I try to never connect an important power user to any other motored device (fan etc.) because of feedback
 
Linux has a good drive there. I have one and love it. Quiet, and performs well.

The good thing about the SATA power adapters is that you no longer can share the HD power cable(s) with other devices. I generaly avoided doing that as well.
 
Thanks again, looks like a good enough HDD for the price.

However, if I may be so bold as to ask a few more questions? :)

Is it tricky to install a new HDD yourself? (Im' not extremly experienced with hardware stuff, although installing the new GPU was fairly easy.)

And second, how do I know what type of HDD my cpu supports?


All I can find is this imformation-sheet, which I don't really understand:
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=3/6210110221.jpg&s=x10

Thanks again.
 
All you have to do is:

0. power down

1. touch a bare metal part of the case to ground yourself

2. unplug the power cord

3. remove the case cover

4. unscrew and remove the old HDD

5. put the new HDD in its place - secure it with 4 screws

6. take an SATA data cable and plug it into SATA1 = 9 in the diagram

7. plug the other end of the SATA data cable into the HDD

8. take an SATA power cable and plug it into the HDD if you PSU has one, otherwise use a 4pin MOLEX to SATA PWR converter cable

8. check all connections

9. make sure you haven't dropped any screws onto the motherboard, etc

10. put the cover back on

11. plug the power cord in

12. power the system up

13. see if your SATA BIOS sees the new drive

14. if it does you're good to install the OS, if it doesn't go back to step 0 and check everything you've done.

15. partition the drive

16. install Linux + windoze or any other operating system ( s ) you like

NOTE: Some version of windoze do not recognize SATA drives correctly. IIRC you need an XP install CD with at least XP SP1a. SP2 should work even better.

If you choose to dual or triple boot - Linux works with SATA just fine :-D

Good luck!
 
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