Yes, maybe it could be the PSU, but i think that the chances are rather slim. PSU issues usually lead to system reboot, BSOD, crashes and low performance (the only performance issues he reported were related to read/write operations, since his games run fine, according to him, then CPU and GPU are probably normal), which didn't happen in this case.

Not really. When my HD died it didn't make any strange noises or anything. It was perfectly normal and even chkdisk didn't come up with any errors.

I don't know if i understood your issue correctly. Do you mean that the video drivers disappeared all of a sudden? This is really weird. Well, you shold try the most obvious thing, if you haven't already, that is to unninstall and then reinstall the drivers. If that doesn't work, try to delete the drivers for the video card from the device manager panel, reboot, and then install nvidia's drivers again.

johnki,

4-5 beeps when you boot up is usually pointing to ram.

If the machine's only eight months old, and you can narrow it down to a hardware failure, aren't you still covered under warranty? I don't know what their warranty policy is, but isn't something like 1 year for parts and 3 years for labor pretty standard? Which means if your hard drive is blowing up on you, you should, at the very least, be covered for a replacement.

I had a weird problem similar to this on our kitchen PC - thing was stupid-slow all of a sudden, especially when accessing the HDD. Virus and other malware checked out clean, uninstalled Adobe crap just in case. Did have a bad power supply, as a coincidence, but the real problem turned out to be Windows superfetch. Accessed it through services.msc (Start -> Run) and disabled it there. Problem disappeared immediately. Also disabled a bunch of other questionable junk while in there.

It's free and takes just a couple minutes plus a reboot, so it's certainly worth a try.

I meant the "duh DUH" sound of something being unplugged. It's been happening a lot recently.

I'm not sure about my warranty, but yeah, should be. I need to give them a call.

I've actually heard a lot about Superfetch causing issues. But what exactly does it do that causes that?

Myself, I don't know the nuts and bolts of it so here's an article that talks about what it's supposed to do: http://gizmodo.com/234109/vistas-superfetch-and-readyboost-how-does-it-affect-you

That's a Vista article but it looks like Win7 also uses Superfetch.

Like many have said, it's highly likely the OP's problem is with the hard drive.

In my 20 years or so of supporting PC users, dead power supply units is the No. 1 most frequent occurrence. In most cases it's easy to diagnose: the PC just won't turn on. This is not one of the OP's symptoms, so my guess is his PSU is fine.

The 2nd most frequent occurrence is internal hard drive failure, and it usually causes the kind of slowdowns the OP is experiencing. If possible, swap out the "bad" drive with a good drive, and test the bad drive on another PC. I would guess that would instantly solve your mystery.

At a distant third is faulty and/or incompatible RAM sticks. It hasn't happened to me for a very long time, but it is still a possibility. Like others have said, the mobo would beep in cases of bad RAM. Hell, the screen may show you error messages as well.

I have never had a "bad" USB port. More common is a "worn-out" USB port after many times of plugging and unplugging. And yes, that could crash Windows and causes BSOD.

I have never had a faulty motherboard either. Hard to believe in all my 20 years, but it's true. But then, the mobo is just a relatively uncomplicated, tiny little thing (not much bigger than an iPad) that you plug other components on. The most common mobo-related problems I've had is dead CMOS battery.

Again, the top 2 most frequent problems are dead PSU and dead HD. That's why it's pretty much a given that mission-critical PCs usually have redundant PSUs and HDs. I've never seen one with redundant motherboard.

So thanks to my computer randomly running like total shit (it was so bad, there was a delay between when I hit the Caps Lock key and when it actually changed the status of the light) after installing Starvoid today, and then randomly not running like total shit, I decided to install SpeedFan to do a hard drive diagnostic.

Guess what. It doesn't detect my hard drive. I am beyond frustrated right now. I don't know what's wrong with my computer, and apparently I'm not allowed to know.

Oh, and I don't know about a bad USB port, but I've had several that haven't worked since I got the computer, though they've been there since I got it, so it wouldn't be a new problem.

Though I did find out that on average, every one of my cores is overheated, averaging around 87 degrees Celsius.

