Hard disk or Mobo?

[Will404]

Recently the second (family) PC has started to play up, freezing from time to time ect, slow boot.

It has passed 50 ilit of Intel Burn Test, and Several Full Memtest passes. This lead me to think it was a problem with the hard disk, and using HD Tune benchmark, it will randomly drop to almost 0, however the error scan shows no bad sectors. I would look at SMART data, but none is available (cheapskate dell).

However I am not 100% sure as when booting it takes a long time to initiate the SATA drives, and the DVD drive will not read some disks which work fine in other computers. So I was unsure if it could be a problem with the mobo, or the SATA controllers ?

[Skulltrail]

Is the DVD drive a PBDS DVD+-EW DH-16WS1S? I had / have one of these and it work fine in my current rig but was a patchy performer in the Dell it came in - makes me lean towards it being a mobo issue, but that is at best speculation.

Does it have a RAID controller as that could be an additional suspect?

[Will404]

It is defo only one hard disk, however the HDD mode is set to RAID mode by Dell in BIOS, which to me seems odd, and it is when the BIOS screen says initiating RAID devices that it can hang for around 30sec on boot. However it would be an integrated RAID controller if this were the case.

RE the DVD drive I will check soon. When it is out of use I may take the HDD out and run HD tune on a seperate PC, that would show for sure what is at fault ?

[Skulltrail]

That should isolate whether it is the HDD that is the problem. If it still doesn't boot nicely and you can re-install Windows etc., try reformating it - I doubt it will help but worth a try before you get rid of it.

Regarding the DVD drive just do it through device manager, don't bother taking it out and looking at serials etc.

In the BIOS, does it give an option as to whether you want the disk to operate at "default", "silent" or "performance" mode? If so see if it makes a difference which one is selected. Again, it's a longshot but worth a try.

[Will404]

Thx, I have allready tried a re-install of windows ect... Also regarding the BIOS it is set to default, have tried messing arround with these previousally but no avail. Will try drive in other pc and ssee

Also diff DVD drive, GSA-H31N

[rkingb]

I very recently had to replace a HDD in a Dell - I have replaced at least three or four in the past on different Dells.
The HDD showed no errors but failed WD Diagnostics - downloadable from WD.
Save taking out the HDD to give it a try.

[Zak33]

msconfig

run that from the command line thingy in Windows and see how many things are installed that run from boot up

the words "family" pc fills me with install horror, virus, trojan and other woes....

don't blame the hardware yet... check the software.. malware.. grey ware... etc