How Do You Find Intermittent Desktop PC Faults?

You could try basic checks etc sannow chicks get all updates check temps a new PC would be best bet i just got a mini pc from geekcom.co.uk and 7 32gig ram support 3 monitor 16 cores goes like a rocket £376 they have others like i9 its all mini pcs now get a pc with same specs your talking 5 times the price you wont believe tge differnce

The symptoms are similar to when the SSD failed - three times

Sounds worrying.

PSU issue perhaps?
Checking the PSU - whilst you can use a simple meter to check voltages, that doesn't tell you anything about whether they are stable clean DC supplies.

12 years old, is it time for replacement?

Possibly so..

Start by running disk checks.
Crystal Diskinfo (free) - basic SMART check. Hard Disk Sentinel - excellent- covers SSDs too.
Just launch these programs and look.

As for fault finding basics:

- simplify - eliminate - substitute- identify

I.e. remove things to see if something has a detrimental effect
- substitute a good item
- and so identify something causing a problem

Easy if you've a stock of spares- harder if it's you're one PC. Therein lies the problem.

I also think it may be a defective PSU.

Given the range of hardware that has experienced unusually short lives, I think dalchina might well have hit the nail on the head by suggesting the PSU.
But rather than the PSU itself, I think your symptoms might be caused by loose or defective cable connections. So open up the casing & check every cable you can get access to.
Your computer's service manual will help you see which unit is which. Most computer makers allow you to download a service manual.

Before spending any money on the problem, find somebody who'll let you see a modern computer in use.
You might be so astounded by its speed of response that you decide that it is better to spend money on a new computer rather than on repairing an old one.


Best of luck,
Denis

Try changing the CR2032 CMOS battery which can cause boot problems if the voltage is low.

woodbine said:

Thanks for all of your replies. I did think it might be another component that is causing the SSDs to fail very early. I have a new Corsair PSU in the box, is it a good idea to try swapping it as a first step?

Also, the CMOS battery. Do I just remove the old one and put new one in, or is there more to it?

Also check some connections, etc while I'm in there.

You can always test with the other power supply.

As for the battery it's a CR 2032 available in drug stores, Walmart, etc... and yes, you just swap it out.
Make note of which side is UP on the battery.



Also, you might want to check any scheduled tasks, having to do with optimizing or defragmenting your drives.
It's easy to over do it on SSDs.

When you do any hardware change is highly recommended that you remove the PS and battery (Laptop) or disconnect the PS from the wall outlet.

When you remove the CR2032 coin battery, you reset the real clock and the BIOS configurations and you may need to reconfigure the BIOS. Most modern BIOS allow you to save the current configuration to a file and load it back in case you loose the settings.
In my MB it is on the BIOS last tab

First of all, big apology for not coming back to this thread for a long time. The pc (desktop) seemed to settle down for a while and other things got priority instead. Though just recently it started playing up again very badly, with the usual variety of faults - BSODs, failing to boot, cursor suddenly stopping responding to mouse, screen freezing sometimes with a loud buzzing sound, etc, etc. Virtually unusable.

The usual sort or symptoms that normally preceeded yet another new SSD. Though once the on board graphics card failed and was replaced with seperate pcie unit - rather confusingly it also gave very similar symptoms to the failing SSDs when it was on it's way out. I was very close to pulling the plug and getting something else, especially as I don't know a lot abouts PCs, the person who normally repairs my computer is having open heart surgery and I don't know anyone else reliable to look at it and fix.

Before I binned it (it's at least 10 years old) I thought I would have one roll of the dice and put the brand new Corsair VS350 psu in that's was still sitting sealed in it's box. Nothing to loose. It's a week on from installing the new psu, and all I can say is Dalchina, Megahertz, Ghot and Try3 were right on the money. Thanks for great advice that prompted me to concentrate on the power supply.

Changed the PSU one week ago and PC has been working faultlessly ever since, I have now marked this thread solved. Can't work out if it was the psu all along, but then why would I get a few months of working pc each time a new SSD was installed? Had the SSDs really failed after only months? Anyway, new psu = perfectly working pc, so I'm not going to try to figure it it any further.

Thanks again to all who offered help and advice - really appreciated.