Hard Drive Problem

[Chris]

OK Sicholas, here's a good rule of thumb - don't put anything in the freezer that you don't plan to eat It's a wonder that your friend didn't tell you to microwave it along with your calling cards to get extra minutes off it ;D

It's good that you asked this question and also found out for yourself that it doesn't work. Others visiting and reading will now also not follow such advice.

[sicholas]

Common sense told me that the freezer miracle would not work! But I mean the guy wasnt drunk & he isnt the type to play pranks so me & my other brejin did so DESPARATE 2 get functioning drives we were willing 2 try anything LOL. & so we did. after the post freezer thingy we tried the maxtor in my mavhine, that was dead as door nail & the western dig registered in the bios but cuz di headz got damaged and it made the famous (clicking sound) I knew that it was pretty much the same. hey XENo lol we made it thaw b4 we put them back in the machine ok ;D (seriously).

[Chris]

[quote author=sicholas link=board=3;threadid=228;start=15#msg4981 date=1052325962]hey XENo lol we made it thaw b4 we put them back in the machine ok ;D (seriously).[/quote]

LOL ;D I can see the instructions now ... "remove the hard drive from freezer and thaw at room temperature for 1 hour before using.." ;D

[Xenocrates]

[quote author=Chris link=board=3;threadid=228;start=15#msg4978 date=1052318546]
It's a wonder that your friend didn't tell you to microwave it along with your calling cards to get extra minutes off it ;D
[/quote]

- ROFLMAO!!!! .............waaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAIIIIIIII!!!

Sorry sic.... (l ;D l) ..... I (l ;D l)......I just can't help it! (DWL!) ;D

My yout don't feel no way still. Just remember that electronics and water vapour don't mix, zeen? ;D

[Nastrodamus]

DWL......

That must have been a really really hard drive.

hhhmmm I need to order something like that MAXTOR On the rocks.

[Nastrodamus]

Question

Those the RPMs on a hard drive affect gaming or the running of larger programs?


The reason for that question is that I installed 3 new Seagate 20G 5400 RPM's in 3 systems. I installed the following on the systems Office 2002, Mavis 12, Alcohol 120% and Hoyle Card Game Suite.

Whenever I run any of the office programs or use Alcohol (best virtual cd program and cd image cloning program) the systems work fine, however, should I run Mavis 12 or the card game suite which involve greater animation the machine restarts.

Whats your take on the senario?

[Gillion]

[quote author=Nastrodamus link=board=3;threadid=228;start=15#msg5018 date=1052397395]
Question

Those the RPMs on a hard drive affect gaming or the running of larger programs?


The reason for that question is that I installed 3 new Seagate 20G 5400 RPM's in 3 systems. I installed the following on the systems Office 2002, Mavis 12, Alcohol 120% and Hoyle Card Game Suite.

Whenever I run any of the office programs or use Alcohol (best virtual cd program and cd image cloning program) the systems work fine, however, should I run Mavis 12 or the card game suite which involve greater animation the machine restarts.

Whats your take on the senario?
[/quote]
First Question: Does this happen on all of the 3 Machines or just one ?.
Second Question: Do these apps require DirectX8.x or above ?
Points to check:
(1) Bug with your software, check the support sites for the software in question for possible bugs.
In the old school we use to call a possible bug like this a HeisenBugh (after the Heisenburgh Constant) For people who know chemistry this is quite a funny thing... but very true.
(2) Bug with the Graphics CARD/DRIVER on the machine. Try new video drivers, or different video card. 9/10 time Graphics drivers are the cause of most software hicupps/ random restarts and crashes on Windows systems, especially for apps that are HIGH on animation effects. Games are notorious for bringing this point out. I recommend you really try and update your video drivers or change the video subsystem first. Then see if the machine(s) restarts.
(3) Heating problems with your CPU's (i doubt this one very much) Heating is also known gremlin for random restarts, especially restarts on memory/graphics intensive applications.
NOTE:
HardDrive RPMS generally do not adversley affect running programs. It is only at the initial loading of a program into main core memory that you will notice the difference between a 7400 and a 5400 RPM drive. Booting also exhibits some speed related differences. This cavete brings to mind a fourth issue:

(4) SWAP files: Because your ram "may be" small Windows has to do a lot of swapping, the result of this is that mavis or any other program will literally run out of memory space. This should however only affect performance and not restart the machine. But here is a trick I know that always works. Instead of letting ANY version of a Windows OS control the SWAP file size, YOU set the swap file size. This is a standard Linux/UNIX practice. The advantage to this is the reduction of disk I/O in trying to constantly alter the size of the SWAP file. Therefore the only I/O involved in this context, after setting swap file size manually, is I/O in paging memory in and out of the swap file.
So if you create a 312Meg swap file, this would be ADEQUATE for any Desktop system. Servers are another matter. You save your disk I/O for other important things.

If you know that your system has large enough RAM, then this point is moot.

--regards
Gillion

[Nastrodamus]

Interesting Gullion,

1. It happens with all three systems
2. Yes. Direct X 9 is on the machines
3. The softwares work on other machines here
4. I Checked the temperature of the machines, that wasnot the prob.
5. Every machine I set up, I set the swap file for 700mbs (force of habit). This is in addition to the 3 system's 128mb RAM

I never really checked the drivers for and video card. (It is on board).

Will check that.

[Xenocrates]

however, should I run Mavis 12 or the card game suite which involve greater animation the machine restarts.

Nastro, if you are running WinXP, it is highly likely that your vid card drivers are causing a fatal error. Whenever WinXP encounters a fatal error, it automatically reboots - at least by defailt.

Right-click on My Computer, select Properties. Go to the Advanced tab. Click on the Startup and Recovery Button. Uncheck Automatically restart under the System Failure section.

This time, when the error occurs, you'll get a blue screen of death - with details of what exactly is causing the error. You'll also get a memory dump. But this will at least confirm what exactly is going on.

The best bet, as Gillion already pointed out though, is to update / change your video card drivers. Onboard vid cards tend to have issues with some features of DirectX. However, I strongly recommend that you purchase a vieo addon-card, like an AGP card, and disable onboard video.

HD RPM does not really cause the kind of error that you describe. I would bet money on it that the vid drivers are misbehaving. Onboard video sux.