Is my HDD failing?

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#1 Post by **gator** » Wed May 02, 2007 3:47 pm

I have had my T60 since last august, and it has been really solid. It was working perfectly, but over the last 3-4 days I have had a strange problem with my HDD. When I am working on something, say for example browsing, or typing something, there is a momentary freeze (whatever I type doesn't apprear on the screen, scrolling does not happen, mp3s skip for that second etc). Then I will hear my HDD spin up, and everything is back to normal. This happens pretty frequently and I am beginning to get alarmed. This happens both when I am plugged as well on AC. The machine temperatures apperas to be normal.

I use NHC and have set my HDD to spin down after 15 mins of being idle. I thought this might be an issue and disabled that feature, but my problem persisted. I have not seen this behaviour before and it is frustating when it happens when I am typing a report, or listening to music. I also ran a full defragementation using Perfectdisk and that too did not solve anthing. I do not have any s/w that indexes my HDD (like google desktop etc) nor do I have Vista (am on the good-ol' XP pro).

Anyone had this trouble before? Is this a sign of HDD failure? Should I contact lenovo and ask for a replacment HDD?

Orevin · #2 Post by **Orevin** » Wed May 02, 2007 4:34 pm

You should check for adware/spyware and viruses first. Then use PC-Doctor to check the hard drive or if it's a Hitachi drive, download the Drive Fitness Test. Have you installed/updated any software lately?

#3 Post by **gator** » Wed May 02, 2007 4:38 pm

No adware/spyware/viruses. Hitachi tool does not report anything.

#4 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Thu May 03, 2007 7:23 am

Check in your BIOS if there is a time-out for the HD set in there.

JHEM · #5 Post by **JHEM** » Thu May 03, 2007 8:14 am

RealBlackStuff wrote:Check in your BIOS if there is a time-out for the HD set in there.

Yep, something is keeping the HD from spinning up properly when called on.

Try setting it to NOT spin down on AC then reboot and report. Running ZoneAlarm? Norton constantly scanning?

James

#6 Post by **gator** » Thu May 03, 2007 1:02 pm

JHEM wrote: Yep, something is keeping the HD from spinning up properly when called on.

Try setting it to NOT spin down on AC then reboot and report. Running ZoneAlarm? Norton constantly scanning?

James

I checked all these already. I turned off the AV (no norton, I use corporate McAfee given by school) and firewall, shut down NHC, checked all settings in bios, set up my system to max. performance in power gauge and still this is happening. I also checked for viruses, spyware etc and found nothing. I ran PC doctor and that did not report anything either. I am totally stumped.

Infact I think it is getting worse ... the "pauses" are more frequent now. My thinkpad is "hiccuping", someone help!

bontistic · #7 Post by **bontistic** » Thu May 03, 2007 1:39 pm

I think this is happening on my PC at work. If possible, can you try attaching a USB mouse and move the pointer by the mouse when you feel your T60 is spinning down?

In my case, I can still move the pointer by the mouse but not by the trackpoint. I thought it might be related to the trackpoint driver?

#8 Post by **gator** » Thu May 03, 2007 1:48 pm

bontistic wrote:I think this is happening on my PC at work. If possible, can you try attaching a USB mouse and move the pointer by the mouse when you feel your T60 is spinning down?

In my case, I can still move the pointer by the mouse but not by the trackpoint. I thought it might be related to the trackpoint driver?

I just tried it - I cannot use either mouse. the whole system stops responding for those 2-3 seconds. Videos skip, mp3s pause, scrolling stops - you get the idea.

JHEM · #9 Post by **JHEM** » Thu May 03, 2007 2:03 pm

gator wrote:In fact I think it is getting worse ... the "pauses" are more frequent now. My thinkpad is "hiccuping", someone help!

HD light flashing accompanied by a ticking sound?

James

#10 Post by **gator** » Thu May 03, 2007 2:39 pm

JHEM wrote:
gator wrote: HD light flashing accompanied by a ticking sound?

Yes! Is this a sign of failure?

JHEM · #11 Post by **JHEM** » Thu May 03, 2007 6:02 pm

gator wrote:Yes! Is this a sign of failure?

No.

Give the unit a three fingered salute and open Task Manager. Click on the Processes tab and then click on the CPU tab to see what's tasking the unit. Something is running in the background and polling the HD.

Start shutting down processes until the HD stops ticking, that's the culprit.

James

#12 Post by **gator** » Thu May 03, 2007 6:23 pm

JHEM wrote: Give the unit a three fingered salute and open Task Manager. Click on the Processes tab and then click on the CPU tab to see what's tasking the unit. Something is running in the background and polling the HD.

Start shutting down processes until the HD stops ticking, that's the culprit.

I will try closing ALL services to see if I can find anything. What surprises me is that I saw no new process running that was not there a few days back. I did not install anything, or change any settings.

#13 Post by **ryengineer** » Thu May 03, 2007 7:07 pm

gator my good old A31 had somewhat similar problem.

But in my case I used to hear a noise like a clock tick, more thicker and louder in nature though. Upon digging more it turned out to be the from the coils and slider of the hdd and one of the dying signs of it.

JHEM · #14 Post by **JHEM** » Thu May 03, 2007 7:10 pm

gator wrote:I will try closing ALL services to see if I can find anything. What surprises me is that I saw no new process running that was not there a few days back. I did not install anything, or change any settings.

One of my T41Ps was doing this awhile ago and it was driving me nucking futs!

Turned out to be a bad Java2 instance, but it might be anything on your machine.

James

#15 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Fri May 04, 2007 1:42 am

If you create a lot of new files on it (either through downloads, or some program(ming) activity), the Indexing Service will be 'hyper-active'.
Switch it off and disable it.
Next, in Explorer, rightclick on your hard disk (do so for all partitions), select Properties, on the General tab, UNtick the 'Allow indexing..' at the bottom left. Confirm to do that for all directories etc.
You will find XP is a lot more responsive all of a sudden.
AND it might have been the cause of your lagging.

#16 Post by **gator** » Mon May 07, 2007 8:35 pm

I finally found the culprit. It was a background service called 'wmpntwk.exe' - apprrently it is the windows media player network sharing service. I disabled the service via services.msc since it kept popping up if I used task manager to kill it, and my T60 is back to its usual self.

Thanks to everyone who helped me out!

Purcy · #17 Post by **Purcy** » Mon May 07, 2007 10:19 pm

Awesome, glad you found it. I saw that program pop up on my firewall asking permission to get out, and I allowed it. Perhaps I should disable it too.

Is my HDD failing?

Is my HDD failing?

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