What are the common symptoms?

Been having issue with my desktop PC; First it started off as the random blue screen out of teh blue; no real sign or repeatable sitaution. Arguably that could be anything and I've been meaning to look into it.

Then yesterday the system rebooted on its own...like someone had pressed the reset button - no blue screen. But when it rebooted, it too ages to get past the POST screen and the BIOS didn't detect the SSD and then the system booted off my mechanical hard drive (which also has a boot sector and windows install).

I rebooted manually, again it booted off my mechanical hard drive with still no sign of a SSD in "my computer".

So I rebooted again, and checked my BIOS settings, to find my SSD had now found it way to the bottom of the boot list. I put it back to the top where it used to be and rebooted.

This time it detected the SSD, and booted off it, and it been fine since.

But is it fine, or is it starting to fail?

Whats the best tools to diagnose it? Same as a normal HD?

Its a Crucial M4 128GB about 3-4years old.

 

could be the mechanical failing too.

 

When a disk is failing Smarts will tell you on Boot, or the screen will freeze rather than BSOD, however BSOD can happen.

Id prob suggest running a memory test BSOD are normally memory or a duff processor but normally the former.

Run a test and see if any error pop up, and if you can remove some and use it with a lower number ?

http://www.memtest86.com/

 

I did the Ram last month on memtest86+ - left it running over the whole weekend; no errors.

This is why I'm looking at the SSD...especially seeing that last night it magically disappeared for several boot cycles.

The SSD is the main boot drive, and has all the software...the mechanical drive is just for user file storage, but it does have a boot partition for emergency use.

 

What do the logs say?

 

Download the free version of HDSentinel, it'll give you all of the info you need:

http://www.mostiwant.com/hard-disk-s...istration-key/

I use this on my PCs at home, good for peace of mind

 

Had some time to look into it tonight:

"The previous system shutdown at 21:49:47 on 07/12/2015 was unexpected."


Chocolate fireguard. (remember there was NO BSOD, it just rebooted and failed to detect SSD afterwards for the next few hard resets)



Tried that, doesn't seem to say anything is untoward.

Ran memtest86+ again overnight, no issues

 

Check cpu heat then see if it's getting high...

 

Been using it tonight...just tried searching for a file from the search bar (start menu) and now just had a total freeze. Totally unresponsive; mouse not moving, no response to caps lock and number lock keys etc. Can hear CPU fan on medium speed ( usually low and it can run fanless as the heat sink is huge and case fans can passively cool it but I usually keep the fan running just for extra circulation. GPU fan is working, as is PSU and case fans.

Hit the reset button (ctrl+alt+del not working) again SSD not detected during post. Power off for five seconds (via switch on back of PSU). SSD is back.

 

Ali i had an Asus Mainboard that if you did dirty shutdowns it also didn't detect the disks it was just an Asus attribute...

My view in all honesty mate would be, But another SSD or even the PCI-E slot drives and try it, if that is still the same id say Mainboard... get yaself one the the fatter drives.

SSDs are always useful

 

Have you got another power supply you can chuck in?

It's unusual for disk errors not to be written back to the event log (at some point).

 

To be frank, the PC is getting to the age its going to have to be replaced:

Its a Q9550 still running ddr2 800 4-4-4-12T Ram...how old is that now? 8 years? PSU is a dark power pro, that and the SSD are the two newest components (approx 4 years). Everything else is as it is when I rebuilt it.

The only time I had issues with it was when I originally built it )and made a bad choice with mainboard and GPU so rebuilt it (Asus and Nvidia, which at the time got a bad reputation for stability - things have changed a bit since then) Back then (9years?) it was a e6600 with ddr2 667 Ram...that lasted about a year before it was rebuilt with the now current Mboard, RAM, CPU and GPU was replaced with the current ones and its been solid ever since. I use a T-Balancer to control the system fans which is independent of the PC (although controllable via software)...it has temp probes all over the place (northbridge, southbridge, ram heatsink, PSU exhaust, etc) which ramp up the fan speeds if they detect any high temps.

What gets me is up until recent, I could do what I like with it and it'd be fine, dirty reboot, bad overclock (back when I used to mess - haven't bothered for years) or whatever. I can plug/unplug sata drives with the system still powered on (eSATA connectors - handy ) drives would be detected and mount/unmount no issue.

But now when it plays up the SSD is no longer detected and the POST hangs for 10extra seconds whilst it trying to detect the SSD (I assume it times out - it doesn't give an error) Nothing else has been changed...no recent firmware updates etc. Checked connections etc. Its not overclocked (although the RAM runs at 2.2v...its supposed to)

Granted PSU "could" pose issues but if it were a 5Volt line stability issue (V-ripple or V-drop etc - IIRC SSDs use the 5V line), I'd expect other components of the system to display issues/randomness as IIRC the 5v rail is used for a fair few other bits and bobs (USB, onboard devices, ethernet, sound etc.).

So back to my original question, is I need something that'll properly test the SSD, so I can bung it in another system and see if I get a repeatable result....does such software exist?

If I can test and rule out the SSD, I can look at other parts...SSD is a hell of alot easier to remove than replumbing the PSU...its easier to drag the oscilloscope back from work to properly test the PSU in situ than it is to swap it LOL.

 

Yikes, its older than I thought...It started life in 2006...

https://www.scoobynet.com/computer-a...-gfx-card.html


...admittedly its a bit of a trigger's broom bit most of those parts are still in use in other PCs (CPU and RAM as well as other bits are still living in the computers at work) and bar the PSU and SSD is been unchanged since (PSU was changed due to a noisy fan...SSD...well, the RAID-0 wasn't fast enough anymore )

 

download this hope it helps u out m8

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

 

when the ssd is not detected have you tried swapping sata channels/cables?