...a strange Hardware Prob...

[jekonel]

Hi everyone,

I have encountered some strange hardware problems lately, and usually I was able to make the machine working again, on just my own, but now I stumbled across something I cannot understand, so I would like to adress to all you pro's: :o

First my harddrive stopped working while I was just using the machine from one moment to the other, hanging the system. I tried to reboot, and the entry for primary master in the bootup-sequence of the bios just showed crap.

I wondered if my harddrive just blew up, so i checked all the cables first to ensure there would be no problems and felt for heat inside the machine, and well the harddrive could be described as quite hot.

I bought a new harddrive (and a new gfx-card to be complete) yesterday, and managed to get my old drive working in another pc, to transfer my data. everything went pretty fine, so I tried to reinstall it into my pc to try it out again, but the same failure occured occured again. :rolleyes:

I then decided to install my XP-Pro onto the new drive and this worked fine, I installed my software and worked for a few hours, and - from one moment to the other - I got a bluescreen. I restarted the machine and - well, the primary master entry just showed crap again, drive a little warm... where did I knew this from... :eek:

I tried all of the cabelling, removed all cdroms, and tried the drive on the primary and secondary controller... nothing worked.
I was a little curious, and put my old drive back in place, and was very surprised to find it working without problems the whole night long.

So, what is broken in this machine ? My first thoughts went to the direction of the mainboard, bios and/or powersupply. I really dont have any idea what to do as a next step, as well as I dont have the money for a whole new machine...

I would really appreciate your help :o

regards
jan

[Catweazle]

I would be replacing the power supply unit in your circumstance. I'd be too suspicious of it. I'd be inclined to replace the drive data cable as well.

[jekonel]

Just to be complete: the newer harddrive is shredded. its not working anywhere now anymore... gotta change this one at the shop tday...

thx for the advice with the powersupply maybe i get a cheap new mainboard as well.

one thing i am wondering is heat... would a harddrive show errors like this when overheated...? should i cut a few new airholes into the machine? (already has a few made with an angle grinder for supporting the airflow) or add another fan?

[Catweazle]

I'd be suspecting that the drives got hot because they blew up! A faulty power supply unit can do that to your components, and when things blow up they tend to get somewhat hot. Hard drives don't generally suffer from overheating really. I've had fast drives in high powered systems, thought about adding fans to cool the drives and when I've checked their temperature they simply haven't got hot enough to warrant the effort.

One more thing to consider though. Are those drives mounted near a fan powered intake vent that you've cut with that angle grinder? Were the holes cut with the drives fitted? Is there any chance that metal dust is being suvcked into the drives, or perhaps dust sucked into them?

If that case isn't clean, and fine dust or metal powder is getting into the drives that'd explain them failing ;)

[jekonel]

No, I made the intakes when the case was new, and nothing installed in it, and thoroughly cleaned afterwards... there is actually no airslot very close to the diskdrives.. it worked with the case for a few years now, just thought about adding a few slots to make the drives get a fresh breath of air ;-)
Maybe the new powersupp will do it... I will get one within the next hour, found a cheap one at a local store and exchange the mainboard as well for a cheap solution.

I will keep you informed ;-)

[jekonel]

except for having bought a cheap "AsRock K7VT4A pro" (which I hereby recommend to LEAVE it at your local dealer and NOT take it home :-) everything went fine. It surely was the powersupply, cuz the mainboard (the old one) worked.
Thanks for your help :-)