Hardware failing-one or more devices???

My rig has become very unstable over the past few weeks and I'm starting to wonder if it's not just one thing but several.

Problem 1) one of my HDD's are failing. The noise it's been making ie clicking, whirring has been steadily getting worse. The problem here is that I can't tell which one of my three drives is the culprit.

Problem 2) Blank monitor. I first noticed this little doozy a couple of weeks ago when I removed a second monitor. Upon restart, the original monitor stayed in power save mode while the PC kept booting up as normal. That too has slowly become worse. It now requires me to kill the power and keep restarting until it turns on. It's not the monitor, because it works fine with other devices.

Problem 3) Freezing. This is where I'm a little stumped as to who the culprit is. Ocassionaly the PC just freezes, requiring a hard reset. Sometimes after a hard reset, that's when the monitor issue happens.

However, when the PC is running smooth, it stays running smooth... :huh:

I've narrowed it down to that:

a) My video card is failing
b) My motherboard is failing
c) The failing HDD is causing the errors
d) faulty PSU? (unlikely)
e) a combination of the above

As much as I'd love to build a new a PC (I'm itching to build one) Current monetary constraints have unfortunately made a new rig low on the priority list. (My cars Foobar atm) So I really need to keep this PC going for a bit longer WITHOUT spending any money (It's upgrade path is limited anyway)

Any ideas, thoughts on how to troubleshoot are welcome (as long as you don't suggest upgrading

Hi Smarteyeball,

I'm sorry to hear about your problem with this.

Since it is pretty clear that one of the hard drives is failing, I would recommend that you back up that drive fast before you lose anything. I'm not sure how you have the drives configured (RAID or not), but you could shutdown the computer and unplug one drive at a time and restart to see if the noise stops to locate the bad drive. Afterwards, see how the computer runs with the failed hard drive unplugged.

If you still have the other problems, then easiest way to troubleshoot these devices is to test them one by one on a friends computer that you know has a good system. Eventually, any bad device will rear it's ugly head up while using it on your friends system instead of his device.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi Shawn, I've already backed up my important stuff. Anything else I lose will just be a nuisance

Unfortunately I can't test my equipment in friends PC's because they are all technophobes

I admit I've been lazy with unplugging the drives (to busy playing with the beta) so I haven't yet done the obvious so I'll pull my finger out and disconnect them tmw. Drives aren't in a RAID array BTW.

TBH, I got sick of re-seating the video card to bring the monitor back to life. It turns out that it makes no difference I just have to keep switching on and off and hope for the best. By the time it finally fires up, I just want to use it and not push my luck (sheer frustration has also been clouding my judgment and logical thought processes )

I'm also reconsidering my non-upgrading priority. I've already started on a 'cheap performance upgrade' short list that is already running about $1500 AUS That's not even taking the new i7's into account.....

Hi smartyball, are your drives s.m.a.r.t. enabled? If so there are free programs to test them.
You may be lucky in the fact that the HD that is failing may not be your system drive.
Try using your rig with just the system drive connected and see if that fixes your problems.
How old is your rig?

Hi roy, I've got s.m.a.r.t disabled. Not very smart ey?

Instead of going to bed (it's 3:40am ) I pulled my finger out and I disconnected 2 out of the three drives (2x 320gb Maxtors). No problems with start up and my original system drive 'sounds' fine. I've just re-connected another Maxtor drive that has the 7 beta / Storage files on it and it 'sounds' fine too.

So by the process of elimination my last disconnected Maxtor is most likely the faulty one. Which coincidentally is the drive I least suspected of being faulty :huh: It's a nuisance too, as that's where the majority of my programs are installed I foresee a lot of re-installations ahead

I was actually hoping it was my system drive since it's only a 80gb 5400rpm IDE. By losing the maxtor, it looks like I'm down 300gb instead of just 80gb.

I've had this rig since march 2007 and the two Maxtors since September (?) 2007.

Since it's so late, it's only a cursory auditory test. (It's been about half an hour or so with the disconnected drive and no odd noises like it has been. I'll get a bit more in depth with it tmw.

Could a faulty drive cause the monitor failing to start???

I was warming up to the idea of a complete upgrade...

If the failing drive is the OS system drive, then it could.

No, the failing drive was just a Program Files / Video storage drive. It's been over an hour now and I haven't heard any of the nasty noises. I think I've found a winner

Faulty drive = power spikes = blank screen?

I've also had issues with by Bluetooth KB and Mouse behaving very erratically too. Earlier today I removed the dongle, re-inserted it and the PC froze. That's why I was thinking the MB might be dying too.

Have you been overclocking your computer?

Also, you should reconsider checking that your PSU is working properly.

Have you tried the same drive with a different cable?
I know it is something simple, these are often the overlooked things.
A failing cable, or even a cable near a power source can cause problems in the right situation.

