Gaming Strange baffling laptop issue

samcambolt270

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I am having a very strange issue that I can't seem to find any cases of other people having. I also have no idea how it's triggered or what triggers it or even what it's doing. The issue seems to initially manifest as a minor issue where windows explorer stops auto-refreshing after a change, such as renaming a file or making a folder. For example, if I were to create a new folder, the folder would not show up at all until I manually hit f5, after which the folder would spontaneously appear, with the renaming box already open awaiting a name. Similarly, if i were to rename a folder, the name would not change until refreshing manually, but the name change has definitely taken place, as naming another folder the same name would prompt the merge folder option.

Later, attempting to access files or clicking browse for files in a program will simply crash the program or result in a blank list. Opening windows explorer will open a blank screen (image attached). Sometimes my dektop will cease to be, and windows explorer will just straight up stop working(image attached)

Oddly enough, manually typing an address into windows explorer will bring it up, so it definitely isnt a hard drive crash. Multiple hard drive checks from numerous programs have shown the hard drive as being perfectly healthy, and windows file integrity appears fine as well. Multiple virus checks have come up negative as well. I am at my wits end trying to understand what is happening here.
 

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Last edited by samcambolt270,
Have you changed any settings or installed something recently? Do you have any other unusual symptoms?

You could also run memtest or even some stress testing on the CPU. It could also just mean a borked windows install, windows file integrity might not find any issues if it's some messed up configuration or setting in the registry (for example).

I've had something similar to that (when creating folders) but only happened on the desktop, a reboot fixed the issue for me.
 
About a year and a half

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no new changes as far as i know. I found a new anomaly though while checking the task manager for any weird processes. "disk" just wasnt there for a while and then popped up after around 2-3 minutes. It's as though the task manager just couldn't see the drive.
 
Last edited by samcambolt270,
you may want to try and reseat the HD could be you have banged it and it has slipped out slightly. Failing that you probably are looking at a more serious hardware problem with either the drive itself being faulty or the drive controller.

If You could go to Event Viewer, Windows Logs > System and take a screen shot of any errors you see ?
 
Last edited by Uiaad,
the event viewer doesnt seem to want to open.
EDIT: nevermind, it just took awhile

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that's a heck of alot of errors
EDIT: fixed. btw, that goes on for awhile. theres a ton more than that. I guess there definitely is something wrong with the drive
 

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Well if the disk needs to be replaced, I'm screwed, since as far as i can tell, it's not removable. I'll put it back together, boot it back up, and paste one of those logs shortly.
 
I honestly have no clue what that is, I'll look into it

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here's a txt file containing the details of one of the disk errors

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Did you check SMART with crystal disk info?
ok, so I have crystal disk info running. What am I looking for. I don't really know what to look for with this interface
 

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Bad news is that the drive is on the way out, could last a week could completely die in the next hour. I would back up everything you need now why you still can.
I actually lost a 4tb drive last week to this exact problem and it wasn't even a year old. whole steam library out the window - and i have 762 games :/
I would also try and create a live linux USB stick or live DVD, that way you can at least browse the web from it until you can get a replacement drive.
 
Can.
I honestly have no clue what that is, I'll look into it

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here's a txt file containing the details of one of the disk errors

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ok, so I have crystal
I honestly have no clue what that is, I'll look into it

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here's a txt file containing the details of one of the disk errors

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ok, so I have crystal disk info running. What am I looking for. I don't really know what to look for with this interface
Can you take a screen shot? also, if it chimes at you on startup your drive is failing.
 
IO issues, indexing issues, bad blocks... it definitely sounds like the drive is going bad. But there are a couple more things that you can do to troubleshoot.

Run a memtest to rule out memory corruption.

Also open up command prompt and run sfc /scannow. That’ll check for system file corruption.

With Crystal Disk, we’re looking for the health of the disk by finding out how many errors, bad blocks, bad sectors, etc it reports. The higher the numbers, the closer the drive is to failing.
 
cystal disk info is showing all blue, and hd tuner is (so far) not finding any bad blocks
 

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download 360 total security. It has a built in cleaner and pc optimizer that works great. Even has a regresty fixer that could help
 
ok, so after a few dozen more tests, chkdsk is coming back clean, hard drive blocks are all good according to hd tuner, registry files are good, drivers are good too, and crystal disk is reporting good hard drive health. I still don't get it. Everything points to there being no problems.
 
Except Event Log. Which looks pretty convincing (to me at least).
I know about the event log, it's pretty clear there is an issue, but every test has pointed to there being none. those hard drive errors windows is spitting out should be showing up on at least one of the now probably 20 different tests, but it just isnt and I cant understand why.

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also, the errors themselves are strange, as after pouring through, them, there seems to be a pattern. they happen every 60 seconds for around 15 minutes, then just stop for days, then return with that pattern repeating.
 

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