Malware or mother board failure?

D

dahermit

Member
A question I would like answered. Several months ago, my HP Compaq desktop computer failed. The hard drive seemed to run-away (RPMs ever increasing with no output to the monitor), to the point where I thought it was going to blow-up. When I could not stop it, I shut the power off and pulled the Hard Drive, replacing it with one of my stand-by clones. The same thing happened to the "new" drive (Clone number one), the H.D. became unreadable, began to race. I shut it down and foolishly installed my Clone number two, which crashed also.

So my question is: Does that sound like a malware attack of some kind, or is it more likely that some component or another on the mother board burned-out and sent garbage to the hard drive causing it to go nuts as it (they), did? Note that I leave my computer on, choosing to put it in sleep mode most of the time rather than shut it off.

I tend to believe that it was an unknown mother board failure rather than malware inasmuch as it seems more logical that swapping out the hard drive would have removed the effect of malware.

Agree or disagree? Which was more likely the culprit. Or, could it have been something that has not occurred to me?

Please do not turn this thread into a "shutting down vs. putting to sleep" debate... that is not what I am asking.
 
R

revolution221

Member
Could be a number of things but the fact that it happens on a new drive tells me it's probably not the drive itself
First are you sure it's the drive itself and not the fans/optical drive (if you have one)? Either one of those could make lots of noise when put under load/stress/failure, particularly fans if there's failing bearings or they're clogged with dust
If it is the hard drive the only other thing I can think of is possibly the power supply since that regulates voltage to components such as your hard drive, and too much voltage being sent could burn it up faster
What're your specs (including PSU and HDD)?
I'm not sure what quality psu's are used by HP compaqs but from what I've seen they look pretty cheap
Also malware is always a possibility but I'd lean more towards hardware in this case
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
As revolution has said, are sure it wasn't cpu fan that was revving up and not the hard drive? If the cpu was overheating and the fan ramping up there may be an overlying issue with the motherboard. I've never heard of a hard drive race up.
 
beers

beers

Moderator
Staff member
I've never encountered a HDD that increased RPM out of control, the motherboard doesn't dictate the rotational speed of the drive.

Some of those blower fans can get pretty loud, but it's normal operation. What were you doing when the screen blanked out? It's not uncommon for systems to peg fan speeds in a failure type of scenario such as the GPU becoming unresponsive. Also on modern systems a thermal runaway situation will simply power off the PC at a certain threshold.
 
D

dahermit

Member
johnb35 said:
As revolution has said, are sure it wasn't cpu fan that was revving up and not the hard drive? If the cpu was overheating and the fan ramping up there may be an overlying issue with the motherboard. I've never heard of a hard drive race up.
Click to expand...
I am sure it was the hard drive revving up... although I have never heard of it before either.

Addendum: further reading has revealed that malware can "hide" in the video memory. So, that is a possibility. I do keep Windows Security enabled at all times.
 
D

dahermit

Member
revolution221 said:
What're your specs (including PSU and HDD)?
I'm not sure what quality psu's are used by HP compaqs but from what I've seen they look pretty cheap
Click to expand...
The hard drive in the unit when it first acted-up was a Western Digital Model WD2003FYYS, 2.0 TB (but remember I did swap it out when it started acting up... twice).
As for the power supply, I don't know just off hand, but I still have it so I could look if you think it would help.
 
porterjw

porterjw

Spaminator
Staff member
That link doesn't prove anything in this case. As others have said, your drive will not just decide to spin out of control. Every indication of what you are saying points to a fan(s) spinning at max speed.
 
D

dahermit

Member
porterjw said:
Every indication of what you are saying points to a fan(s) spinning at max speed.
Click to expand...
Even considering that it wrecked three different drives (original drive, plus two clones)? The drives were wrecked to the point that not only would they not boot, but were not able to be recognized to be re-formatted or used to be written to as new clones. How does a fan do that?
 
porterjw

porterjw

Spaminator
Staff member
dahermit said:
Even considering that it wrecked three different drives (original drive, plus two clones)? The drives were wrecked to the point that not only would they not boot, but were not able to be recognized to be re-formatted or used to be written to as new clones. How does a fan do that?
Click to expand...

Nobody is suggesting a fan destroyed the drive, so settle down. I was simply echoing what others are trying to tell you, but you seem hell-bent on blaming not 1, not 2, but 3 different drives - 2 of which you claim to have had near-immediate failure. Common sense would (should) indicate that something else is wrong (ie: another component). You actually alluded to this fact in your OP, and one of the symptoms is also your fans spinning at max speed. Your original drive may in fact be damaged, but at some point you need to stop aimlessly throwing in new drives without proper testing/verification, and rather start looking at other components, and that time should have been around Posts 2, 3 & 4.

But what do I know... :rolleyes:

dahermit said:
I am sure it was the hard drive revving up... although I have never heard of it before either.
Click to expand...

OK, I'll bite... What method did you use to verify this. Be specific.
 
D

dahermit

Member
porterjw said:
Nobody is suggesting a fan destroyed the drive, so settle down. I was simply echoing what others are trying to tell you, but you seem hell-bent on blaming not 1, not 2, but 3 different drives - 2 of which you claim to have had near-immediate failure. Common sense would (should) indicate that something else is wrong (ie: another component). You actually alluded to this fact in your OP, and one of the symptoms is also your fans spinning at max speed. Your original drive may in fact be damaged, but at some point you need to stop aimlessly throwing in new drives without proper testing/verification, and rather start looking at other components, and that time should have been around Posts 2, 3 & 4.

But what do I know... :rolleyes:



OK, I'll bite... What method did you use to verify this. Be specific.
Click to expand...
You have me wrong... I am not hell bent on anything. I am just asking questions, looking for answers. I admit that after the first clone was destroyed I should have stopped, but made a huge mistake by installing another. At the time, I could not come up with a way to test/verify and look at other components... other than look at the mother board for evidence of burned/over-heating. In short, "could have, should have" does not lead to any answer at this point. However, it should be known that I have no desperate need to "fix" that computer in that I have replaced it times 2 (replaced that computer and added another identical node to my home network) months ago. As a high-functioning Asperger's Syndrome person, I have trouble with unresolved mysteries and have a compulsion to fix/repair broken things... I may go so far as to try and find an inexpensive power supply/reassemble that unit, just to see if that was the problem knowing that if I get that computer running, I actually have no use for it or would it have any value (too old). I don't have the room now, but will have in a month or so. Its only value (If it were to be repaired to a running state, it would be sent to the recycler or donated anyway) to me is that I may learn something here. Can anyone explain how I can test the power supply?

Addendum: A way that may be possible to test the power supply (for over-revving) just occurred to me...plug the computer in without any hard drive in the chassis. Or, is that not possible?
 
Last edited:
voyagerfan99

voyagerfan99

Master of Turning Things Off and Back On Again
Staff member
dahermit said:
Got one of those... the connectors did not fit my power supply. Found a Utube video that demonstrated how to use it... the connections the guy had on his power supply did not match mine.
Click to expand...
All the connections are universal so you should have most of them on your psu.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top