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Forum » Hardware Goes Clickity

Hardware Goes Clickity

Madgamer 17 years ago
To start off, my main computer in my room has been giving some problems. Right now, I'm using the living room computer WITH the safe mode on due to the fact that there's a password on this piece of crap. :/

Anyways, this started happening today. I start the computer, I hear *click* *click* noises inside me compy. At first I thought this was nothing but when I saw that EVERYTHING went ALOT slower, I restarted the computer.

Next step, I login, and after that I'm brought to my screenie. Now, I can move my mouse around, but I couldn't click anything at all. The *click* noise did go away however.

Now I restart the computer again and guess what, the computer does not even boot! Well, after a while of that Windows loading screen, it either gives me the black screen of doom (Just complete black) or restarts the computer by itself.

Tried using safemode, and safemode does not even load. It's a good thing I keep all of my important files (over 100 GB worth of data goodness) inside my external harddrive. Thank god.

It seems like I need to reformat my Windows. However, I do think there was a reason why this started happening all of a sudden.

Well, main reason would be keeping my computer on 24/7. Ok, not 24/7 literally but I turned it on at night and during day most of the time to download most of my stuff. Infact, the only time I don't keep it on is when I restart the computer due to some technical internet difficulties.

I still have no idea why the hardware inside my computer went clickity and stopped doing that all of a sudden. It might be a problem with the harddrive or Windows itself.

...Gah, I don't think I'll be doing stuff with my main computer for a while.

Help, please? It's pissing me off the fact that I can't play StepMania Online and finish my newly downloaded Azumangah Daioh anime.

I COULD plug it into this computer but again, I'm using safemode. God I hate it when problems start esca-freaking-lating.
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Anonymous1157 17 years ago
Is your main computer that completely new one you said you bought earlier this year, or some other craptastic box? 'Cause all I can really say is go get a new one.

The clicking prolly means your HDD physically crashed or something. Shutting it down gave it a moment to settle again, at which point the part that wasn't ruined worked. Of course, this is only theoretical. It may or may not have ruined itself. Hell, if you turn it on now, it might work fine.

Have you cleaned your heatsinks? Might have been excessive heat that caused it.

Other than that, I have no idea.
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Madgamer 17 years ago
I did clean inside my computer with a dust sprayer. I just randomly fired that piece of can inside and a boatload of dust came out. I have no idea if my heatsink is cleaned but the amount of dust that came out is prolly enough to cool down my system lots better.

Uh.... I had that computer for like 1 year now and got some new partsies for it. Still have no idea why it went like that all of a sudden.

Tried to boot it up again and failed. Now instead of the Microsoft loading screen thingie going on up for less than a minute, it takes like 5 minutes before the whole thing boots. And even then, the black screen of doom or restart occurs.

I find it odd that my hard drive crashed. The ONLY drive I use is D and my external harddrive due to the amount of space it has compared to C. I use D to download stuff to there. After the downloads are finished I copy the files to my external harddrive and delete the ones in D. The one with the Windows operating system is in harddrive C, and I've yet to use that drive (even click on it) for the past month.

Reformatting SHOULD work, right?

...When all plans fail, apply physics to your box. Hard.
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Amarth 17 years ago
Sounds like hard disk dying, yes. The 'couldn't click anything at all' stuff is strange, though. You could try formatting and reinstalling Windows, but don't count on it. Problems might arise at any time is your HD is broken.

Then again, it might be something else. Don't see where the clicking would come from if it isn't your HD, though.
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Madgamer 17 years ago
So in reality, only my harddrive is broken?

Thank god, I didn't want to buy a whole new box, don't have the money and I don't think my parents would allow it. Plus, I need to save 400 dollars to get my 1TB external harddrive.

All I have to do is replace the harddrives, then reformat Windows? Sounds easy enough, I'll let my dad do all the dirty work.

By the way, what started the *click* sound? Overheat maybe? My case feels cool most of the time however. But I do believe it has to do with overheat. One time I used my external hardrive for the whole day (from morning into the night, heh) and suddenly my external harddrive processed my programs slower. I touched the drive and it felt a bit hot. So I didn't use that thing for 3 hours and its back to normal.

I wish that happened with my harddrive though... *sigh*
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Amarth 17 years ago
Hey, we said it was probably your HD, not certainly. Don't want to give you too much hope.

And what causes that... Really, you should know how precise these things have to be... The head of a HD is 3 nanometer (!) above the disk platter, and direct contact can destroy the entire disk. Heat, shocks, or just general wear can all cause problems. And that's just that part. There are loads of mechanical parts in a HD that could break down.

