Games stuttering, PC makes grinding noises

[Narrat0r]

I bought this PC 3 months ago:
Intel i5-760 2.80 GHz
ATI Radeon 5500 HD
3 GB DDR2

So far I have been satisfied, games ran well, e.t.c. But recently, I noticed that a lot of my games (Angry Birds, Magicka, Black Ops, New Vegas) "stutter" for no apparent reason. It's like a game pauses for a millisecond and plays. And it happens every 5 seconds - so annoying! I scanned the PC for viruses, nothing present. I close all demanding programs - still stuttering. I also hear a lot of medium grinding noises from the PC. Can anyone please help me? I'm desperate!

EDIT: Made a scan on HD Tune Pro. Says that I have a damaged sector in Reallocated Sector Count. Could this be any kind of what's causing the problem?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Stuttering and grinding generally points towards your hard disk haveing a mechanical fault. The stuttering is caused by the game waiting for I/O from the hard disk which is not arriving (or is arriving incorrectly or slowly).

 

[Narrat0r]

So what do I need to do?

 

[Dr Super Good]

A new hard disk may fix it.

 

[Narrat0r]

Any way to fix the current one? It'd be a shame for 1TB to go to waste just like that...

 

[BlargHonk]

Nope.

Anyways, shut it off and don't turn it back on until you get a new drive.

Then transfer everything you want off it. It could fail at any time.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Probably not. Hard Disks are not meant to last forever and actually have the higest failure rate of all hardware in computers (especially cheaper ones).

 

[Narrat0r]

Experimented a bit. I lowered anti-aliasing in Black Ops to none, everything else max. Works fine and smooth. While having AA, I have the same stuttering problem.
Also, a lot of people complain about their Magicka game stuttering. But I still have it on Angry Birds. Aaaand Darksiders.
Could it NOT be the HDD?

 

[Dr Super Good]

It can also happen if memory is a problem in your computer and it is forced to write virtual memory to disc.

 

[BlargHonk]

Wait.... how do you have 3gb of DDR2? i7's only work with DDR3.....

 

[Dr Super Good]

Well its an i5 but yeh, the "i" range only works with DDR3...

Anyway, a grinding noise has 3 causes.
1. A broken hard disk (some form of mechanical damage or problem with it).
2. A fan (most common cause, it just is scraping against the casing or its socket).
3. An Optical Disc Drive (the disc it is reading will usually be rubbish after any period of such a sound).

Try and listen to where it is comming from.

 

[Narrat0r]

I got this - the grinding happens just occasionally, and has nothing to do with stuttering.
But here's a random thought - would installing Windows 7 fix the stuttering issue?

 

[Dr Super Good]

In that case it is a fan, and nothing really to worry about. Just check that all fans are working otherwise you run the risk of thermal resistance of the heatsink going too high.

Try disabling audio and music to see if it makes a difference. Perodic stuttering I heard can be caused by sound cards.

 

[Narrat0r]

Disabled audio, still stutters. However, the grinding actually isn't just occasional. It starts whenever it loads a game or opens a program. And while I'm typing this, I do hear occasional "hurrk" "durrk" from my PC.
As I askedearlier, what are the chances that installing Windows 7 would fix the issue?

 

[Dr Super Good]

In that case its your hard disk.

Windows 7 does not fix hardware faults.

 

[Adiktuz]

As I askedearlier, what are the chances that installing Windows 7 would fix the issue?

nope, since OS would have nothing to do on a hardware problem...

also if ever it was a problem with lack of memory, installing win7 would probably worsen it since win7 takes more memory and games running on win7 also requires more memory than on xp...

and I'm still wondering on how that pc uses ddr2 RAM when it uses i5 processor (which only supports ddr3 RAM)...