Troubleshooting a PC - How do you know what's at fault?

[mdubrow]

I thumbed through some of the other troubleshooting threads, but nothing I found directly addresses what I'm experiencing. Apologies in advance for the long post.

I am in the process of building a HTPC, built around an Athlon 64 3000+ (939) (this is a processor-in-a-box, complete with heatsink and fan), an MSI RS480 motherboard, a Hitachi 250 gb SATA hard disk drive, an NEC 3520A DVD drive, and a Seasonic Super Silencer 350W psu. (I also will be installing a TV capture card, once I get the system configured.)

At first, everything went swimmingly: I put the box together, loaded Windows MCE 2005, and things looked pretty good. After a couple of days, the problems began: I would turn on the PC, and it would freeze before even loading the operating system (CTRL-ALT-DEL had no effect). If I tried to power cycle using the power button on the front of the PC which is connected to the motherboard, the machine won't shut off--instead, it immediately cycles back on, with the hard disk drive running and the PSU and CPU fans spinning. My monitor says there's no video coming in and goes to sleep.

At this point, pressing the power button again only repeats the cycle, and I have to use the kill switch on the power supply unit to shut everything down. When I leave the machine off for a minute and turn power back on, it boots to Windows like everything is fine. However, if I reboot or subsequently do a cold boot (after the computer has been turned off), I may or may not go through the cycle I just described. Seems to be about every other time I boot up I run into this problem now.

My hypothesis is that either the disk drive is at fault or the motherboard is at fault (I'm hoping the former since it's easier to replace a disk drive than a motherboard), though I also recognize that the PSU and even the processor could be defective and thus the cause of the problem. One reason to suspect the hard disk: once, I was able to get into the BIOS before the machine hung, and I saw that the hard disk wasn't recognized (the ide controlled optical drive was there). I did a CTRL-ALT-DEL, went back into BIOS, and the hard disk showed up as it should. I tried replugging all of the cables between the hard disk and the motherboard, but that didn't seem to help.

My question is: how do I narrow down the problem from this point? Unfortunately, our other PC is an older machine that can't handle SATA drives.

Thanks very much,
Mike

 

[wisdomtooth]

Several things you can do:

1) Try your Seasonic PSU in your old machine. If it works fine, you can rule out the Seasonic as the problem. (I doubt it would be, since the Seasonic is a quality unit).

2) If you don't mind messing with the HD in your old machine, you can try it in your new machine and see if the problem persists. If the problem persists even after swapping in that old HD, you can rule out your new HD as the problem.

3) Swap the RAM with the old machine (if it's compatible) to rule it out.

HTH.

 

[biostud]

could be a heat problem, try running with the case open.

 

[mdubrow]

wisdomtooth,

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try putting the older drive into the new machine to see if that helps. Unfortunately, I can't put DDR RAM into the old PC because it uses RDRAM. I'd try to swap the power supply as well, but I'm afraid my wife will kill me.

biostud,
I thought about heat as well, so I did remove the case cover while the PC was running, and I even turned everything off and let it sit overnight so that it could completely cool off (living room was around 60F when I awoke this morning), but neither proved to be a fix. In the BIOS, the CPU temperature has been in the mid-30s Celcius, but I can't tell how hot the hard drive is running because I haven't been able to install the Hitachi drive tools (I wonder if that is a symptom or a cause of the problem?), which would allow me to access the drive's internal thermometer. I will say, just putting my hand on the exterior of the disk drive, it's warm but not uncomfortably so.

Thanks again for the suggestions. Looks like I won't be getting much sleep this weekend!

Mike

 

[wisdomtooth]

mdubrow,

If you have more than 1 stick of that DDR, maybe you want to try putting in just 1 stick at a time. If you still get symptoms with just 1 stick in (after trying both sticks in such fashion), you can rule out the RAM.

If you tried all those swaps and ruled out all those components, the only things left would be your Mobo and CPU.

HTH!

 

[Fern]

Test the ram with Memtest86.

Fern

 

[Aztech]

Since you're able to get into windows sometimes, you need to run a diagnostic program that will test all components. We use troubleshooter here where I work, but I don't know if anyone could recommend a cheap program or a free download...

 

[GimpyOne]

You can also go to Hitachi's website and download their drive analysis software. It should be able to do decent examination of the drive and let you know if anything is wrong with it.

 

[bluehorizon]

My opinion; it's your PSU.

 

[mdubrow]

Some good ideas here. I will definitely try memtest86. I did get some inexpensive off-brand (Wintec) RAM for the system. On paper, it had all of the correct specs (pins, voltage, speed), but perhaps the computer has a different opinion.

As for using the Hitachi diagnostic tools, I have had a devil of a time getting them to work. Even before I had problems I intended use them so that I could make the drive run slower, so it would be both cooler and quieter (the drive has an acoustic level setting; these are necessary attributes for a HTPC). I only have an external USB floppy drive, and I have yet to successfully boot off of a floppy inserted in the drive. (Inconclusive: it could be that I have yet to successfully create a boot disk, since I was using the Hitachi utility to create one with the tools installed.)

