Computer freezes, then temporarily loses boot drive

[nicholasv]

Windows would sometimes freeze when I am working a home while listening to a podcast or YouTube channel. I would reboot and sometimes the problem would recur, whereas at others it might not happen again for a few days. Sometimes, it would freeze then fail to detect any drives other than my DVD drives. Up until recently, the BIOS would rediscover them if I left my desktop computer alone for a few days and worked on a laptop. When this happened last week, my desktop was unusable until I had opened the case, disconnected cables and expansion cards, blasted and brushed away dust, and reassembled the machine, initially with just the boot drive connected. Does any of this sound familiar to you?

I have tested the memory using Windows 10's memory checker, and subjected my computer to a 30 minute PC Doctor checkup, but it doesn't find anything wrong.

Thank you

 

[ATB]

Maybe boot drive is an issue?

Tried another drive?

 

[nicholasv]

Maybe boot drive is an issue?

Tried another drive?

It was ok after I put everything back together yesterday afternoon. The hard disk drive I use for software installations and documents wasn't being picked up either. It is also back now.

 

[draktal]

Odd question, when last did you have a look at your Bios battery?

 

[fiberoptical]

check your cpu paste , clean with alcohol, and repaste carefully with good quality known brand paste like cooler master without overspill once heatsink on...

could be , if a old pc to make sense of it being paste, that overheating by time gets to boot, sometimes the bios runs hotter than when in windows... and maybe a safety check on MB that cpu heats up , freeses, and reboots... to preserve things, or if the heatsink fins blocked

sometimes your sata cables could be wonky also try find replacements laying around and replace to test or swap and see if improvement,

could be PSU getting old, also, if have one to swap out try that carefully

Did all above on old system selling and got it running, which ended up to be PSU and then after a while was cpu paste

or just MB giving up if you cant find any shorts somewhere, try blow carefully any dust out with compressed air

or could be the drive itself...
if you have another pc simpler backwards test is plug the drive in another pc first with its drive unplugged and see how boots

 

[souljazk]

PC Doctor? Remove that ASAP. Sounds dodgy as hell.

Please list the make and model of:
CPU, RAM, mobo, SSD (indicate boot drive), PSU.

1. Keep notes of dates and times this happens. Sync your watch and PC's time.
1.1 When you have 3-5 instances of this, look for Errors or Warning in the Event Log that match these times as closely as possible.
2. In the meantime, check if your BIOS is on the latest version. If it is, backup your config, reset the BIOS and manually set it up again.
3. Check your boot drive health with HDSentinal (for HDD's) and SSDLife, Crystal Disk or the SSD manufacturers tools.

I have had a few instances of the drive manufacturers tools saying the drive is 100% (symptoms indicated otherwise) and in those instances the supplier accepted the HDSentinal report / 3rd party SSD test report.

 

[NYRAD]

What PSU is it and how old is it ?

Please list system specs

I had a pc probably 12 years back or more that would occasionally crash or things would vanish it took me ages to trouble shoot was on my last straw and then i decided to open the PSU and it had Capacitors bulged and slowly leaking

So could very easily be your PSU

 

[glitchfreak]

Sounds like either a drive issue (get hdsentinel to confirm if any SMART issues are present) or a motherboard, specifically the SATA interface.

Any BSODs?

 

[nicholasv]

No BSODS. I'll take a look at Event viewer later today.
CrystaldiskInfo claims that my drivess are still serviceable. I'll post screenshots of reults later. The stats looked alarming, but then I don't know how to interpret them.

I replaced my old PSU earlier this year after i turned on my PC and it went "bang!" the replacement is a 600W Corsair model.
CPU: Intel core i5 3470
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77 G.1 Sniper 3
RAM: 8Gb Corsair valueRAM - DDR 3 1600
Boot drive: 120Gb Sandisk SSD
Storage; 1Tb Western Digital Blue

I have stripped down, cleaned and reassembled my computer. No mottherboard damage that I could see. Highest temperature I have seen my CPU hit is 50-odd degrees C.

I haven't looked at my BIOS battery.

Machine is functioning normally now. The machine only froze under certain conditions [that I can remember] as described in my original post.

Not the irst time his has happened.

 

[glitchfreak]

The stats looked alarming

Please share what you see

 

[nicholasv]

Please share what you see

They may only look ominous to me because I don't know how to read them

This is the SSD I boot from:

And this is the HDD I use for various documents and software installation:

PC Doctor? Remove that ASAP. Sounds dodgy as hell.

Please list the make and model of:
CPU, RAM, mobo, SSD (indicate boot drive), PSU.

1. Keep notes of dates and times this happens. Sync your watch and PC's time.
1.1 When you have 3-5 instances of this, look for Errors or Warning in the Event Log that match these times as closely as possible.
2. In the meantime, check if your BIOS is on the latest version. If it is, backup your config, reset the BIOS and manually set it up again.
3. Check your boot drive health with HDSentinal (for HDD's) and SSDLife, Crystal Disk or the SSD manufacturers tools.

I have had a few instances of the drive manufacturers tools saying the drive is 100% (symptoms indicated otherwise) and in those instances the supplier accepted the HDSentinal report / 3rd party SSD test report.

I take it that you mean that I should check the following when what I have described above happens again?