PC Emergency HALP!

So I got up, booted up my PC to play some Fallout 4. Never had any major problems with it until now. But today I constantly got stuck on a loading screen when trying to load my save (I tried three different files btw), the game got stuck on a black screen for a while before it even loaded in the bethesda splash screen, the menu was lagging, the couple of times my save DID load the framerate tanked to between 8 and 14 frames, utter nightmare. Steam was getting increasingly unresponsive, sometimes crashing or just not giving a **** when I pressed buttons, I spent THREE HOURS just trying to load a god-damn save file. Shutting down, rebooting, forcing shutdowns when it got stuck on "Shutting down", deleting everything in my Steam folder except for steamapps, usderdata, and Steam.exe to try and reinstall Steam, none of it helping at all.

NOW it just gets stuck on the "loading Windows" (Windows 7) screen and won't budge past that. I haven't made ANY hardware changes, installed anything, downloaded anything, patched anything, NOTHING. The only thing of significance I can think of is a definition update for Windows Defender.

Might be worth noting I did have an issue with Windows Explorer and Steam being laggy and crashy a few months ago, but up until now that had pretty much resolved itself.

Suggestions? Preferably not involving reinstalling the entire operating system unless absolutely necessary.

EDIT: Just tried to go into the "Repair Windows" tool. Been sitting here for a good few minutes and done nothing but display the default Windows 7 background in a resolution smaller than the native one. GREAT.

EDIT 2: And safe mode doesn't seem to want to load either. Isn't that ******* brilliant? I'm starting to feel genuinely terrified now.

EDIT 3: Safe mode finally loaded, gonna back up some stuff. But I'd like to actually fix the problem too.

Yeah thanks. I didn't think of googling it at all.


/s

Oh boy, it sounds like your hard drive (or controller) may have crapped out! I would run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware on it in safe mode, and I would back up all your important data first thing. Assuming that doesn't work, you could check the HDD in another computer and see if it hangs when you try to access the files.

Edit: Addition to mwreynolds' comment, you could bump up your RAM voltage by 0.05v and see if that helps. It doesn't sound like a RAM issue, though, which is why I didn't suggest it initially. If that does help, I suggest that you drop the voltage down (you should even if it doesn't, though 0.05v won't damage it) and run Memtest86+ and request an RMA through the manufacturer or your warranty.

Also, why all the images lately, Wrong Cat? (And by back up his files, I mean the hidden ones that he keeps mislabeled)

You could try checking the ram by removing all but one module, then swapping them.

Also it may be worth looking your the manufactures website for your motherboard.
I had a issue once after a windows update where i got stuck in a reboot loop, and need to update the bios.

Sounds like a Win Update issue, though it could easily be your hard drive deciding to give up on life.

Are you using Win 7? There have been some SUPER QUESTIONABLE updates in the past few weeks that I've had to use scripts to fix at work. If not, I'd pop your HDD and check it on another PC after backing it up.
All of it.

Also, I'd try to find that extra 150 quid to buy a new one. You'll probably need it :/

And you call yourself an American.

On the bright side, 1TB HDDs are next to no quid, assuming prices aren't outrageous down under.

Well I am beggining to suspect my hard drive since the transfer speed is so slow. Luckily the only thing I REALLY care about on that PC are my save files, and they're easy enough to backup. Are there any other symptoms that would indicate a RAM issue? And could it just be too much dust clogging a thingy?

I don't think it's a windows update thing since I disabled those and the only ones I've allowed for the last few months are definition updates for Windows Defender.

It's a Western Digital drive so I'll see what the warranty is. I'm not too hopeful though, it's been in there for a good five years.

@websterx01 Of course the prices are outrageous down under. Britain dumped all their slashers here. Slashers of prices! Our discounts are criminal!

Haha no everyone rips us off using the "But muh shipping costs" excuse.

Hot Fuzz is great though...

Well, you can test memory with memtest. See http://www.memtest86.com/

Also, the HD manufacturers almost always have a test utility on their website as well. For example:
Seagate: http://www.seagate.com/ca/en/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/
Western Digital: http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en (Data Lifeguard)

Assuming a hardware issues, my first course of action would be to use HWMonitor to check temps, a fan that randomly decides to stop moving can cause issues like you describe, it did to me in the past. While looking at the temps use prime95 to create a load and for cpu/ram checking.

Also for the HDDs there is Crystal Disc Info to see the SMART status data, it summarizes it pretty well in one word as well, which should be something like "Good".

There's a temp readout in BIOS. Didn't look at it too closely but everything seemed to be fine.

What the flup does any of that mean?

Eh, I think you should be alright with the temperatures, particularly if it's so sudden. About that SMART thing: basically, the HDD self checks and reports using a standard called SMART, giving a nice user-friendly read out of that status of the disk. Not all HDDs have it (older ones, mostly don't) and some motherboards don't access it (once again, older ones, mostly). That Crystal Disk Info is just a program that access the disk and, among quite a few other things, reports how well the disk is functioning.

Putting my hand against the case it doesn't feel unusually warm. Not exactly the most accurate measurement but in conjunction with the readouts in the BIOS I think it's ok.

Heck google the words you don't understand they'll lead you to programs or knowledge that is helpful

I don't trust BIOS temp readings, as I've had some that consistently loved to report "Your CPU is 10°C in a 20°C room".

Use this to get a readout of temps: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html
And crystal disk to get status info on your HDD/SDD drives: http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

30 degrees in a 20 degree room seems at least plausible to me.

@cola_colin Did that happen to be on an AMD system? They don't use a common temperature scale; it's a custom, in house, measurement based upon a formula. Very accurate when nearing their max temperature, but wildly wrong at idle (BIOS). My APU reports -20C or worse when idling.

@Geers Any luck so far?

intel

Asus Sabertooth Z77 for me.

Still backing things up. Slowly. Gonna run the diagnostics things in a bit.

So I ran WD data lifeguard. Quick test does this:



Extended test I left on for 11 hours and it wanted 200+ more to finish.

Memtest said everything was ok.

so it's the hardrive.

back everything up ! fast!

seagate rulz!