Since I've lost my trust in the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (crashed 3 times with complete loss of data each time) and the warranty has expired I've bought a new HDD - a Western Digital Caviar Green (1TB) and with it the first time to install an OS (Win XP 32bit) on my own.
I've noticed that the new HDD supports a so-called advanced format which is compatible with Vista and higher but with a few extra steps also for XP. So I've downloaded WD Align and ran it on the freshly installed XP to make it compatible with the advanced format. Everything ran fine and there were no problems so far.
Then I've installed the drivers for the NForce Mainboard, ATI Radeon HD 5750 and Realtek HD Audio. The CPU (Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300) and other hardware components seemed to not need any drivers.
The PC ran fine for about 2 months.
The first BSODs and freezes (even the mouse cursor is frozen then) started roughly a week after I've forced a shutdown while Win XP was installing updates after shutdown (It took more than 1 hour and since the PC is near my bed, its lights annoyed me while trying to sleep so that I kept pressing the power button until it went off). And I still don't know if the problem is related to that mistake.
They first appeared just once every 2 weeks but the frequency slowly increased with the time. Last week it was almost guaranteed that XP starts with a BSOD but normal after reboot. The last two days it caused BSODs five times every day, of which most appeared after starting the PC for the first time in the day.
The most common BSOD-messages were: PFN_LIST_CORRUPT, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and something with PAGE_FAULT (don't exactly remember these ones).
And finally, in the last day, XP started to lag extremely. It booted up like that:
* The normal Windows XP loading screen appeared (that one where the three blue dots move through a white-framed bar) and it takes the usual time to load
* then it goes black and the mouse cursor appears. The cursor lags unsteadily between 0.5 and normal fps (It was weird since I thought that the mouse is hardware-accelerated independently from the OS).
* After roughly 10 seconds, the usual blue-colored Welcome-screen appeared but without the big "Welcome" in the center and with the XP logo in the right center of the screen and "Please wait..." below it. This never appeared before.
* Then, after roughly 15 seconds, the usual "Welcome" screen appeared. The cursor still lags.
* It now takes extremely long for XP to load. After roughly a minute, the custom background appears, after 5 minutes the icons are completely loaded and it takes 5 minutes to open the start menu or 5 minutes to open the image preview for a single 100x100 picture.
As frustrated as I were, I forced a shutdown and ran the Win XP CD, chose the Install XP option and pressed R for repairing it without loss of data. Other than the said 37 minutes the progress took about 3 or 4 hours. Even through the installation progress the cursor appeared with the same lag spikes.
I've thought that some hardware is corrupt. So I've booted up puppy linux I've burned on a CD earlier (It boots up from the CD, runs entirely in the RAM and saves its data on any HDD or USB after shutdown). But the results confused me:
* Puppy 5.2.6 starts with no problems, can mount and read the files from the HDD with no problems and runs extremely smooth with both the 3D Rubix Game and the mouse cursor. It also previews the same 100x100 picture from the new HDD within a second.
* Just one problem: Puppy seems to be not able to show the usual after-shutdown message which asks me to save the data on a hard drive or USB and the PC lights are still on after shutdown. I don't know if this is related to my XP problem, never tested puppy on this PC before the problem started.
I have these suspicions:
* The mainboard is corrupt - would explain the after-shutdown problem with Puppy and the mouse cursor lag for me but Puppy itself runs perfectly which makes me think that it is only XP related and the after-shutdown problem may just be a BIOS setting I haven't set yet.
* XP is corrupted - but I've repaired it from CD.
* The HDD is conflicting with XP (advanced format?) - but it ran perfectly before the problem started and between the freezes and BSODs. Puppy also has no problems to read it.
I don't know what to do. To buy a new mainboard? To buy a new HDD and reinstall XP without loss of data? Or it is the cause of this problem something else I haven't considered so far?
I appreciate you for taking the time to read it and will be thankful for every help.
I've noticed that the new HDD supports a so-called advanced format which is compatible with Vista and higher but with a few extra steps also for XP. So I've downloaded WD Align and ran it on the freshly installed XP to make it compatible with the advanced format. Everything ran fine and there were no problems so far.
Then I've installed the drivers for the NForce Mainboard, ATI Radeon HD 5750 and Realtek HD Audio. The CPU (Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300) and other hardware components seemed to not need any drivers.
The PC ran fine for about 2 months.
The first BSODs and freezes (even the mouse cursor is frozen then) started roughly a week after I've forced a shutdown while Win XP was installing updates after shutdown (It took more than 1 hour and since the PC is near my bed, its lights annoyed me while trying to sleep so that I kept pressing the power button until it went off). And I still don't know if the problem is related to that mistake.
They first appeared just once every 2 weeks but the frequency slowly increased with the time. Last week it was almost guaranteed that XP starts with a BSOD but normal after reboot. The last two days it caused BSODs five times every day, of which most appeared after starting the PC for the first time in the day.
The most common BSOD-messages were: PFN_LIST_CORRUPT, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and something with PAGE_FAULT (don't exactly remember these ones).
And finally, in the last day, XP started to lag extremely. It booted up like that:
* The normal Windows XP loading screen appeared (that one where the three blue dots move through a white-framed bar) and it takes the usual time to load
* then it goes black and the mouse cursor appears. The cursor lags unsteadily between 0.5 and normal fps (It was weird since I thought that the mouse is hardware-accelerated independently from the OS).
* After roughly 10 seconds, the usual blue-colored Welcome-screen appeared but without the big "Welcome" in the center and with the XP logo in the right center of the screen and "Please wait..." below it. This never appeared before.
* Then, after roughly 15 seconds, the usual "Welcome" screen appeared. The cursor still lags.
* It now takes extremely long for XP to load. After roughly a minute, the custom background appears, after 5 minutes the icons are completely loaded and it takes 5 minutes to open the start menu or 5 minutes to open the image preview for a single 100x100 picture.
As frustrated as I were, I forced a shutdown and ran the Win XP CD, chose the Install XP option and pressed R for repairing it without loss of data. Other than the said 37 minutes the progress took about 3 or 4 hours. Even through the installation progress the cursor appeared with the same lag spikes.
I've thought that some hardware is corrupt. So I've booted up puppy linux I've burned on a CD earlier (It boots up from the CD, runs entirely in the RAM and saves its data on any HDD or USB after shutdown). But the results confused me:
* Puppy 5.2.6 starts with no problems, can mount and read the files from the HDD with no problems and runs extremely smooth with both the 3D Rubix Game and the mouse cursor. It also previews the same 100x100 picture from the new HDD within a second.
* Just one problem: Puppy seems to be not able to show the usual after-shutdown message which asks me to save the data on a hard drive or USB and the PC lights are still on after shutdown. I don't know if this is related to my XP problem, never tested puppy on this PC before the problem started.
I have these suspicions:
* The mainboard is corrupt - would explain the after-shutdown problem with Puppy and the mouse cursor lag for me but Puppy itself runs perfectly which makes me think that it is only XP related and the after-shutdown problem may just be a BIOS setting I haven't set yet.
* XP is corrupted - but I've repaired it from CD.
* The HDD is conflicting with XP (advanced format?) - but it ran perfectly before the problem started and between the freezes and BSODs. Puppy also has no problems to read it.
I don't know what to do. To buy a new mainboard? To buy a new HDD and reinstall XP without loss of data? Or it is the cause of this problem something else I haven't considered so far?
I appreciate you for taking the time to read it and will be thankful for every help.