KrossX said:

Have you been overclocking your computer?

Also, you should reconsider checking that your PSU is working properly.

Click to expand...

No mate. This PC is very overclocking unfriendly. It's running @ stock speeds. I'm showing my ignorance here, but how would I test a PSU without a multimeter? (don't have one)

roy69 said:

Have you tried the same drive with a different cable?
I know it is something simple, these are often the overlooked things.
A failing cable, or even a cable near a power source can cause problems in the right situation.

Click to expand...

No I haven't yet. (didn't even think of it I'll give that a go shortly.

Hiya Smarty

Failing h'ware can cause serious power draws at times and this can put strain on the power rails and cause other items to fail. A HDD with a sticky bearing can really cause a high amperage draw as the motor tries to spin up to it's normal speed. ALL PSU makers state that no more than 2 devices should be on any 1 chain, even tho they put 10 connectors on them..., and if the chain that (possibly) faulty drive is on has more than 2 devices on it, that can REALLY kill the power rail on the 12v side.
Only problem is that most monitors use a dedicated 120 plug of their own for power so other than your graphics controller being affected by an over-drawing device, the monitor itself shouldn't be affected.

This sounds rather low tech but try using a straw in the one ear, cover the other and listen to the drives when they're making noise. This is an old mechanics trick when we used a piece of garden hose and listened to different areas of the block to find a stuck lifter or similar knocks...it works very well actually.
Cables are always a starting point to look at when something fails or looks like it's failing, but cables don't make noises so if it's noisy you can usually rule out a cable issue.

Even with a multimeter you will Not get the info you need on any PSU issue, it's just not that simple as this article will attest.

Thanks for the info Chappy This issue is starting to make me feel like "Dumbeyeball"

I just tried the straw trick but unfortunately I couldn't get a good sound from it due to the drives placement. So far it's only making aberrant noises AFTER I've moved away.... I shall persevere however.

This morning just as I was about to shut down and swap the cables, I heard the bloody CLICK noise again, so I think I may have been premature about detecting which drive it is

Both the maxtors are making uniquely unpleasant noises of their own which isn't helping things either. I hope their not both failing....

The 'BAD' drive sounds like it's quickly turning itself OFF then On again. There's a loud CLICK, a quick whir decrescendo (Spinning Down) then back to normal. It doesn't do it continually, it's sporadic. It's also nigh on impossible to replicate

As for the other drive, would a sticky HDD bearing sound like: BZZZT (mechanical sounding, lasts about a second) -soft click, pause for about half a second then whir in a Crescendo? (Spinning up) That noise seems to be more regular when I access my video files folder.

Excuse the ambiguous sound explanation


As you've probably gathered, I'm a babe in the woods when it comes voltages etc I do know that testing the PSU properly is currently beyond my skillset

I've also got SIW running that's monitoring the Voltages, but I can't dechiper which is which. Do any of the following relate to rails? ie -

VIN0 0.96v
AVCC 3.30v
3.3V 3.31v
VIN1 1.62v
VIN2 1.66v
VIN3 1.83v
VIN4 1.69v


Seriously, you wouldn't think it would be that hard to determine the cause. I must have taken stupid pills this week

that ''click'' sound you get does resemble the drive turning off & on....

i get that ''clicking'' sound when i reboot my PC on a 160gb IDE seagate, it happens just before the BIOS pops up....

it seems strange that all of them would do it though..??

your hardly a "Dumbeyeball" mate H/W diagnosis can take some time & with a HDD its a bit more complex than just buying another one & chucking it in due to the obvious storage.....

if your PC has trouble actually booting from time to time then the drive with the OS on it is probably failing

this may help.....


SK

Thanks SK

I was used to the click power on/off sounds at startup/shutdown, but when it first happened while the PC was in operation, it shook me out of my complacency :eek:

Between yours and Chappys link, I know a lot more about PSU operations and testing than when I first woke up today. Cheers :D


So far today I first ran with my original system HDD only for a bit and there were no errors or odd sounds. I then connected the Maxtor with the 7 beta on it+plus the original HDD and I heard the click at the last moment after several hours of error/noise free operation. That was disappointing because until then, I thought I'd cracked it and isolated the errant drive

So I then disconnected the "7" drive swapped the cables, and connected the "program Files/Video maxtor"+original HDD. The PC restarted by itself just after the boot screen and then continued to work for several hours without any odd noises, however explorer (Vista) hung once or twice when trying to open My Computer properties. That's a new trick. Explorer very rarely hung before, now it's becoming a little more frequent. (! possible clue?)

At the moment I have disconnected the original system HDD+ the "7" drive and am running in Linux which has it's own boot sector on it. So far zero noises or odd behavior.

