Computer slow, programs crashing and frequent blue screening

Hello, I'm writing this from my phone because my computer is unusable for extended periods of time right now.

My primary hard drive (the one with my windows installation) is becoming very problematic. It started yesterday when I noticed programs randomly hanging and not responding so I decided to do a reformat and reinstall of Windows 8.1 which is what I was using followed by another full reinstall with Windows 10. Both reinstalls and reformats may no difference and the problem persisted. Except after Windows 10 finished installing the crashing and freezing was becoming much mute frequent followed by repeated blue screens of death which has happened about 4 times now in the space 3 hours.

I have had this drive (WD Blue 10EZEX 1TB) for just over a year and half and have two of them; one for Windows and programs and one for documents, music, pictures etc. In read benchmarks the Windows install drive gets a max of 140 MB/s with minimums of 1 MB/s whereas the second drive gets 185 MB/s max and 90 MB/s min. SMART values for both drives are fine however, but is it still possible that my Windows install drive is failing?

Specs:

1. CPU: AMD FX-8320

2. GPU: GIGABYTE R9 270

3. RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance Pro

4. Storage: 2x WD10EZEX 1TB

Run a memory diagnostic tool like memtest86+. You should get zero errors. Run chkdsk against your primary drive to ensure there are no errors. Hopefully one of these will give you an indication of where the trouble lies.

Caledon Ken said:

Run a memory diagnostic tool like memtest86+. You should get zero errors. Run chkdsk against your primary drive to ensure there are no errors. Hopefully one of these will give you an indication of where the trouble lies.

I've done a scan of the memory with Windows Memory Diagnostic and Memtest86+ from an Ubuntu Live USB and both report no errors. I did a CHKDSK from a recovery USB and it initially reported some errors and then I re-ran the command with the switch added to fix errors and it finished saying there were no errors. Problem still persists though. Disk is spiking to 100% usage with hardly anything reading or writing from it apart from a few megabytes and the system and all the programs keep locking up; followed by a BSOD sometimes. I think the drive is failing.

Are the BSOD's pointing to a specific driver or dll?

Unless others have better idea i would get see if your disk manufacture had a SM.A.R.T. tool. Wiki has a page on smart tools.
Comparison of S.M.A.R.T. tools - Wikipedia

I would also be copying out any data files that haven't been backed up yet.

Caledon Ken said:

Are the BSOD's pointing to a specific driver or dll?

Unless others have better idea i would get see if your disk manufacture had a SM.A.R.T. tool. Wiki has a page on smart tools.
Comparison of S.M.A.R.T. tools - Wikipedia

I would also be copying out any data files that haven't been backed up yet.

Luckily this drive on had programs and Windows on it. All my important music, videos, pictures documents etc are on a 2nd hard drive.

Also new information has to light to why this is happening: https://i.imgur.com/mAIih7E.png

Now I'm worried it might be the SATA Bus/Controller or the motherboard that has caused this - or a SATA or power cable or even the power supply!

Well if it is being cause by MB or power supply I would first focus on a full data backup. I would still look into S.M.A.R.T. tool to actually look at drive performance.

You can start to isolate problem by getting a PSU tester. I use a Thermaltake Dr. Power. Good luck.

Caledon Ken said:

Well if it is being cause by MB or power supply I would first focus on a full data backup. I would still look into S.M.A.R.T. tool to actually look at drive performance.

You can start to isolate problem by getting a PSU tester. I use a Thermaltake Dr. Power. Good luck.

I don't have any PSU tester but I have a multimeter, can I use that? Also is it possible that it could be the SATA cable?

I'm sure you can do with a multimeter although I never attempted and you would have to know all the pin out on the connectors. A sort would be a very bad thing. You would have to Google. Not sure if Dr Power also runs any tests for stability which you won't see on multimeter.

Yes cables fail as do connection points. I guess it would be better to say connection points can develop a little corrosion depending on environment. I should also added that while a cable can fail they usually do it from day one or they are under a stress from vibration / movement or heat / cold.

With machine fully powered down you could reseat cables and reseat drives if they are plugged into a back plane within case. Sata cables are cheap so they can be replaced, buy quality as all cables are not created equally.