SATA HDD Causing Reboots?

[Katana]

I bought a WD 160GB SATA HDD about a month ago and not long after using it my PC started rebooting. I removed the SATA hdd a couple of weeks ago and have been using my IDE drives without a problem. Yesterday I decided to try and get the SATA drive working and it still rebooted when I used it as the master drive, so I tried using it as a storage drive and everything seemed to be working fine until I went home at lunch to check on some HD .ts files that I was converting to xvid on the SATA drive and the PC had rebooted and hung during startup. I tried getting it working, but didn't have enough time to really get into it. I'm also wondering if it could have killed my 6800 as it died not long after installing the HDD. I had used it fine for three months and it stopped working one day with no warning. I have tried two different PSU thinking that might be the problem, but the same thing happened on both. I don't think the CPU is causing the reboots as I've ran Prime95 for a few hours without errors, same with the memory and memtest. There have been some strange things after it has rebooted, today I got a floppy drive error when there is no floppy drive hooked up to my PC. I've also had times when the PC would just start beeping at startup with nothing showing up.

Chaintech VNF3-250
Sempron 3100+
512MB PC3200 Mushkin
160GB IDE Seagate
80GB IDE WD
30GB IDE WD
160GB SATA WD
Geforce 3
420W TT True Power

 

[FlyingPenguin]

The hard drive itself is not likely to be the problem.

I notice you have a LOT of drives installed. Even though you have an excellent PSU (I swear buy Antect True Power) it could be the PSU is being loaded down. Try disconnecting one of the other drives and see if that helps. I doubt this is the problem though, unless the PSU is defective or one of your older drives is drawing a LOT of power (that 30Gb drive would be suspect).

The problem is most likely to be with the SATA controller. Either a driver issue or an IRQ channel sharing conflict between the SATA controller and another device.

Install the latest SATA drivers.

If the problem persists, move the SATA controller to a different slot (if it's an add-on card). If it's onboard SATA then pull ALL your other cards (except video) and copy some large files to the SATA drive to see if you can cause it to act up. If it behaves, install your cards ONE AT A TIME. WHen you find the card that's causing a problem, move it to another slot and try again.

Hope this helps...

 

[stevty2889]

I dont' think he has an Antec True power, I thinks it a thermaltake..which is ok, but it has a weak 12v rail, which could definatly have an impact with all those hard drives, plus originaly having a 6800. Are you sure there are no loose screws under the motherboard that could be shorting it out and causing some of your errors? It's very unlikely to be the hard drive thats causing your problems. Have you run western digitals diagnostics on your drive?

 

[Katana]

Yeah, Thermaltake, it's a Pure Power not True Power. I originally did think it was the PSU but I tried another and had the same problem and they were both brand new. The 12v, 3.3v, and 5v rails all look fine when I check them with digidoc, even when I've OC the Sempron and had the 6800 in it with the three hdd. I didn't have any of these problems before I bought the SATA drive, that is why I thought it was it. I'll check for loose screws in a second, I just find it strange that everytime I try and get the SATA drive working the PC doesn't want to work, I've had it running 24/7 for over a week before yesterday.

 

[Katana]

I've reinstalled the nforce drivers and updated the bios and I still get reboots when I try and encode the files on that drive. After it reboots the only way to get the computer working is to clear the CMOS, it then runs perfect without the SATA drive. I've also checked it with drive fitness test and it doesn't show a problem. There are not any IRQ confilcts either.

 

[imported_sporty]

Katana, I'm having a similar issue in that I'm using a Seagate Barracude SATA in a Shuttle system and once the windows xp is installed it soft boots and runs fine. As soon as I power down and reboot it starts but it doesn't POST and the os doesn't come up. I have to clear the CMOS at that point and reboot for it work. Once up, it runs excellent. I noticed you do some OC. There's an article in the May issue of MaximumPC ("shutdown amnesia" page 59) that says SATA drives are very sensitive to OC. You may want to go back to stock setting and see what happens. It also says to check your BIOS for IDE controller settings = Enhanced that allows for both SATA and PATA drives.

 

[Katana]

I think it might just be the motherboard going out on me. I've checked all the settings in the bios and changed quite a few and still the same problem, but now it is rebooting with the IDE drives as well. I'll check again tonight, rip everything out and put it back, and if I still can't get it working I think it's time for a new motherboard unless anyone else has any suggestions.

 

[Katana]

Well I think I found the problem last night, my old Geforce 3 that I was using until the 6800 got back died. So it could have been causing the reboots, of course it could also be the mb that killed it and the 6800. I'll see tonight as I had my brother go and buy the cheapest video card he could find today.

 

[Katana]

dp

 

[Katana]

Well, it wasn't the videocard.

To summarize, now my pc will not boot 90% of the time, and when it does boot it freezes or reboots after a few minutes. I have to clear the cmos once it freezes or reboots to get it to start again, though this doesn't always work. Most of the time it just turns on and doesn't boot, the video card doesn't initialize. I updated the bios to the latest version and I have the same problems. I bought a new PSU, memory, video card, and battery with no luck getting it to work. It has to be the mb, I sent an email to chaintech and hopefully they will fix it otherwise I'll be buying a new board, any suggestions? I was thinking about getting the MSI K8N Neo.