"typical consumer" Lol, well that pretty much describes me and everyone I've built a computer for in the last 20 years.

Games, movies, music, YouTube and random web browsing... yep, that just about covers it. 

Maybe this is a software question rather than a hardware question, but here goes:

So I've been playing a few Quake 3 Arena maps for inspiration (and curiosity to see what some people whose Q1 maps I know have done for Q3) and then suddenly two of the maps I had in my baseq directory stopped working, as in, the little preview screen that you normally see just showed a Q3A logo and the map name was scrambled and the game wouldn't load the map. I tried deleting the maps and replacing them with fresh downloads but no dice.

Then I read on the internet that if files randomly become corrupt, that can be a sign of the start of HDD failure. Might this be the case? Or is Q3A (I run it via ioquake on Linux) known to be quirky?

I also heard some disturbing noises at one stage, but this was months ago and went away: a sort of a krrr-click, krrr-click. I thought back then my HDD was about to die, but as I said, the noises went away and never came back. 

Also: if I do need to replace the HDD, is it worth going for an SSD when the laptop isn't that great to begin with? Will it help at all (in terms of speed) with mapping, or is mapping more reliant on memory + CPU? 

If you don't have a good back up, make one now.

There are utilities to scan and check hard drives.

If it turns out that it needs replacing, go for an SSD unless you need a really large capacity (over 500 GB). 

I tried deleting the maps and replacing them with fresh downloads but no dice.

can you also try this:

rename the broken map to something else
unzip a fresh copy
try to run the fresh copy

i think if you overwrite a file and the size is the same, the hdd will just reuse the same sectors instead of writing to a new place on the disk. if you rename, the original will keep the sectors it is using and the hdd will need to allocate a different part of the disk to the fresh copy of the map.

if this makes the map work, then that definitely indicates that the original copy became corrupted on the desk.

have you tried running a disk scan? also, try getting speedfan and then checking the SMART info on your hdd to see if it is reporting errors of failing health checks.

regarding ssd in any computer: in all but the first piece of shit computer, and ssd is going to be a huge performance boost. it is the single best upgrade you can do to your computer; plus, ssds are quite cheap now. 

first = worst

why are words failing me. :S 

Ok, you've sold me on the SSD option. :)

I think I have the most important stuff backed up, but I'll double-check (I'm not on the computer with the suspect HDD at the moment; I'm using my really shitty backup computer at the moment that's only good for light internet usage as I was afraid of sudden catastrophic hard-drive failure on my main computer without a proper plan of action at the ready).

speedfan is Windows-only, I think? But it looks like badblocks will work for checking the HDD under Linux. And thank you for the tip about renaming the map files; I'll try that too.


I've heard that with HDDs, you should try not to use too much of the drive's capacity, as in, your HDD shouldn't be 90% full, as this will slow down the system. If true, is that the case with SSDs as well? I'm just asking because on my budget, I'm looking at SSDs with a smaller capacity than my currently 60%-full HDD... 

No noticeable slowdown on my ssd when it's full. 

 

The manufacturer of the drive should also have utilities for checking for problems and reading the SMART info.

The only issue I can think of with a too full drive is that Windows Defrag requires some free space to run. That's not an issue with SSDs because defragmenting them is not recommended. 

well, i don't know if it's still like this for ssds, but you should partition the disk to something like 90% for the actual usage, and leave 10% unpartitioned to give the drive room to move things around. i forget the details but you can google that.

also, look into using linux on a usb stick to do a complete drive copy bit for bit to your new drive. you can continue where you left off like you never changed hardware. 

 

Still haven't got round to sorting out my primary computer (thanks again for the responses!), but my back-up computer (an old netbook) has some odd issues too, and as I haven't been able to find answers on the rest of the internet, I thought I might ask here...

So the odd thing is that whenever I start up the netbook, it opens a few applications automatically: a File Manager window, an image viewer programme and one or two other things. Basically, it behaves as if it's remembering the last few things I had open before I last shut the system down. The problem is, these are not things I had open; I had them open a few months ago when this started happening -- it's as if the system keeps restoring itself to a state from a few months ago.

