PC Problem - Any idea what caused it?

Started by TeaLeaf, July 04, 2002, 08:53:49 AM

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TeaLeaf

:cry: In mid warm up for the match last night my XP Home machine hung with a message that said something along the lines of 'windows is stopping your machine before it becomes damaged/any damage is done'.  The error message said:

STOP : 0X0000008E (0XC0000006, 0XBF801C38, 0XF2EC4BAC, 0C00000000)
Win32k.sys - address BF801C38 base at BF800000 Datestamp 3c745f4d

Prior to the failure I heard a solenoid-like clicking that was probably about 1-2 per second and continued continuously from just before the error right up until I had to reboot.  Now I have heard this sound before, but as the tower is under my desk I have always assumed that it was either my Home Highway ISDN box (which does it every 15 mins or so) or a cooling fan solenoid.  However the other thought that crossed my mind was that it might be a hard drive preparing to go totally FUBAR on me.  The reason this latter idea has hit me is that I had to reboot the hung PC as it wouldn't leave the error message page (and was still clicking), but it hung again during the initial reboot when it was looking for my primary hard drive and the clicking sound reappeared at this point (and continued) whilst the machine looked (indefintely) for the hard drive.

After a night for the PC to cool down, I managed to reboot the PC again this morning (first time as well!) and things seem to be working fine now, but I HAVE heard that clicking sound again - a couple of times, but not the continuous clicking that it was last night - this is just an occassional click click or maybe 4 clicks and then it stops for a bit.

The only thing I have been able to find on the MS Knowledge Base is a reference to a RAM error during XP setup, but that doesn't sound like the right answer.  

 :?: What could be causing it?  Do you think this is the hard- drive preparing to die (it's a Maxtor 100GB HD and was new in December 2001)?

Any and all help appreciated  :!:
TL.
Wisdom doesn\'t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.  (Tom Wilson)
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. (Michael Jordan)

DogMeat

"You hear that sound Mr Anderson?  That is the sound of inevitability."  Time to dig out the HD receipts and contact the shop you bought it from.  

Oh, and don't forget to erase the Pr0n before you return it...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Some pixies. No cars. No talent.

Gandalf

If you can get a replacement before you send the failing one back you should be able to transfer all the data to the new one so you won't have all the fun of re-installing!

Most new drives come with disk duplicating software.
*G*

Cake: Four large eggs. One cup semi-sweet chocolate chips. Three/four cups butter or margarine. One and two third cups granulated sugar. Two cups all purpose flour. Fish shaped ethyl benzene. Twelve medium geosynthetic membranes. Three tablespoons rhubarb, on fire.

Stryker

If I took my hard drive back every time it "clicked" I'd be on 10 a day!  or at least a new one every time I booted windowz  :lol:
-=[dMw]=-Stryker