BleepingComputer.com: Motherboard or Hard drive problem?

Computer usually runs very fast like normal, but after a few hours/days/weeks eventually it starts to hang for 5-10 secs at a time, browser hangs, applications hang, video games hang, copying files from folders is very slow, shutting down takes forever, etc. Sometimes I go switch the Sata port to my hard drive and it could temporarily solve the problem for a day or two but the hanging/slowness always comes back.

I have traced the problem to either a motherboard problem with the Sata connection or a hard drive problem. I ran the seagate diagnostics and it failed some critical tests, so I was thinking of replacing my hard drive, but was wondering if potentially the motherboard could be the problem. If the motherboard connection is faulty could that be causing the bad diagnostic results? Or are bad hard drive diagnostic results always because of a hard drive defect?

Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks.

If you ran the Seagate diagnostic tool and had failures I certainly would be looking at this as the main suspect.

What kind of failures did it detect?

Did you run the short test or long test.

If you ran the short test, run the long test as it will be more precise.

Failures in both the short and long DST tests.

I tried running the SeaTools in Dos to attempt to repair the erros but when it ran the DST tests in DOS, it strangely didn't detect any and passed the tests. But when I boot into windows again, eventually the problem will crop up again and when I run the SeaTools it will always fail the Short DST test and Long test.

For the Failure info it just says probably caused by sectors which are difficult to read.

Strange thing is that sometimes when i run SeaTools, it fails the short DST test, but the computer is still running fine. The hanging/freezing can start to occur hours or days later.

If it fails the seatools test the the drive has bad sectors on it. The reason it could take a few days for the drive to freeze up on you is its taking that long to reach the bad sectors of your hard drive.. They could be near the middle of the platter.

If his sata controller on his mainboard, the logic board on his drive, or his sata cable are flaky, it could be increasing latency times on hard drive communications. It passed in Seatools for DOS, which indicates to me it's likely not bad blocks on the platter, but more likely latency issues communicating with the drive.

I'd recommend turning off all your startup items in msconfig, then doing a read scan with Victoria for Windows on the drive, making note of blocks that take a longer time to access, then repeat the scan and see if the problems always occur on the same blocks. This will tell you if the latency issue is being caused by a platter or non-platter issue.

Victoria will also give you all the SMART info on the drive with ratings on how dependable the specific field is. Lots of green dots is good. Few red dots is bad.

Could it be a heat related intermittent issue? Do you leave your computer on all the time? If so, shut it off when you start having problems, and let it cool down to room temperatures for an hour or so. Then turn it on and see if your problems have diminished or if they persist.

This post has been edited by Gabrial: 25 September 2010 - 11:28 PM