Ok I have been having several different but what I believe to be related problems for the past 8 months or so. I'll go in to detail about the whole succession of events, thanks in advance for reading this and any help you all may provide!
First off, the system I'm working with:
Windows XP Prof SP 1
P4 1.6 400mhz FSB overclocked to 2.0
2x256mb Kingston pc2100 RAM
Epox 4-BEAR mobo
ATI Radeon 9800 pro
Seagate 80gig 5600rpm (approx 2 years old)
Seagate 120gig 7200rpm (9 months)
After I got my 120gig Seagate drive and reformatted my system to put Windows on the faster drive, I started having some problems. Everything worked good at first, no complaints. After a while my 80gig started hiccuping (ie, when I would run files off it the system would (in perfect time) freeze up for a brief instant.... easily seen by spinning the cursor in a circle and watching it hesitate regularly). The drive also would click at times, especially if the case was bumped/moved. I figured my 80 gig was dying so I was happy I had a new 120 just in time. So I moved my essentials to the new drive and figured I'd ride the 80 to the death as a download/temp drive.
For a while this was no problem, and my drive would only _really_ act up if the case was disturbed... such as taking it to a LAN party. Eventually I upgraded to a new video card (the 9800 - had a fx5200 previously... Worst. Card. Ever.) and got a new motherboard (the 4-BEAR) - so I totally reformatted my 120gig and 1 partition of my 80 (only my collection of Family Guy, Seinfeld, Space Ghost, and Aqua Teen videos were spared) to install everything clean.
So I get it up and running and everythings going good. The 80 still clicks (much more often now) but hey nothing I hadn't been dealing with already. So on one LAN party trip, I set up and boot up, and it says it can't find the system disk. Musta knocked a cable loose, I figure. So i make sure everything is tight and secure and try again. No luck. Check wires again - again no luck on the boot. So I'm at a loss. I keep restarting... checking BIOS settings... is a jumper loose...? Finally on a totally random restart (maybe the 5th or 6th one) it boots up just peachy. I havn't done anything except touch wires which apparently didn't work at the time.
I'm like whatever and just enjoy the night of gaming, figure I'll deal with it later. Get home and same thing happens. Check wires. No luck. A few restarts and it comes up good. No other problems once it was running. So I lived with this for a while as well, thought maybe I had a bad IDE cable and would replace it eventually. This would happen from time to time if the case was disturbed (was on the floor under my desk at the time - so it was kneed or nudged once in a while). It was always the same fix: restart until it works.
Then I started getting "missing or can't find hal.dll" messages replacing the no system disk message. A bit of research into this and I found out it is often related to systems with two copies of Windows on it or is caused by looking on the wrong drive for the system. Well I did USED to have Windows on the other HD, but its been long gone... and boot.ini is correct. AND the file wasn't missing or corrupt! So I never figured this out either. Once again... some restarts and I'd be good to go.
Eventually this became so frequent that I decided to reformat again and start over. The hal.dll messages ceased and my comp was finding the drive pretty much every time. This brings us up to the past few months where everything was going good again. Just the past week though things have taken a turn for the worse.
I started getting the system disk missing messages again, and my computer if left on all night/day while i'm at work, will sometimes crash. I'll come home and find the system disk message waiting for me. This has happened 3 times probabaly. But the worst part is... I'm now getting the system hiccups nearly ALL THE TIME if I run any sort of file. Audio/video won't skip or be interrupted... but the cursor will still hesitate... games will still have great framerates but will hesitate just like the cursor at times (not as reguarly as the cursor).
The entire system is WAY more sluggish in general. The boot time is at least 4 times longer once it hits the Windows loading screen. Programs I use regularly have noticeably longer start up times. Loading videos isn't as snappy.
The symptoms make me think the 120 gig is now starting to fail as the 80 gig did. Which I actually hope is the case... because I wouldn't mind spending a couple hundred for a new (non-Seagate ) drive and being done with this. However... the 120 doesn't click like the 80 did/does. Obviously it doesn't _have_ to click to mean theres a problem... but would such a new drive start going bad so soon?
If this is the only explanation, then as I said I'll be happy because its an easy and clear cut fix. Any other ideas of what may be causing this new hesitation? Could it be RAM timing related?
Let me thank you for reading this long-winded post! I just wanted to be as in-depth as possible so you can see the whole story. Any help/suggestions is greatly appreciated!
Thanks again for your time.