Diagnosing Component Failure

jackieAZ · January 19, 2017

Hi guys, I'm having a problem with my PC which shows many symptoms, though I'm not sure of what problem. I'm getting bad lag spikes in CS:GO, along with it giving me the "An issue with your computer" error (can't 'connect reliably to VAC server' indicating some sort of software or hard drive problem as I believe it) Once in a while, I've seen my computer completely lock up, and relatively often it doesn't boot completely when I start it, and just hangs on the motherboard splash screen.

I'm well aware that this stuff mostly points toward a hard drive failing, as I also think I may have heard a clicking noise at some point coming from the computer. However, I am curious as to what you guys think, could it also be something related to the motherboard along with the hard drive? Another trait of the goofy boots is that my backlit usb kreyboard's lights would randomly turn on and off during boot, until the computer was completely on.

Also, I previously had an incident where my front panel (of all things) was shorting out my motherboard, which at the time acted somewhat similarly in terms of hanging of the splash screen and computer lockups, and game spikes.

PS. At the time of writing this I will be backing up important files immediately to my backup external hard drive.

ARikozuM · January 19, 2017

Start booting off a USB stick.

I would definitely check the SMART data once you're done with the backup.

Can you list your FULL system specs?

TetraSky · January 19, 2017

Could be a failed overclock. If you have one, try taking it back a notch, even if it was stable for a while, the CPU does degrade overtime, making your overclock unstable. Even if you don't have an actual overclock, it could also just be your Turbo Boost settings.

I recently had to change my turbo boost from +6/+5/+4/+4 to +4/+3/+2/+2 recently, because my PC simply wouldn't boot anymore, it would restart by itself on the windows loading screen during boot. Even though it was stable like that for the past 6 years.

If all you see if the motherboard's splash screen on boot, try disabling it in the BIOS, to see where exactly it hangs. If it hang on the HDD, or before/after it.

It could be a drive failure, I would suggest scanning it with the utility provided by the HDD manufacturer, such as WD's Data lifeguard or Seagate's Seatools. You can scan it outside of Windows using something like Hiren's boot CD, which includes all of these utilities, and more, to test your PC.

The keyboard LEDs lighting up during boot isn't that rare and shouldn't really be related to your issue at hand. If the PC just hangs for a while during boot, it's likely the LEDs will light up.

It happens to me on occasions... I've even had mine light up while the PC was off while I was sleeping a few times (which is honestly freaky).