I'm using Linux Mint, and under System --> Sessions and Startup I've made sure that none of these applications are set to auto-start, and that the system does not save my session when I log out.

So I've been wondering whether this is a hardware problem, and to my complete layperson's mind, it seems like there could be something wrong with the ram? As in, it never gets cleared and keeps "remembering" stuff it should long ago have discarded? Or is that a laughably misinformed idea? 

Ram forgets everything as soon as power is cut. Sounds like a software problem to me. 

Looking at start-up preferences would be my first guess but you did that.

sudo sed -i 's/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g' /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop

Apparently that command will display ALL startup application preferences. You could see if it is hiding in there. 

Bloughsburgh, that command does nothing on my system, unless I'm missing something. Am I supposed to get some sort of output in the terminal? Because I get nothing... 

I think that command un-hides the hidden preferences in the startup applications section you referenced. Try looking there now that the command has been ran.

That's about as much knowledge as I can provide. 

Thanks. It seems not to have un-hid anything that wasn't previously unhidden, though. Oh well.

Thank you very much for trying to help. 

The system probably seems to restore an old saved session and this has nothing to do with ram and probably nothin with autostart applications.

See if there are files in $HOME/.cache/sessions and try to move them away then reboot.

Restoring a session is done by your login manager which in Linux Mints case should be MDM if I'm not mistaken. Try too google for disabling session restoring. It's probably some old session config laying around in your homedirectory and would be fixable by moving these files away so the system regenerates them from a default one. 

I just rebooted and the problem seems to have resolved itself, but I have no idea how that happened.

I looked in ~/.cache/sessions as you suggested, but it had nothing except for a single .png image image file. After rebooting (with the system finally starting up again as it should) I looked again and saw a new .state file, which seems to have been newly generated; there was nothing like this when I last looked. So it's as you said it would be, only I didn't remove any old session config files...

Didn't manage to find anything on disabling session restoring via MDM.

In any case, thank you very much for all the information. 

I was just wondering, do any of you use anti-static precautions when swapping out computer parts -- in particular laptop parts? Is it crucial when swapping out an HDD/SSD, or are those things shielded already? How about RAM chips?

The internet seems to be full of very conflicting opinions on this, ranging from "it's the most important thing ever and you'll destroy your computer otherwise, often in insidious ways you won't notice immediately" to "eh, I build pcs for a living and do so in woolen slippers while rubbing a balloon on my head".

Also, lots of conflicting advice on what do do, ranging from effectively plugging yourself into the mains via a specially-made device (the instructions seem specifically aimed at people living in the US, though, which I don't) to touching the metal chassis of the computer once in a while (which doesn't help in the case of a laptop). Some say the former method will do more harm than good; others say the latter is completely useless. So I'm pretty confused and scared (which is the human condition, I guess).

So what do you do? 

Assembled boards are not as susceptible to ESD damage as their individual components are, but the risk is still there. The computer industry is a cut throat business. They wouldn't waste money on static protection packaging if it wasn't necessary.

If a computer has a power supply installed and it's plugged into a grounded outlet, then touching the metal case immediately before handling or installing parts may be good enough.

I always work on PCs in the kitchen where there is no carpet and frequently touch the water faucet to get rid of any static build up. Remember to only handle cards and memory sticks by the edges and stay away from the contacts. Never touch the pins on the processor.

Also, it's true that ESD damage may not show up immediately. 

I recently killed a raspberry pi by casting lightning from my finger tips. The danger depends a lot on your environment and clothes. Touch some grounded, blank metal (heating usually works). To be double safe, undress beforehand... ;) 

Wear rubber shoes with as little tread as you can, only stand on shagpile carpet, make sure that you lubricate the case with water for easier fitment of devices and Wear a tall metallic hate while building the computer in a lightning storm outside.