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My computer has started to pause and frequently crash. When I say pause, I don't mean everything freezes, as parts of the user interface and some programs are still responsive. My processor load is typically 0 - 1% at these points and the processor temp is normal (45 - 50C).

After a lot of searching on the internet, I've started using Resource Monitor to look at the disk activity. What I noticed during these pauses is that the C: disk activity is at a 100% with but with very little data transferred. All of the file entries gradually disappear and then suddenly start reappearing with very high response times 10,000 - 120,000ms. Then everything springs back to life for a bit. Typical response times during normal operation are in the region of 0 - 2ms.

So I initially thought my primary hard disk is on it's way out. Then I started to backup my girlfriend's iTunes on the old mechanical D: drive to an external hard disk and noticed that that was displaying the same symptoms too. Now I really don't know what's wrong. Could this be a faulty disk controller?

Running chkdsk /r on each disk after the eventual crash doesn't report any bad sectors on either disk. As the primary disk is an SSD I'm not sure if a bad sector is meaningful as I understand they shuffle data around internally for the purposes of wear levelling.

System
OS: Windows 7 Pro 64bit
Processor: i7 2600
Motherboard: ASRock P67 Extreme 4
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 4870.
C drive: Corsair F120 SSD
D drive: Some ancient Western Digital mechanical hard drive
Dave M
  • 13,250
Giles Roberts
  • 121

2 Answers2

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After having the very same issue, I confirm that bad memory can be a cause of high response times. Actually, I got nearly constant response times from one second up to 20 seconds. After replacing the memory, the response time is down to 0 to 50 ms.

Arseni Mourzenko
  • 1,879
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After a few more days of this, I also noticed that my Blu-ray drive was exhibiting the same symptoms. So all three of my drives (SSD, mechanical hard disk and optical drive) were exhibiting the same behaviour. Programs that used the disks heavily were more likely to freeze than ones that didn't. Running a longer memory check from the Windows 7 installer boot menu again reported no errors. I tried reinstalling the OS but it got to the point where it just hung while it was loading the installation from the optical drive.

I sent the motherboard back to Ebuyer. Got a partial refund and replaced it with a cheaper Asus Z67 motherboard. System has worked fine since. So as all drives were playing up I'll put it down to a faulty disk controller.

Giles Roberts
  • 121