• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Is my motherboard dead?

A

Addikt

Senior member
I had some problems a while back with a hard drive of mine. The drive ended up dying, no big, got all the data off it and got a new one through RMA. Now, another drive is gone, not the same model, a 1TB Caviar Black. Both were master drives and I noticed that both drives ended up getting really, really hot.

These drives end up having a ton of Disk Write Errors in Windows, then they periodically hang with the "A disk error has occurred, press ctrl+alt+del to restart." Then, they inevitably die. My big problem is that this cannot be a coincidence, two drives dying in the exact same manner.

I thought it may be a power supply issue, but recently I came upon some interesting facts about what a faulty motherboard can do. I looked for damaged capacitors and I can't find any, but it seems that heat is a major issue. The heat on my RAM has caused the glue on the heatsinks to peel off (OCZ Platinum, not the best quality I figure), the southbridge even with a heatsink gets incredibly hot and all my hard drives (I have 5 of them, mostly 1TB caviar blacks) get really hot as well, to the point where if you rest your hands on the bottom of the drive you could burn your hand.

Right now my setup is a Conroe E6600, socketed in an ASUS P5W-DH DX. I had to up the voltages on the RAM to keep the system running stable as the OCZ seems to be relatively power hungry, and this is completely within spec.

So, that said, with all the information at hand, anyone have any suggestions? Could this in fact be a mobo issue? Not correctly controlling voltages, perhaps? After all, excess voltage is dissipated as heat, isn't it?

Thanks for reading.
 
I'm inclined to agree with Larry. With that many drives, what kind of cooling do you have? I'd suspect the drives producing too much heat that's not being properly vented at this point that's the cause of the problem.
 
That's what I thought originally, however I've set up the drives so that my main drive has a lot of room between it and the others.

<Storage>
<Storage>
<Empty>
<Boot Drive>
<Empty>
<Storage>
<Storage>

And as for cooling, the drives have two 120mm fans blowing onto them. I ensure that I keep the air filters clean as well so that they don't get jammed up with dust to prevent effective cooling. Regardless of what I do the boot drive feels very hot, the others are warm, but not as hot as the boot drive. Perhaps it is a heating issue, but I literally bought a new case a couple of months ago to address the whole heat problem. Right now I have everything in a Termaltake Element S case.

The reason that the whole motherboard thing sounded reasonable as well is because it seems that sometimes my computer shuts off, it just dies, not a BSOD. Then when I go to turn it on it won't start up when I hit the power button. I have to toggle the master switch on my PSU and after that the system boots up again. It seems that everything runs hot, from the memory, to the hard drives, even the southbridge gets hot.
 
It really sounds like a cooling issue to me. I don't think your board is causing your drives to overheat. Make sure you have fans that are putting cool air into your case and others that are bringing hot air out. Just having one or the other may not be good enough. A new case won't do any good if you don't have the right set up of fans to keep it cool.
 
Thats what it sunds like to me also.You can buy those hard drive coolers off the forum are newegg and that shouls keep them pretty cool you need good ait flow because they can build up alot of heat.Good Luck.
 
My money is on the PSU as the culprit. Does your motherboard's BIOS have a page for displaying the relative voltages? Check that and get back to us.
 
Agree with bupkus. If you have eliminated airflow as a problem, my guess is that the 12v power to the drives is low.

The only connections from the drives to the mb are data cables, so I can't see the mb as the culprit. Faulty software could keep the drives in a state of high activity though, generating excess heat and wear.
 
>
Addikt said:
>Right now I have everything in a Termaltake Element S case.

Ok, good case.

>sometimes my computer shuts off, it just dies, not a BSOD.

The PSU may have a thermal protector that shuts itself down.

>Then when I go to turn it on it won't start up when I hit the power button. I have to toggle the master switch on my PSU and after that the system boots up again.

Sounds like you're causing a reset on the PSU.

>It seems that everything runs hot, from the memory, to the hard drives, even the southbridge gets hot.
Click to expand...

Said most simply, heat comes from power, power comes from the PSU.
Can you swap out the PSU for another just to see the effect?
Is your PSU's voltage slider set at 115 or 230 volts?
Lastly, you may need to check your electrical outlets. Have you had electrical work done lately? If so, are you experiencing any other electrical issues in your residence?
 
New here, but thought I'd chime in...

Quick and easy way to check your PSU is to pick up a cheap multimeter/voltmeter (if you're a geek like me you have a few already!), unplug your 12vdc connections and check for proper voltage. The last thing you want is to rip out a PSU thats nicely wired in, sleeved, and zip tied just to find out its not causing the problems.

G/L
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top