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Hey there,
we've got another computer for my little sister and brother. They use it mainly just for surfing through the net or playing games. The problem is that when we bought this pc, after few months the harddisc died, we only got the windows loading screen and it would just reboot till we would shut it down. Couldn't format, it said something like "this disc is unusable" or something similar when trying to(we got finnish windows xp, so don't know the correct translation for the error). We got a new harddrive and everything was working ok, until the samething happened.
Now this has happened with 5 harddiscs, so is there something wrong with my other components that might cause the harddrive dying after few months of usage. Or is it just bad harddiscs?Athlon XP 2600+
Radeon 9700 pro
ASUS a7v600
Kingston 512mb
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA
Raptoxx rt-450w 1.3 psu(only few months old, earlie we had an older enermax 300w)
Win XP with sp2So in short:
new harddisc, few months of usage(the last one lasted for 6 months) after that won't get into windows nor in safemode, can't format, bring back the harddisc and repeat from start.
Seagate has a five year warranty. What did the Seagate service person tell you might be the problem when you sought assistance in returning all the damaged drives for a new one? Do you take the computer to LAN parties or move it around when the computer is running? Do you defrag regularly or use software like Diskeeper to defrag the drive automatically? Do you use peer to peer programs and download a lot of files that might contain malware that will damage your system?
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What type of privileges do your brother and sister have? Perhaps they are doing something to crash the machine. Seems like quite the koinkidink that this has happened five times.
Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!
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Yes all the drives has been the same model.
I haven't spoke to any "official Seagate service person" only to those who work for the shop where we bought harddisc. They confirmed that the disc is broken and gave a new one. And when asking what could be causing they only suggested that I should change the sata cable, always a new cable with a new harddisc. Same story always, and they won't give us another model.
No the computer always stays at home, I don't regurlary defrag. You mean like file sharing programs? If yes, then no we don't use any of them. Sister uses MSN Messenger sometimes and downloads pictures, but it's mainly used for gaming and surfing. PC-cilling and adaware to keep the system clean. I don't use the computer myself so can't really be sure if they download something malicious, I just do the weekly checking and when something found it's removed.
Oh and the last harddisc was working perfect, the computer didn't crash a single time, the last time I switched it off, I didn't notice anything unsual and on the next morning when switching on, the windows wouldn't load anymore.They have both administrator priviledges, but I doubt that they have messed up something. And I've told them that if something is wrong they need to tell me it immedeatly(e.g if it crashes or isn't responging anymore). And as I said the computer didn't crash a single time with the last harddisc.
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agree with Sabertooth... even if it was somehow infected by malicious software, the HD can still be reformatted and re-installed without hardware issues.
The fact that the HDs are physically failing seems to suggest hardware issue with another device and/or dirty power.
Recommend checking voltages on your PSU by booting into BIOS. Check that the 3v, 5v, and 12v are all showing accurate readings and not fluctuating too much.
Additionally you might have a bad power issue witht he wiring in your house (sometimes noticeable by lights flickering, etc.). Highly recommend putting the PC on a UPS and see if the problem continues... having on a surge protector only will protect against surges, but not low voltages. Also if you have a bad PSU replace it with a PSU that has Active Power Factor Correction (PFC).... Antec is one good maker of these (others too for sure).. this will do some minor corrections to bad power but still not as good as a good UPS.
Also I see that you have recently replaced your PSU, if your old one went bad it may have done some component damage before being replaced.
Just some ideas.
Let me know how it goes!
Michael
Live, Love & Google!
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did some research on your PSU, and in later versions than yours they only used a two-wire load for the PSU which means the "supply" or "source" of the power from the PSU was being shared to all devices by means of only two wires. With other devices that consume a good amount of power (your graphics card) this could cause a fluctuations on the load lines and possible device failure.
Maybe check and see if your graphics card and HD are on the same on the same load line and switch to separate lines if they are. Additionally I would be interested to know how many HDs have crashed on each PSU, or if they have all crashed on the new one.
Also are you using any kind of a HD hot swap tray that could be supplying the power to the drive (ie. psu -> power -> hot swap try -> HD) or is the power coming directly from the PSU? If so and if possible you might want to try a direct connection of power from the PSU to the HD to see if the device in between is somehow dirtying the power.
I'm leaning heavily on Power/Supply/PSU issues, but that's just my thoughts on the matter.
Hope that helps!
Michael
Live, Love & Google!
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oh sorry.. here's the link to the article:
http://www.hw-center.com/Scripte/Artikel/uartikel.php?id=105
might want to pop it into Google and "Translate" first if you don't read German ;-)
Live, Love & Google!
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I checked for the voltages and I had 3.3x V, 5.0x V and 12.6x V, didn't fluctuate much.
Also forgot to mention that I had some overheating problems with CPU with the old PSU and that's why we bought the new one and the problem was gone.
The harddisc had own cable directly from the psu.
This was the first harddisc with the new psu, all the other ones with the old enermax psu.
We have had other PCs in that room also, but they haven't had any kind of problems, also we got other 2 PCs working just fine without UPS.
Oh thanks for all the replies so far.
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thanks for the additional info that helps a bit.
Have you also checked to see that you case is not overheating (since you mentioned CPU was)? Not all computers are the same so some will overheat quicker than other depending on others. But nice to know the other PCs in the same room are fine so you should be able to rule out power from the source.
I would now look at a couple possibilities:
1) Overheating Issue
2) Possibly another bad PSU
3) No issue at all and HD failure was just a bad HDThe only reason I bring up #3 is becuase you mentioned that the previous failures were on the old PSU that you knew had issues... so the you shouldn't rely too heavily on those for establishing a pattern for new failures.
Let me know if this makes sense. There should be some monitoring software that you can use to see the temp of the hard drive (everest for one that I know of) and possibly even software to see the voltage that the HD is getting.
I would start checking these two possible issues out. Heating should be an easy check.
Let me know how it goes!
thanks.
Michael
Live, Love & Google!
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I doubt that there were any overheating issues with the disc because there was a fan blowing air in right under the harddisk, though can't be sure, haven't ever checked the harddisc temperature. Had also two other fans blowing air in and out to the case and the case tempareture was about 30C, if I remember correctly.
Also I went today to the shop to replace the harddisc, though didn't get a new one, they wanted to investigate it. I only told them that it was the 5th harddisc that failed on the same system, and then he started to preach me about something that they are not going to change harddiscs everymonth if there is something wrong with the other components. He didn't even want to what happened or anything else. Quite unusual for a support guy if you ask me, and he was quite rude. Though he said that the mobo is for sure broken.
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Is there a way for the HDDs to sustain physical damage?
The only HDD that I've ever had break did so because I had not mounted it in the case yet and it got physically banged around.
I've got a bunch of Seagates and they are all working .... so far.
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Tuurijuoppo,
Someone who is a little more electrically inclined can maybe help me out on this, but I don't think that a bad board would damage a Hard Drive since it doesn't supply power to the device like it does to a Graphic/PCI card, etc. Your power is only coming from the PSU. A bad board would (in terms of the hard drive) would only cause an inability to read/write (pass data) through the IDE interface. But if you have been told that the hard drives are physically BAD, then that is another issue.
If your confident that overheating is not an issue then I'm thinking it's gotta be the power, or some other consistent environmental variable (vibration, case gets bumped a lot, humity, etc.) that is bad for the drive.
I think you are right the support guy seems more inclined to accuse than support and not really a great customer service experience, but that's a whole other post/topic... sorry for the bad exp. not all support dudes are rude :-P
l8r
Michael
Live, Love & Google!
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