barton/ Abit nf7 random reboots?

JustinJustin Atlanta
edited February 2004 in Hardware
Just wnated to find out what might be causing random reboots on this system? Also, my Seagate HD 160GB has been making this noise that sounds like a million cricktes going nuts at once. I tried to defrag and it says that I have to run CHKDSK or SCANDISK first. Did that and it still wont run... Any Ideas?

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    uh oh

    go to seagate.com and download their seatools or whatever they're currently calling it - it's a free diagnostic that makes a bootable floppy for you to boot off of and diagnose the drive. Chances are, your drive is about to kick the bucket.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited February 2004
    I have to concur with what prime just said. It definitely sounds like a flaky hard drive, if it's making a bunch of noise.
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited February 2004
    No errors found through seagate diagnostic. Any other ideas?
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited February 2004
    OK, here's a head scratcher. I implemented Disc Investegator and it brings up the clusters, disc info and yada yada... INterestingly enough, just a little bit into the diagnostic graphical representation, mixed in with the decimals and random figures, it says "A DISK READ ERROR OCCURRED...NTLDR IS MISSING...NTLDR IS COMPRESSED...PRESS CNTL+ALT+DEL TO RESTART" Seems rather strange to me but I thought you all might have some input in the matter. Could that be a virus? Is that why I am getting random reboots? COuld that be a symptom or maybe even the cause of the sounds coming from this two month old drive?
  • KingFishKingFish
    edited February 2004
    Random reboots are usually caused by a faulty psu or cpu overheating issues. The hard drive thrashing could be an indicator that it is trying to kick the bucket. Backup everything NOW! Another possibility for the disk thrashing could be the darned windows indexing service.

    KingFish
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited February 2004
    Another cause of random reboots can also be attributed to memory problems, such as trying to run too tight a memory timings or pushing it beyond it's spec. I'm going to pull a primesuspect on you and tell you to run memtest86 for a few hours and see if you get any memory errors.

    KingFish might also be onto something with Windows Indexing for the hard drive noises.:)
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited February 2004
    OK, stupid question time, is memtest in WInXP or an outside program? If it is outside, where can I get it? Also, ran Power Defragmenter, was able to get through hangup, system is now defragmenting, which it could not do before, noise seems to be gone, hasn't rebooted since, maybe crisis has been averted. Memtest sounds like a good idea though, how do I do that?
  • RiddickRiddick Malaysia Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    memtest86 is an outside program.. its a bootable floppy that checks ur RAM for errors. get it at http://www.memtest86.com/#download0
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited February 2004
    What is windows indexing? How can I check that out?
  • KingFishKingFish
    edited February 2004
    Windows indexing supposedly allows for faster file searches within My Computer. Windows will occasionally index all the files on your hard drives causing mucho disk activity. To check if you have it enabled for your hard drives, go to My Computer. Right click on your hard drive(s), go to "properties" on the bottom of the menu that pops up. At the bottom of the window that comes up, see if "Allow Indexing Service To Index This Disk For Fast File Searching" is checked. You can safely uncheck it if it was checked before. If it was already unchecked you can eliminate it as a cause for the prior disk activity. You can safely do it for all hard drives installed.

    KingFish
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited February 2004
    It was checked, I have now unchecked it. Maybe that will do it. This site is so helpful!!!
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