If it was a hardware issue, that's one thing, but:
I despise the "fresh install"/"just format it" response to problems - it shows that nobody really knows wtf is going on and/or can't help you, but maybe starting from a clean slate will make it not broken? (Until it happens again and you need to clean-slate it, naturally). Wreaks of Windows ME-level quality in both software and software support.
The "format it for Linux anyway" argument seems a litte fallacious to me. You'd have to format it to put any other OS on it, sure. The point is to get to a state (OS/whatever) where you don't have to resort to random "nuke blasting" methods to fix something.
If formatting once for Linux means I never have to nuke it from space again to fix an issue, then yeah, I'll take it.
But, as the grandparent said, this sounds more like a hardware issue,