Where would I go from here, I would get a hard drive testing tool and run a full scan. Each drive manufacturer generally has their own tool to scan their drives, but I've always had decent luck with Seatools. Running the long scan can take a few minutes for a failure or a few hours! This would be done best in a fully working computer. Someone may recommend a better program.
Next, I would move to the PSU. Its possible that its sending bad voltages. This happened to a customers computer once. Caused this same type of issue and fried 1 hard drive and 2 SSD's before we found it.
I think someone else in here also mentioned checking the USB ports. I've seen 2 computers in the last month with broken USB tongues. Its easy to miss and you'll still jam USB device in there, bending the pins. Sometimes the pins will ground out on the outer USB casing. For some computers it will keep it from booting. On others it will freeze the computer every once and a while. Mostly when your doing something important... because computers are jerks.
Run a linux distro off a usb with the wd hdd unplugged. - if no freezing with the usb distro - backup wd hdd data and turf it or give SpinRite a go (link) it may be able to bring your hdd back to life as its truly an amazing piece of software, steve's podcast is great as well by the way..
New HDD in place, win 8.1 install through thumbdrive, screen freezes, white dots start appearing top half of the screen, force shutdown holding power button is only option. I'm taking it all appart and burn it to the ground...
So, I arrived home with brand new HDD.. As you probably read it froze.. So I completely took it out of the case (should'va donde this before, but needed second drive anyway) and I see no freeze so far... Installed 8.1 and been transfering my files for half an hour now. How would you go on from here? Thanks a lot, should have listened to people I asked for help
that indicates that your problem is most likely related to your case, or motherboard mounting.
Double check your case front usb posts, if those are damaged in any way? Front usb ports suffer allot, and can get worn very quickly. Wenn those pins are worn and toutch eachother, you will get shots to the mobo headers, which will cause such strange freezings.
Next to that motherboard mounting, screws, and io shield. Double check if your io shield is installed properly, make sure if the shield has metal lips on the inside, that those dont contact the pcb in the wrong way. This can lead to shorts aswell. Next is mounting screws, double check if you use the right mounting screws, somethimes you get screws and a sach with little rings which you could use on your screws for mounting the motherboard. But i have not seen that with newer cases.
Now it just restarts... I don't even have a clue anymore... Triple checked EVERYTHING like you said, no bent pins whatsoever... RMA on the motherboard and see what happens.. I'm sick of this
Edit: Okay, I see a patrern here, nos sure the issue though.. I have a folder that has wallpapers for my dual monitor setup 3840x1080 If I go to that forlder, the pc restarts... Any ideas?
[Edit 2] entered a second time to that folder.. Took a wile to load the parent folder, froze when trying to load the thumbnails........
Gonna spend the rest of the night disassembling once again and testing.. I had already put it all together in the case except extra connectors or peripherals that I would've tried one by one...
I think I remember reading something about this problem when loading hi res thumbnails... will update
I there a way to verify file integrity? I'm guessing that's the problem here as I hadn't notice any problems untill my files were transfered and the pc back in the case.. Also froze again when Browsing for a photo to assign to my user account, so that must be it
I think the freezing is likely to do with driver issues with the sata (I tthink it's the driver timing the system thread out)... had the same issue with an optical drive on xp unplugged sata to optical fixed the freezing but second boot shit didn't go away maybe motherboard ... in a more paranoid state I might suggest your box might be owned... how legit is your windows?
could be that some of your old data is corrupted But that basicly should not lead to a re-starting machine normaly i guess.
maybe if you have a second drive, on which you could copy your old data to. And just repartition the main os drive to just one partition. Might be an option, but it still sounds realy weird to me.
I can't actually believe this... I just got a response from the guy I should go to in case of RMA.. This motherboard, Gigabyte 970a-UD3P (rev 2.0) is not compatible with either kit of HyperX ram sticks I own...