Computer freezes randomly --> which new HDD?

[rcallicotte]

There are free utilities to check the integrity of your drive to see if your MBR is failing or if there are such weaknesses. 

[scott8933]

Correct, OpenGL would be included in the Nvidia install. Bear in mind - especially in the case of video card drivers and Windows there are often good combinations and deadly combinations, and the newest driver may be the latter. Sometimes you need to install a particular older driver and the problems will magically go away.

Unfortunately, the Terragen community is too small for people to jump on this. Its more common in Maya or Max circles, where everyone knows to stay away from version x.xxx driver and only use x.xyyx instead.

However....given the more random nature of your condition I'd be inclined to narrow it down to a failing drive.

So my last ideas - c: drive going bad (though its a brand new XP install, its a fairly old drive) or an Open-GL issue. The last thing I'm going to try is to replace the OpenGL drivers, then I'm going to drop the computer in the ocean. That will fix it once and for all.

Haha, brilliant

Annoying you have the same problems too I have uninstalled all the videocard-drivers and replaced them with the latest WHQL drivers from Nvidia. Guess that's also OpenGL?

I'm very very much afraid the c-drive is indeed going bad, but now the crashes seem to be over and I was able to render for >10hours without any hassle.
There's absolutely no pattern or any prediction possible.

Thanks for thinking along.

Martin

[Tangled-Universe]

Thank you Scott, that really makes sense.

So, I already have pretty much decided to purchase a new HDD. The current one is, at least I think, a Samsung Spinpoint 320GB.

Which one do you guys recommend? Are Seagate drives more stable or WD? Are 15k rpm drives really that faster and also more reliable than standard 7,2k rpm drives?

[PG]

I have two Western Digitals and a Seagate, the seagate always restarts itself and squeaks, but the western digital is fine. I used to have a maxtor (who now own seagate) but that kept restarting itself until it started screaming and then died. I'd say Western Digital because I've never had problems but I'm sure someone will jump in saying they wouldn't touch WD with a bargepole and all their stuff is crap. It's the way of things unfortunately. You have one bad experience and condemn them for life. Even when they stop doing the one you had.

[rcallicotte]

I always check the most recent reviews on Newegg.  This is a good place to get a general idea about a drive.  Western Digital is doing pretty good, last I checked there.

[Mohawk20]

I have Samsung drives, and I just bought a 1Tb SATA drive for only €99

About the rpm...
There used to be 10k drives, but those crashed more often. This was a good analogy for the reason of the crashes: it's the same as a fighter jet flying at top speed only a coin thick from the ground (that's about 2 millimeters). So 15k would be even more likely to crash and burn. It wouldn't be pretty.