I bought a used computer from a friend. It was newly formatted with win98se. After I installed all my software, everything was fine except that when I turned the comp. off in the evening, the clock would be hours slow after reboot in the morning. So, the battery must be bad. Anyway, now the hard drive grinds constantly in a rythmic way (every other second or so) until it goes into sleep mode. DrWeb, TrojanHunter, Spybot all come up negative. I used Enditall to kill all processes, yet it still was grinding. I don't know the hard drive make, so I can't go to the manufacturer's web page. The motherboard is Epox. Can someone help me? Thank you, Douglas
Douglas, don't want to disappoint you, but with an advanced deep scandisk, do you see it making any badblocks? Are you shure it is all exacly horizontal too? Not heating up either? I recently had a kind of equal sounding problem, happened to be an electricity problem somewhere in the system and i lost both HDDs at a time beyond repair. Not sure where the problem was, which cable, flat cable, mb, but you can imagine frustrations, burned fingers (yes so hot one HD became!) Hope it is less serious in your case, but when i read your discription, please watchout!
Hi Douglas, There are a few things that may be happenning. 1. The disk bearings are wearing out. 2. Some hard disks are noisey & get worse as they age but can last for quite a while. 3. There is not enough memory & the pc is accessing the pagefile constantly - This can occurr if you have a lot of apps running. 4. There is a backround task running all the time and is accessing the HD. You could try & test it using something like Norton's disk doctor or Steve Gibsons Spinrite. HTH Pilli
Jooske and Pilli, Thanks for the replies. I read your post, Jooske, just before I had to leave. I've been leaving my computer on all day/night in sleep/power reduced mode. After reading your post, I shut down my computer to see whether it might be overheating. Now, after a little less than two hours, the drive is no longer grinding like it did. It's probably too early to tell, but I think you may have saved me from a terrible mess, Jooske. Pilli, I ended all my background apps as a test, but it still kept grinding. But I will test it as you recommended with Spinright. Furthermore, it wouldn't hurt to take it in and have the bearings looked at. Thank you both for your quick replies. I don't want to go 2 months without Wilder's again. Douglas
A followup question. What temperature should a computer run at? What's the upper limit? Thanks, Douglas
Hi Douglas, The general rule of thumb is that your CPU should idle at roughly 30'C (86F) (depending on ambient room temperature) and under load (i.e when you're running a game/benchmarking program) it shouldn't go over 50'C (122F). The upper limit might be a little higher, a lot depends on what brand of CPU you´re using and how long it will be used at the high temperatures. Regards, Pieter
Wow! I'm idling at 42'C! And this is only a Pentium ll, 350 MHZ. I'm never buying a used computer again! Thanks Pieter, Douglas
Hi Douglas, How long has your computer been running when it reaches that temperature? Try and see if this program can give you a second opinion: http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php Regards, Pieter
Pieter, Thanks for the link. The program shows 2 temps: 42'C and 34'C. I'm wondering if the second temp. is the one that you said should be at 30'. If so, then I don't really have a huge problem. (I haven't had a chance to really look at this program, but it seems great). It reaches this temperature within a few minutes of rebooting after it's been off for awhile. Douglas
Hi Douglas, The second temperature should be for the HD. Note: strange readings can be produced when there is no sensor available for these readings. (Mine shows 72'C ) Did you open the case and try to clean the fan? Might be worth a try. If your motherboard allows it you can also have Speedfan control your fanspeed (at your own risk!!) Before you do that check if your chipset is recognized correctly, if not: don´t even try this. Regards, Pieter
Well, thanks to you knowledgeable folks, I've no longer any problem. I opened the case to see if it was dirty, and saw there was only 1 fan. I installed another, and Speedfan shows me running fairly constantly at 38'C and 28'C. I'm leaving the comp. on, and there's no grinding. Thanks again. Douglas