Anyway, Hitachi also makes an .iso image available, so I burned a CD-ROM with the Hitachi tools disk image, but the computer still hung when I tried to run the program. (I should note that it hung after I accepted the user agreement and while it was looking for attached hard drives.)

Does this cast a harsher light on the disk drive? I think another test I want to try is to unplug the hard disk and see if I can at least get to a prompt of some sort.

Thanks again for the suggestions so far. I'll let you know how the tests turn out tonight.
Mike

 

[mdubrow]

Originally posted by: bluehorizon
My opinion; it's your PSU.

bluehorizon,

In your opinion, is the problem a faulty psu or an insufficient psu? I would think the Seasonic 350W is plenty for the system with a comfortable margin, but I could step up to the 400W if that would cure what remedy things.

Mike

 

[wisdomtooth]

The Seasonic is a very good quality unit. I would NOT jump to conclusions and blame it without trying it out on your old machine first.

I have ran the same setup (RS480M2-IL, A64) on a Seasonic Super Tornado 300 (18 Amps on the 12V rail) no problems.

I'm 95% sure it's not your Seasonic PSU causing the behavior.

 

[mdubrow]

Originally posted by: wisdomtooth
I would NOT jump to conclusions and blame it without trying it out on your old machine first.

No worries, I'm not jumping to anything. I put this into the "last resort" category.
Mike

 

[mdubrow]

Just a follow-up on my testing this weekend.

First, I disconnected everything from the motherboard except the RAM, the CPU, and the power supply, and the machine booted up without difficulty (that is, it got to the point where it asked for a system disk, since no drives were attached). I concluded that the motherboard is fine.

I then reattached the hard disk and optical drive, and I was able to reformat and reinstall Windows. HOWEVER, I still couldn't use the Hitachi drive tools on the drive: doing so would cause the computer to freeze. After more research on Hitachi's website, it turns out the Hitachi SATA drives are partially incompatible with the SATA controller on my motherboard. Discretion being the better part of valor, I decided to RMA the Hitachi drive and replace it with something that will get along better with my motherboard before I started to lose data or some other catastrophic failure.

One more thought: the MSI RS480M2-IL motherboard has a PCI-Express slot and is rated for power supplies with a minimum of 350 watts. Since the 350W Seasonic Super Silencer is not designed for PCI-Express, but the larger (400 and 460 watt) Super Silencers are, would it be a good idea to step up to the 400W power supply for full compatibility with my motherboard?

BTW, thanks again for all the great suggestions in helping me to narrow down the problem.

Mike

 

[wisdomtooth]

Hey Mdubrow,

Hopefully that will solve your problems yep.. It's kind of wierd that the Hitachi HD would be incompatible with your board; HD compatibility issues are so rare that I admit I'm surprised. Anyway, I hope that will solve your problems.

As far as 24-pin PSUs go, if you are going to be using a more power-hungry PCI Express video cards (like if you are going to add an NVidia 6600 PCIe to your system), it might be a good idea to get the 24-pin yes.

If you do, you want to get the Seasonic Super Tornado (Not silencer!) 400. These have the 24-pin harness and puts out 22 amps continuous on its 12V rail, and the 120mm fan vents better than the Super Silencer. I would get the dual-rail S12 only if one is going to do SLI with an NForce 4 board.

HTH.

 

[mdubrow]

Wisdomtooth,

Thanks for the tip. I will look into the Super Tornado series from Seasonic. I think they are being discounted to make way for Seasonic's new PSUs (the S12 series). On the other hand, I have heard mixed reviews about their loudness.

At the current time, I have no plans to use the PCI Express slot. The reason I went with the MSI board was because it had on-board video. On the other hand, I could see a time down the road when I may want to add a DVI (or HDCP, if it's made available for PCs) connection, so I think it may be prudent to use a PSU that would allow for anticipated future uses.

Mike

 

[wisdomtooth]

Yep, the earlier Super Tornadoes (Rev A2 and earlier) had a problem with the thermal fan controller-- Sometimes spools up too loud, sometimes cuts out when they were not supposed to.

The ones after Rev A3 are rock solid though, and they have been in the channel since May last year (if you buy one now it's sure to be an A3).

The 400W Super Tornado Rev A3 is the quietest PSU I've ever owned. That thing runs so quiet while venting like crazy, it's amazing.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out with the HDD!

 

[mdubrow]

I replaced the Hitachi SATA drive with a Western Digital IDE drive. I have had past success with WD drives, and I heard that their latest are quieter and cooler than earlier generations (I can vouch for quieter: the new drive doesn't whine like the 80gb and 200gb WDs I have from years past). Further, if I experience any issues with the new drive, I can always move it to my old PC to aid troubleshooting.

Unfortunately, I am still having issues using the Hitachi Feature Tools, which I'd like to use to access the WD's AAM settings (WD drives have AAM capabilities, but WD doesn't provide software to adjust the settings). I posted a description of the problem in this new thread. (This suggests that that I may have been too quick to condemn the Hitachi drive as the incompatibility lies elsewhere.)

If you have any thoughts on my new problem, I'd appreciate it if you'd post in the new thread. Thanks for all your help!