[malcolm_tucker]

Hi guys, really hoping someone can help me! I built my pc a few years ago, as follows;

 

OS - Win7 64bit

CPU - AMD FX4100 Quad (3.6ghz)

MB - Asus M5A78L-M

GPU - ATI Radeon HD 6450

RAM - 8gb DDR3

PSU - CIT Pentium P4 650U (650w)

HDD - Maxtor 250gb main + Seagate 2tb storage

 

Recently I decided I wanted to play more modern games and after researching I came to the conclusion that just a gpu upgrade would be sufficient. I opted for an Asus Radeon R7 360 (2gb, DDR5), as this fitted my budget and it appeared that I wouldn't need to upgrade anything else (the only difference was the R7 had to be connected to the psu, the 6450 did not). The only problem that arose during installation and set-up was the Windows Experience Index would fail to run every time, I researched solutions (deleting the history fixes it for most people, although it wasn't successful for me) and came to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter, so it's still 'unrated'.

 

It ran smoothly and allowed me to play games that I couldn't previously but there was one problem. When watching video in VLC, from files either on my main or secondary hdd, VLC would freeze for around 10 seconds and this was happening once every 10-15 minutes. I thought it was a VLC problem so I re-installed and looked at a few settings as suggested on the Videolan forums, but to no avail. Over the next month or so the problem got worse; instead of just VLC freezing, my pc would now completely freeze for around 30 seconds every 15-20 minutes. After reading a few forum posts I decided that it could be due to a cheap psu, despite it being 650w and a psu calculator says I only need 400-450w. I also read it could be that BIOS needs updating, but I'm struggling to ascertain whether it needs updating or not.

 

I noticed that playing video from an external hd or usb stick doesn't cause freezing, even when the pc freezes whilst watching it doesn't freeze VLC. I also don't have any problems playing games, no crashes and they still run smooth (although I haven't been playing them lately as I don't want to stress my pc too much until the problem is sorted). A couple of times recently my secondary hdd has disconnected itself after a particularly long freeze.

 

So I think it's either a psu or hdd problem. My attempted solution today was to install my old gpu to see if it fixed the problem but it got A LOT worse. I get a 'S.M.A.R.T capable but command failed' error on a start-up screen that I don't usually see, which seems to be pointing to my secondary hdd. As I type now, the secondary hdd has disconnected itself after a freeze and the freezing has stopped, and I'm playing a mkv file off my main hdd in VLC with no problems at all.

 

Right now I'm thinking it must be the secondary hdd, but that then creates more questions; Can it be fixed? Did the gpu change cause the hdd to fail, and how? Did the cheap psu cause the hdd to fail? Will I be safe re-installing the new gpu and replacing the secondary hdd with an external, or is the psu still insufficient? Maybe the psu was stressed to the max and it's actually the psu failing and causing the hdd to fail?

 

Thanks for your time and apologies for the long post! I wanted to make sure that I gave all the required info that I can 

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Update: Last night whilst the hdd had disconnected itself the pc was running smoothly with no problems at all, so my next step is to remove the hdd and re-install the new gpu. I'm currently trying to copy over everything from the hdd to an external but it's not going too well, a lot of files are refusing to copy 

[malcolm_tucker]

Update: Last night whilst the hdd had disconnected itself the pc was running smoothly with no problems at all, so my next step is to remove the hdd and re-install the new gpu. I'm currently trying to copy over everything from the hdd to an external but it's not going too well, a lot of files are refusing to copy