How to diagnose a hardware issue?

Zascar

I have some rally strange issues with my pc right now. Its a pc I built only a few months ago so everything bar the hard drives is new. It has been working perfectly for several months, but lately it has started randomly freezing and failing to start up. A few times this week, and then many times last night and tonight, it just hangs, maybe for a few seconds, maybe for a few minutes.

When starting up, sometimes all I get is a black screen with a white line up the top right which flashes. Usually this progresses on to the motherboard (ASROCK) screen. This usually shows for 2 seconds but now its hanging for a while. It may then go on to the windows boot screen or it might hang on a blank screen. Last time it hung on the windows boot loader. There is no real pattern to it but sometimes it boots if I plug out the mouse and keyboard.

The XP install is only a few weeks old, so I'm guessing this is a hardware issue. How would I try to diagnose what it is? If I can get it to boot, is there a scan I can run?

Any and all advice appreciated.
Thanks

beanok77

Ok I am a complete amateur when it comes to giving advice on computer problems but my computer crashed recently and I got some great advice on here.

Can you not run a hard disc diagnostic to check your disc for errors?

I robbed this off geekwithalaptop.com

"Open “my computer”, and right click on the hard drive you wish to test. Select properties, tools, and check now. You can select either “automatically fix file system errors” or “scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”. And there you go.

Or, using the command prompt method…

Open the command prompt; Go to start/run, and type in “cmd.”

Now type into the command prompt “chkdsk /X”, with X being the letter of whichever drive you’re checking, so chkdsk /C for the C drive, chkdsk /D for the D drive, etcetera.

Hit enter, and CHKDSK will scan your drive and report any errors to you.

Now run chkdsk /X to do a full surface scan for any bad sectors, and to fix any errors it finds. You will probably be asked to restart your computer now, as the utility needs to have exclusive access to the disk before it can do a full scan and fix the errors.

Once you’ve restarted and the utility has carried out the scan, Windows should boot up normally. You can right click “my computer” and select “manage” to check the scan report in “event viewer\applications”.

Now, how do you know when your system needs a diagnostic?

It’s a good idea to run a diagnostic on a regular basis, at least once every few months. And of course, just as with doctor checkups, you should run a diagnostic immediately if your computer is running especially slowly, if you’re experiencing any abnormalities, etcetera."

hearny

From the Sounds of it you have 2 main candidates and one less likely.

1) Faulty Power Supply
2) Bad RAM
3) Hard Drive (Least likely in my opinion)

Easiest way of testing the power supply is replacing with a known fully functioning PSU if you can get your hands on one.

If you cant get one you could get a multimeter and test the outputs.

You can test the Ram by downloading:

http://www.memtest.org/download/4.20/memtest86+-4.20.iso.zip

unzip and burn the iso to CD.

Boot from the CD and leave it scan for a few hours. If you get any errors and have more than one slot of RAM re-run with just one slot at a time to find the problematic one.

For the hard drive as well as the chkdsk you could download the manufacturers diagnostics program and run it.

JonathanAnon

Hi Zacsar,

I always like helping a mod.. I feel like I've just been called up to the castle to fix the king's computer..

Anyway, I would add to that list the graphics card, whether that it a) onboard (i.e. a fixed part of the motherboard) or b) a separate plug in card.. or just the motherboard itself.... It's the randomness that would make me think it's one of the above..

I would be thinking either
i) Power Supply
ii) Board or Graphics Card..

If you wanted to rule out the hard drive as being the issue completely, you could physically remove the hard drive from the PC and boot to Ubuntu (CD or USB) and see if you experience similar difficulties.. Download Ubuntu

uch

Could be an overheating issue, have you enough cooling?

JonathanAnon

uch wrote: »

Could be an overheating issue, have you enough cooling?

Yeah that's also a good point, check that the fans on CPU and graphics card (if there is one) are spinning..

ressem

If it's a self-build as mentioned in the OP, then there's a few more possible faults

Such as an excess of thermal paste on the CPU resulting in overheating, or overflowing onto components beside the heatsink.
A PSU unable to deliver the claimed wattage?
(http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056268210 )

If it's a low cost motherboard, having a glance around the motherboard to check for capacitors, on which the top has popped, or leaked. It's rare enough but I've seen it cause unpredictable hangs on an Asus motherboard for one.

Zascar

Thanks for all the replies guys. I tried a few different things and eventuially took out the ram and rotated them - I'm running only one ram chip now and its been fine ever since. So, I assume it faulty ram. Glad its working now anyway.

For some reason I have just realised that my cd rom drive does not work - its just not showing in My Computer and putting a cd in does nothing. I don't think I've used it since I installed XP a few months ago. I have no idea how to go about tying to get it to work. Any advice for me?

EDIT: Fixed! That was easy http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_cd_dvd_fix.htm