Applications on second drive crash Windows

[loki_racer]

Here's the setup. I have an 80GB SSD as my main drive. Windows, Adobe Creative Suite and a few games are installed on it. All my other apps (Thunderbird, Pidgin, SQLYog, NuSphere, etc.) are installed a 1TB ST31000528AS Seagate Barracuda. I recently uninstalled a number of apps from a third drive, removed it from the PC, and reinstalled those apps on the Barracuda (this was in response to the PC crashing a lot, in an attempt to see if it was the now removed hdd that was causing issue).

This is my work PC and gaming PC (work from home). During the day, when I am running my web dev applications, the PC will randomly stop responding. I can more the mouse, hear sound from mp3's that are playing. I can't close applications, open applications, move application windows, or get Task Manager to open.

Sometimes, if I leave the PC long enough, a MS window will pop up saying the application as stopped responding, please close it. If I do this, sometimes the PC will recover. Most of the time, this warning window doesn't show up.

At night, I can game (Neverwinter Nights 2) for hours on end and never see a hiccup.

Sometimes the HDD sounds like it spending up when the PC crash occurs. This is a "green" drive, so I'm wondering if it is spinning down while "not in use" then Windows panics when an application needs that drive, causing the crash.

Is there a way to have Windows tell that HDD to never "go green" and always be spinning?

I have run Intel's SSD checking app on the SDD, with no errors. I ran a Windows check disk on the HDD with zero errors found. I have run a ESET full virus scan, and HitMan Pro and Malwarebytes scans, with zero warnings.

Another note, maybe useful, maybe not. I have Windows set to use no disk page caching. As I have 16GB of ram and I don't like Windows filling up my precious SSD space, I have turned page caching off (which moves it to RAM I believe). I have tried turning page caching back on to see if that was the issue, it was not.

Edit: I forgot to mention. Usually, Windows errors logs hold nothing. A crash just happened and I got

Failed extract of third-party root list from auto update cab at: <http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/authrootstl.cab> with error: The data is invalid.
.

I have tried not running one of my common apps for extended periods to narrow down if it is an app or hardware. So far, the crashes happen no matter what apps are running.

 

[Tsuyoi]

"a MS window will pop up saying the application as stopped responding, please close it"

Does it say which application it was? Chances are one of the third party applications you installed is running in the background and causing crashes. Note that if it's a legit software, spyware programs will not catch it.

I would look into your windows startup and prefetch folders, and boot options, see what's running when the computer starts up.

To eliminate the possibility of it being hardware, run it in safe mode + networking for a few hours, see what happens.

 

[loki_racer]

It does not say which application.

I have nothing in startup, almost no services running, nada.

I can run it for hours playing a games just fine. It's only when using applications of some sort.

 

[Tsuyoi]

I would suggest starting it in safe mode with networking, and stress testing it with various apps one at a time until you find the culprit.

 

[loki_racer]

I would suggest starting it in safe mode with networking, and stress testing it with various apps one at a time until you find the culprit.

I've tried this. There's no method to the madness of when it crashes.

None of this answers my main question. Is there any way to tell a HDD to not "sleep". I can hear the HDD spin up when the crashes occur.

 

[Tsuyoi]

It should be a bios setting. Which MoBo and HDD are you using?