Oh, and now downloads are jumping around in speed (I'd assume since the hard drive is dying, it can only accept so much data at once), running slower on average than they're supposed to, Chrome is taking longer to load pages while waiting on the cache, and virus scans are taking about 2-3 times as long as usual.

Are there any other hard drive diagnostic tools so I can see if it really is an issue?

wow that is a long list of issues. So you paid for a system that didn't even have fully working USB ports, had RAM issues, is overheating, and may have a bad HD?

Failed USBs make things a bit more interesting. If they are just ports that were not hooked up, like say case built in ports that there weren't enough MOBO connections for, then there is nothing wrong with them not working. If however, they are just installed wrong (and they easily can be in some situations) or are outright bad then that is a big issue. With so many random issues it starting to sound like it even could be the Motherboard

Someone up there said he had build systems for a living and never had one go bad, God bless him because I've had several, but maybe he buys the nice 200 dollar boards. If someone is not worried about ESD I've always been told even little imperceivable shocks can cause failures over time. With your CPU running hot its a good bet it was built by someone who had no bloody idea what he was doing, or the sensor is bad, like mine. But mine says my system is -78 degrees so I'm thinking yours is likely accurate.

A hot CPU can make your system weird too and that is if it doesn't kill it. I have only ever had 1 CPU fail me and I was so convinced it was anything but I replaced EVERYTHING else first. I had random programs that the system just didn't' seem to like, but everything else was fine. HD made me suspicious but passed every test. Had write failures and BSDs. Fooled me for a long time a chunk of change. IF that is your temperature I would immediately start by blowing out the CPU (if you are allowed to open the case. Do you have a warranty?)

A high temperature can/will damage your CPU. Chances are it was installed incorrectly either by overclocking it, using an inappropriate fan, or not using thermal paste in the correct way. This is a big deal and could explain a lot of your issues. You also will likely need to replace the CPU even if cooling it helps as it may be damaged by the heat.

In the mean time do not try and play games or do anything CPU heavy. That will only make it hotter. The BIOS may let you set a shutdown temperature, but it may just annoy you further now that the harm has been done.

Best advice now is find you a new system builder. That and try not to freak out. This sort of thing is annoying, and very hard to figure out even if you have been doing it a while.

Yeah, I'm past the freakout phase, and into the simply pissed about it phase.

I know something is overclocked on it, but I'm 99% it's only the GPU. I can't remember from when it was ordered though, and the only overclock settings I ever remember finding were in the AMD Catalyst Control Panel.

I don't know if the USB ports are or aren't hooked up, but given that there are pairs, and half of every pair doesn't work (as opposed to several pairs working, and several not working), I'd assume that they're just plain broken. And they've been that way since I got it. Even one of the front USB ports doesn't work.

I don't know what all is wrong with it, but given that they (CyberPower) are an entire company dedicated to creating custom computers, and they fucked up this badly with a computer that isn't constantly being used for gaming (I think if I had to be honest, I game about 30% of the time spent on the computer, and most of the ganes are older, non-intensive games, though yeah, some are intensive), that I will never buy from them again. And hearing their customer service is pretty bad doesn't give me hope that they'll fix it.

That is so weird. The connectors are generally arranged in pairs on the MOBO which connect to the pairs on the system case. It almost sounds like they had more external ports than connections so they wired up one in each location instead of just leaving one pair dormant. Sometimes a case can leave the USB connection pins separate or in two parts, but its unlikely they would just happen to have such an ordered 50% failure rate. It more like a deliberate action.( It would be quite obvious if they did that once the case was off)

I've left dormant ports on my own systems but I would think that if I were selling custom builds I would have a more consumer friendly solution to the problem. At least remove or plug up the dormant ports. Maybe even add an internal USB card to wire them up to. OR just don't sell case MOBO case combos where the case has more ports than the MOBO.

BTW there are MotherBoard embedded ports that are part of the back panel which are not wired up by a builder. In theory all those should work just fine and it would be all the case mounted ones that have issues. Is that accurate? If not then you just have one screwy system. And sorry its tough when your rig is on the fritz. They are so important to daily use now that its hard to be without one.