Computer hangs with high Hard Faults/sec

My Win 8.1 system has been running quite poorly as of late. It will be running beautifully, and then suddenly bogs down. Programs will stop responding, usually recover, but not always. FPS in games drops, from near 100 in SW:TOR to 0-10 fps. I've also seen Chrome's pages turning white if i'm not on them... but I assume that is a separate chrome issue.


So before we get started, specs!


CPU: i5 2500k, stock clocks.
Mobo: Z68XP-UD3
Memory: 2x4gb DDR3
GPU: 6870 2gb GDDR5
Storage: 1tb HDD...don't remember the model number at the time.


Keep in mind, when these issues began, I had made no new changes to my system.


So I've scanned my drive for malware with Malwareantibytes, SAS, Defender, Kaspersky online, Nod32 online, ran adware and junkware cleaners. None of them found anything. So I zero'd the drive and did a fresh install of Win 8.1 The problem continues. I scanned my HDD with Seagate tools (short test) and I've ran the Windows Memory Test. Everything has checked out. I've updated the drivers as well, ran chkdsks and sfc/scannows Nothing.


I checked my CPU temps, they were high (at times reaching over 90c with Prime95) so I applied new thermal paste and dropped the temps massively and the problem still persists.


I have cleaned out my internals, so I don't believe it is a heat issue of any sort.


I have noticed quite a bit of hard drive activity, the disk light flashes a lot, but as I said the disc checks out.


While gaming, I have opened the Resource Monitor and found that whenever my system bogs down, programs not responding etc, my Hard Faults/sec go through the rough. 300-3k+ Every time. While my memory isn't fully used yet, running around 40-60%. And when this happens, my HDD light goes berserk and my drive activity goes up. I've found that this happens not only when gaming, but when Chrome hangs, or anything else. Every last thing on this computer hangs and freezes. Opening the charms bar lags or wouldn't happen, searching for a program in search is very delayed. Typing takes ages to show up when it's lagging, etc.


My only thought is that it's either the Hard Drive or Memory, but both have checked out.


So...any thoughts? I'm genuinely at a loss, and can only imagine it's my hard-drive or memory.


Edit: Sorry if this is the wrong sub-forum, mods please move if it is.

Additional Details: All drivers are up to date, all updates have been installed, my voltage doesn't go low from what I can tell. I did have a problem where my PSU was grounding through the chassis at one point, I switched outlets and that is all taken care of. There are no burn marks etc on my mobo.

You can try this tut:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/37511-optimize-performance-windows-8-a.html

topgundcp said:

You can try this tut:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/37511-optimize-performance-windows-8-a.html

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, most of that if not all if it is irrelevant. You shouldn't need to go tweaking (which I already have) to gain performance back on an otherwise stable system.

I'm wondering if Nod32 wrecked my hard-drive. I believe when I installed a trial of it, that is when performance took a giant hit. And has stayed ever since. I have heard of Nod32 damaging drives...but I haven't really looked into it.

Well, you did not mention anything about Nod32 until now. How did you uninstall it ? did you use their uninstaller ? Nod32 will leave junks behind if you used Windows Uninstaller.

topgundcp said:

Well, you did not mention anything about Nod32 until now. How did you uninstall it ? did you use their uninstaller ? Nod32 will leave junks behind if you used Windows Uninstaller.

Click to expand...

I used Revo Uninstaller (Revo Uninstaller uses the built in Uninstaller then goes further and cleans any remnants), but this was all before I zero'd my drive. So the problem should not persist through a zeroing and clean install.

I use Revo Uninstaller myself. However, for any anti virus software, you'd need to use their own Uninstallers. Since you've already reinitialized the disk then that shouldn't be any problem.

Without knowing the whole picture of how you've set up your system, what applications/Programs you've installed. I suggest you download:Process Lasso Portable Edition (No installation required), run it and monitor and try to catch what process is running when the disk starts making noise.
Good luck !!!

I already monitor the process through Task Manager / Performance Monitor. Nothing is taking up anything more than normal.

Also, Revo Uninstaller uses the AV's own uninstaller, like any other program.

This seems to be a hardware issue. If you have spare SATA cables, just change them, use RAMmap to diagnose memory consumption characteristics of installed software in more detail, also check your BIOS whether your RAM modules are using their default clock values. If you run your hardware overclocked, revert to stock values and see what happens.


I'm not saying you have faulty hardware, because access violations and BSODs would be more certain to occur in that case, and most notably, CRC errors when writing files to your hard drive (or simply immediately corrupted files after the writing is done without apparent error messages), there just seems to be a communication error between them for some reason.


Long story short, you shouldn't encounter high hard faults and hanging apps unless you are out of memory, and Windows desperately tries to come up for it using the page file ... with 8GB of RAM that's highly unlikely, so hardware issues is all you have left to look into.

Just to be clear on what a hard page fault is, and what it is not. A page fault, either soft or hard, is not a fault or error, at least not in the normal sense of the word. It is a perfectly normal and essential operation by the system memory manager.

There are 2 kinds of page faults, soft and hard. Soft page faults, which constitute the large majority, are resolved entirely in memory with no disk access at all. A hard page fault requires disk access. But they need not involve the pagefile and can occur even when the pagefile is disabled. In fact the majority of pagefaults do not involve the pagefile at all. Almost any file in the computer could be the subject of a pagefault.

Page faults are a difficult concept and I will not describe them further.

A high number of hard page fault are often thought of as indicating a memory shortage, and that is frequently the case. But not always. It may simply mean an application is doing a lot of disk IO.

To confirm or rule out this being a memory problem it would be useful to see a screenshot of Resource monitor, memory tab , with the process list sorted by hard faults, taken when the problem occurs.

First you call my deliberately made mistakes false misconceptions while i'm trying to explain hard fault and its implications on the frontend in the clearest, most commonly understandable way possible, then you basically point to the same issue ... how very nice of you.

LMiller7 said:

Page faults are a difficult concept and I will not describe them further.

Click to expand...

Maybe i should have chosen this approach instead.

I never meant to imply that anyone who has current posted had any misconceptions about pagefaults. But I have no way of knowing for certain. It is a common misconception. My post was written with the recognition that many reading these posts in years to come will have such misconceptions.

Has anyone found a solution to this. Same issue running windows 7 tho PC specs
CPU-Amd FX 8350 8core 4.01GHz ,
RAM-Corsair 2x8 GB,
HDD-1TB, SSD-240GB,
MOBO-Asus Sabertooth 990FX,
PSU-Corsair 850w,
GPU-Radeon HD7970 :