The computer shuts down periodically during gameplay once you've added a new hard drive.
The computer shuts down periodically during gameplay once you've added a new hard drive.
Hello, I recently purchased a fresh hard drive (4 tb WD Blue WD40EZAZ) to swap in. I transferred all my files—mostly for data storage and a small collection of seldom-played games—using Ctrl+C / V, plus the data from two previous external drives. Initially, everything functioned smoothly, but I didn’t use the computer much beyond browsing the web. The following day, while attempting to play games (two different titles on my SSD), the system froze completely. It was a total lockup; sounds were faintly audible (last game track repeating, then video cut off abruptly), and both keyboard and mouse stopped responding. After several minutes, I had to restart it repeatedly. Over two days, at least eight freezes occurred—sometimes within 15 minutes, other times for longer periods, occasionally for hours without issue. Once, the whole thing crashed, displaying only a black screen followed by an instant reboot, like pressing the reset button. There was no problem before the drive swap. I never ran any programs from the new drive except for Battlenet, possibly a couple more that I didn’t notice, but nothing more demanding than launching games—maybe the antivirus flagged it automatically. At the time, usage was between 0% and 5%, and Task Manager showed normal activity when I opened it. The Event Viewer logged only two errors: 6008 (“previous restart wasn't planned”) and 41 (“system restarted without properly shutting off”). Initially, I suspected a recent update might be causing instability with my overclocking settings, so I disabled everything except XMP for RAM. That didn’t help. I tried reseating cables, switching SATA connections, and finally unplugging the drive—now it’s been three days without another freeze. I’m convinced the issue lies with the drive itself. I can safely remove it, but before doing so, I want to confirm I didn’t overlook anything. It seems unlikely that a mostly idle drive would crash the system, especially after copying over 2+ tb of data without major problems. However, everything points to this one unit. That coincidence that another failure happened the next day, right when I unplugged it, is concerning. I did some research and found reports suggesting a faulty drive could damage the SATA controller entirely. Also, during file transfers from the external drive, my antivirus flagged something suspicious and quarantined a file—probably a false alarm given its age (about 8 years). It’s possible there’s a virus on one of the drives, but after being connected countless times without issues, it hasn’t caused any problems before. So, anyone have suggestions? Configuration: CPU Ryzen 5 5600G, GPU Powercolor Radeon 5700 Xeon, 16 GB DDR4 3600 MHz, RAM Corsair 16 GB, BIOS 7A38vBG (I suspect a factory defect—sometimes the PC won’t boot when I press the power button, fan spins but nothing else; it just restarts), PSU EVGA 100-GD-0700-V1 700W gold, SSDs: 860 EVO (boot drive), 840 EVO (old boot drive, can’t be removed because Windows placed the boot partition there), and the new WD Blue WD40EZAZ OS Windows 11 Pro 64-bit).
It seems there might be some issues with the file paths. Let me know if you'd like to try a different approach.
No, I didn't press any keys. You asked if I was controlling the Windows settings.
I considered potential file path issues, even though there aren’t many programs on the drives and the one I’m familiar with works well. It’s possible some random drivers or dependencies were installed unexpectedly, but it’s hard to verify. No, there was no Windows installation on the previous drive. I just mentioned Windows to clarify that I didn’t use a software for cloning, sorry if the sentence wasn’t clear (I’m not a native English speaker).
So here’s an updated version of your message. After my previous update, I attempted to remove the drive once more, but the issue kept coming up, likely by chance. Once I reinstalled Windows, I continued trying to remove or swap components without success. Eventually, I discovered a workaround that resolved the problem after about one and a half months—though it was a last-ditch effort.
In my first post, I didn’t mention getting a new monitor right before the issue began, as I couldn’t see how it could cause such crashes. Still, I lowered the refresh rate from 240 to 120, and the problem disappeared. It’s hard to say for sure, but it might be a driver bug specific to my setup, possibly related to the other monitor running at 75Hz or something similar.
I won’t keep trying further; everything now works fine. I’m planning a small downgrade of the monitor, as I can’t play at 244Hz anymore. If anyone else faces a similar problem, I hope this helps! Edit: The issue returned randomly after two months, and no permanent fix was found.