Computer locks up

My sister said she heard a "dropping" sound from inside the case when the problem occured. At that moment, the computer locked up. Now, it works normally except that when I run the game diablo 2 or scan my computer in spybot, it locks up. Surfing with firefox sometimes locks it up but it doesn't always do it. What seems to be the problem?

 

I'm not sure but you could go to your Device Manager and see whether there are any yellow exclamations or red crosses and this may indicate whether something has become dislodged or disconnected.

 

I looked at it and the only one with an exclamation point is the Usb controller

 

Have you pulled off a side cover and had a look to see if there is anything obvious?

 

I have. Although I'm no computer expert, everything seems to be normal.

 

I'm not either but just trying with the common sense aspects firstly, hopefully someone more experienced will provide input shortly. I have read in these threads that you can look at sys Error Messages, after events such as your experiencing and at least get some info on why the sys chucks a wobbly.

 

Looking at the event viwer, I got the following errors the most:

The driver disabled the write cache on device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0.
The driver disabled the write cache on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.
An error was detected on device \Device\CdRom0 during a paging operation.

I also got this error, but only once:
The device, \Device\Harddisk2\D, has a bad block.

How do I go about fixing this?

 

It sounds like either a fan is messed up and not working properly or the hard drive is dieing. I would bet it is the hard drive. download speedfan and look at the scetion on S.M.A.R.T it will likely be able to tell if your hard drive is failing. I didn't read your last post, iw ould say it is almost certainly a hard drive failure, you should still use S.M.A.R.T and see if tehre are any obvious errors but yous hould also back up your data ASAP unless you want to freeze your hard drive or pay $$$ to get it recovered when the drive fails compeltely.

 

I'm downloading speedfan at the moment.

I would also like to know which the problematic drive is. I have two, a new 200gb one designated as F and an old 40gb one designated as C. I wasn't able to infer this information based on the event viewer errors

 

So I downloaded speedfan and it has nothing to report on my drives. My 40 gig one got 94% and my other one got 95%. Although, it might be interesting to note that speedfan has reported 56 C on "Temp3." I don't exactly know what this is but is this too hot?

 

Temp 3 is probably your video card, if thatw as your harddrive it probably woudn't be working at all, did you look at the online in depth analysis? ieither way I ahve a feeling your hard drive is dieing.does it make strange sounds when it crashes or did it only do that once? It is probably your C drive since it is older and It shoudl contain your OS and if your computer is locking up due to hdd failure it is probably affecting the OS.

 

According to my sister, it made the sound then locked up. I don't hear any sound when it does lock up now though.

Yes, I did check the in depth analysis. 94/94 and 95/95 fitness and performance.
C does contain my OS however.

Back to the video card, would it be possible that this is causing the problem? Is that temperature too hot? Maybe this is the faulty one as it DEFINITELY locks up when I play diablo 2

 

download everest home edition to monitor your temps, but I am telling you it is probably the hdd, the sound was probably the read/write head on your hard drive crashing into the platter, I have heard it before.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hddt/know...4b1a62a50f405d0d86256756006e340c?OpenDocument

 

Alright, I'll look into it. Thanks

 

The best thing to do would be buy or borrow and external hdd, backup everything, get rid of the 40gb hdd, set the 200gb as C:drive and reformat with a 10gb partition D: install windows on D, that is the way most new computers are set up, that way if you get a virus it is less liekly to harm your OS, I know this is a lot to do so it is wise to make sure the hdd is the problem but it is better safe than sorry, at least back it up.

 

Yes the Event Viewer was what I mean't your onto it. Although I haven't helped much yet maybe these latest links can help by laga.com:

http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2006/2006-03-02.htm

http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2006/2006-03-06.htm

In a nutshell he touts the wonders of the Windows free onboard "Disk Management Tool". For anaylsis, partitioning, disk mirroring, etc. Most people reccomend 3rd party apps for these but he gives Windows the BIG thumbs up for this tool. Langa is rock solid for advice on any aspects of PC info so worth a look!

 

Thanks for the help guys