I say, it's a miracle computers even work.
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Anonymous1157 17 years ago
Too bad solid state is so expensive, and CF's have limited write cycles. Else you could easily remove any and all moving parts, except maybe the fans.

Anyways, replace your C drive, and finish blowing the dust out. You might want to insert larger heatsinks anyways just in case heat had anything to do with it. If you can afford it, try RAID.
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Madgamer 17 years ago
Well, I just began to format my computer in C now. Too late now >.>

Now I just have to bide my time and see if it's a success.

Oh yeah, Amarth, welcome to modern world. Where everything is elecronised, micro-tized, and precised. You have to remember that there were huge ass computer back then which was about as big as an ordinary home but useless as crap.

It's a relief modern world catches up fast as it does, eh?

Edit: Yep, I'm finally able to confirm that Hard drive C is malfunctional. Whenever I try to format onto C, errors always pop out saying this can not be installed and stuff. Plus, C looks almost empty (leave for about, oh, 80 MB in it.). Hard Drive D still has about 10 GB left. It originally has maxinum capacity of about 55 GB. I wonder if the format to D will work though...

Gotta try, right?

Oh yeah, I'm going to be getting a new drive for C. The current one right now is in pretty messed up state. How messed up? I dunno, need to check.

Edit Again: Oh yeah, that empty part... seems like you actually have to delete everything...

I wish I didn't have to format D though. Need to ask me dad, currently his cellphone isn't working so I'll have to wait if it's okay to format D.

Also, I have no idea what kind of people would use FAT system instead of NTFS. NTFS pwns over FAT, no questions asked.
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Amarth 17 years ago
I assure you, you don't know anything about what can go wrong until you study processor architecture. Things like branch prediction, pipelining, stalls, cache misses, I/O, memory management, exceptions, frame pointers, ... It's an incredible mess in there.

Erm, and obviously NTFS >> FAT. But ext3 pwns them all, if only because it's open source.
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Anonymous1157 17 years ago
FAT is still ten times more compatible out of the three. That or MS-DOS has a secret native-NTFS mode or modernized port I don't know about.
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Amarth 17 years ago
"Anonymous1157" said:
FAT is still ten times more compatible out of the three. That or MS-DOS has a secret native-NTFS mode or modernized port I don't know about.
...I think you might find that most people don't want to return to the dark ages of DOS.
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E_net4 17 years ago
"Amarth" said:
"Anonymous1157" said:
FAT is still ten times more compatible out of the three. That or MS-DOS has a secret native-NTFS mode or modernized port I don't know about.
...I think you might find that most people don't want to return to the dark ages of DOS.
Indeed. Also, if you do want to run any MS-DOS application, just use DosBox.

You know, once my dad had his computer cleaned of dust, and it stopped working. Pherhaps some vital unit went off after the sweep.
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Anonymous1157 17 years ago
I would only use DOSbox if the app in question didn't have a throttle. There are so few of those that it isn't worth the performance drop with regular, well-built apps.

Amarth, you play Prince of Persia. Since you obviously want to use DOS only as a last resort, haven't you noticed that performance is poor under Win32/Linux? That's when DOSbox becomes a last resort for me, and I never resort to it anyways.

... Exactly how many times have we gone over this, anyways?
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Amarth 17 years ago
"Anonymous1157" said:
Amarth, you play Prince of Persia. Since you obviously want to use DOS only as a last resort, haven't you noticed that performance is poor under Win32/Linux?
What? No.

Hell, DosBox runs Magic Carpet without crashing, something I couldn't manage to do in DOS.
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E_net4 17 years ago
With DosBox I can play almost every DOS game with SoundBlaster music and sound effects.

And it seems we are going offtopic.
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Anonymous1157 17 years ago
Yes, we are. By a lot. Coughinternalspeakercough

Besides, we've gone over this too many times. If we ever need to discuss this matter again, I suggest we do so on IRC.
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Barebones 17 years ago
Some games just run too horrendously slow and I prefer them to be faster so I use VDMsound instead. All I want is sound support anyways.
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Anonymous1157 17 years ago


... So how's the HDD goin', Madgamer?
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Madgamer 17 years ago
Gah, as of right now I'm using some crappy computer that my dad gave me. Better than nothing.

Oh yeah, my dad said that we need to get a new hard drive and replace the existing one then format it. It seems that D can not be formatted then...

Gotta wait a few more days.. :/
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