My primary hard drive, the one with the OS on it, has recently begun to stop accepting new requests at random times for up to five minutes. Any in-process task/thing in RAM, like a song or a game, will continue working throughout, but everything else freezes. I check Event Viewer after control is returned to me, and I find this:
Log Name: System
Source: Disk
Date: 11/23/2014 12:27:00
Event ID: 7
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Rattle-PC
Description:
The device, \Device\Harddisk0\DR0, has a bad block.
Event Xml:
<EventID Qualifiers="49156">7</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-11-23T19:27:00.821766500Z" />
<EventRecordID>56357</EventRecordID>
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Rattle-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>\Device\Harddisk0\DR0</Data>
As well as this:
Log Name: System
Source: iaStorA
Date: 11/23/2014 12:26:12
Event ID: 129
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Ratle-PC
Description:
Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="schemas.microsoft.com/.../event">
<System>
<Provider Name="iaStorA" />
<EventID Qualifiers="32772">129</EventID>
<Level>3</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-11-23T19:26:12.189984900Z" />
<EventRecordID>56354</EventRecordID>
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Rattle-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
It sounds like the hard drive may be going bad, but I've only had it for 1.5 years.
During one of these freezes, my system fans spun up and wouldn't spin down again until I shut down and restarted (the eternal spin-up happened only once so far, it has not done this again since). I checked the Alienware Thermal Controls, and it shows the following:
> Thermal Sensor 1: 0C
> Thermal Sensor 2: 0C
> Thermal Sensor 3: 65C
I highly doubt the third sensor is actually registering 65C; I think it's just a combination of the three (normal sensor readings were around 22C each, which adds to around 65C).
Any ideas?