My next step will be to use the "7" HDD by itself. I've saved that for last because the problem is that it's not currently bootable. All the Boot records are on the original system HDD. I was reluctant to make it bootable in case it caused a conflict with my original system's MBR. I guess I'll find out shortly

Bah! I tried making the 7 drive bootable by doing a system repair via the installation disk. My 7 installation wouldn't even show up. The start up repair log said "The partition table does not have a valid System Partition"

So I thought Ah Ha! I'll just copy the boot folder and files accross and see how that goes. It wouldn't let me copy the BCD or BCD.log. Then the screen went blank while trying to access the Vista partition.

So I thought I'll plug all the drives in, boot into Linux and copy the files that way. Now the screen won't turn on and the PSU is making a very high pitched buzz and whine that I didn't notice before. Bloody hell

EDIT:

it took me at least 20 goes to get it going on. Does this sound like a PSU failure? I haven't had one before but it sure feels that way.....

it looks like I'll be starting my upgrade much sooner than anticipated and I'll be starting with the most boring part

When I do eventually do a full upgrade, I'm looking at an i7 system. I doubt I'll be using crossfire or SLI so would a 650w be adequate enough? (hard to say without all the details I know) or at least an 800w. Any brands to recommend or AVOID?

Ballpark idea but all the parts listings I had are on one of the disconnected drives:

dvd-rwx2
3-4 HDD
i7 920
asus or giga MB

9800??? or HD 4???? (maybe go SLI/xfire way in the future)

Great article Chappy, full of truth. I usually just replace the PSU with a new one, and if the problem is gone, it was the PSU. XD

Or just replace if there's any constant undervolt or overvolt, as I've seen happening quite often with stock PSUs. Considering the MB is working properly, it can be checked in the BIOS or using a Software to read the sensors.

By the way, I don't know if I read it properly. You didn't have any noise nor odd HDD behavior under Linux? If so, it's probably a powersaving issue in Vista. I used to have it after an update, wich made me stop using Vista. I haven't had that issue since SP1.

I have the following noted about the issue, but I don't remember if it worked or not. I actually don't remember to have tested it. XD

Vista Disk Power Issues
powercfg -x -disk-timeout-ac 0
powercfg -x -disk-timeout-dc 0

Click to expand...

To be used on the command prompt, and also Run as Admin if I'm correct.

I have a power hungry gaming rig , my psu went faulty , it didnt give up completely it just started playing up , every possible error you could think of started throwing out , not one of them you would assume was related to a faulty PSU , but it was.....so i second or maybe third the PSU idea

KrossX said:

Vista Disk Power Issues
powercfg -x -disk-timeout-ac 0
powercfg -x -disk-timeout-dc 0

Click to expand...

To be used on the command prompt, and also Run as Admin if I'm correct.

Click to expand...

Thanks krossX, I'll have a look at that when I reconnect my Vista Drive

archie123 said:

so i second or maybe third the PSU idea

Click to expand...

Honestly, the more I think logically about it, the more I'm tending to believe that the PSU is dying.

The off/on clicking sound of the drive leads me to think that the HDD /'s aren't actually failing, but is actually a power supply problem on the 12v rail (see, I learned something ) plus the monitor intermittently failing to switch on could also be indicative of a power problem.

I might try to grab a new one tmw and see how that goes. If it doesn't fix it, at least I'll have eliminated a cause, plus I'll have a new PSU and which is one less component to upgrade

Hi smarty, you know, a PSU problem does fit better with ALL the symptoms you describe. It's always hard to tell for sure, but the idea that a PSU works or it doesn't, simply isn't true. More often that not a faulty PSU will just reduce it's output, either permanently, or intermittantly, as in the manner you describe. As a PSU very rarely puts out it's full rating, sometimes even small fluctuation can affect power sensitive gear such as a HDD or GPU, I am not sure about a monitor, but why not?

Hiya

Yah, faulty PSU's can cause really weird stuff that's nearly IMPOSSIBLE to diagnose. The other thing is how many devices you have on that chain? ALL PSU makers recommend no more than TWO devices per chain because if they all draw power at once, the PSU can act improperly...along with everything else.

I haven't read all the posts since my last one as I have to run right now, but it sure sounds like that drive is doing it's thing since drives will spin up & down as needed these days under their Power Savings mode. But a buzzy sounding drive is suspect 4 sure. Even that's hard to say because many drives can be fairly noisy even when working perfectly and many will have their sounds change (slightly) over time, but if it's a drastic change to the sound then there's a problem.

Let's hope we can figure this out buddy...we'll keep workin with you all the way!

@KrossX - Thanx bro. That is a fantastic article and site for top notch reviewing by full engineers and not just writers trying to be engineers...
They hit the nail square on the head about other site PSU reviews being totally skewed because of improper testing procedures and that article is a MUST READ for anyone looking at PSU's. Good to have you here KrossX!