Velociraptor broke my OC

[Cutthroat]

So I got my brand new Velociraptor today. It's so little, doesn't look like a beast. I grabbed a spare SATA power cable and plugged it in, plugged in the SATA cable too. Turn on the power, and it won't finish POST. It hung up after detecting USB devices, before the memory check.

Another VERY weird thing happened too. Everytime I would power up the PC, the screen on my TV nearby would freeze, turn the PC off and the TV works again. The TV is not connected to the PC, but they do share a circuit in the house.

I disconnected all the peripherals, leaving only the monitor, mouse & keyboard attached. Now the PC got to the initializing SATA devices and froze, and also warned me about a SMART error (turned out to be false).

I reset the CMOS, and then it would not POST at all, then I remember I that it will not POST at default BIOS settings with my Idealzon Merc Stealth keyboard, or with 4 sticks of RAM. I grab a PS/2 keyboard and pull out 2 DIMM's and it finally POST's OK at default settings.

I loaded my old BIOS settings and the PC would not POST again, so I reset the CMOS again. After a bit of trial and error I found that only lowering the FSB by 5 to 435 would get the PC to POST.

Currently I'm just transferring files between drives, I will remove one of my old drives and replace it with the Velociraptor and see if I can get back to 440 FSB.

I'm confused why adding a HDD caused me so much trouble, especially how it was affecting my television.

Sorry for the long post, it's more of a rant, I'm kinda pissed.

 

[toadeater]

Sounds like EM interference. That Velociraptor may very well be faulty. If you're going to try it again, remove any peripherals you don't need to boot the PC, because there is a chance they can be damaged by this. The BIOS on the motherboard may have been corrupted slightly, try reflashing it.

It's risky to try that drive again. If you can't duplicate the same problem with other hardware on the same SATA connector and power plug, RMA the drive rather than risk damaging your PC.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Another VERY weird thing happened too. Everytime I would power up the PC, the screen on my TV nearby would freeze, turn the PC off and the TV works again. The TV is not connected to the PC, but they do share a circuit in the house.

I disconnected all the peripherals, leaving only the monitor, mouse & keyboard attached. Now the PC got to the initializing SATA devices and froze, and also warned me about a SMART error (turned out to be false).

Sounds like a power problem.

Do you have a UPS? Might be a good time to invest in one. Sounds like a brown in your circuit, or your circuit cant handle the total Amperage load, yet not break the breaker.

Also what PSU do you have?

 

[Drsignguy]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Another VERY weird thing happened too. Everytime I would power up the PC, the screen on my TV nearby would freeze, turn the PC off and the TV works again. The TV is not connected to the PC, but they do share a circuit in the house.

I disconnected all the peripherals, leaving only the monitor, mouse & keyboard attached. Now the PC got to the initializing SATA devices and froze, and also warned me about a SMART error (turned out to be false).

Sounds like a power problem.

Do you have a UPS? Might be a good time to invest in one. Sounds like a brown in your circuit, or your circuit cant handle the total Amperage load, yet not break the breaker.

Also what PSU do you have?

Op, you are saying that your PC shares the same circuit as your TV. What else shares this circuit?

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Another VERY weird thing happened too. Everytime I would power up the PC, the screen on my TV nearby would freeze, turn the PC off and the TV works again. The TV is not connected to the PC, but they do share a circuit in the house.

I disconnected all the peripherals, leaving only the monitor, mouse & keyboard attached. Now the PC got to the initializing SATA devices and froze, and also warned me about a SMART error (turned out to be false).

Sounds like a power problem.

Do you have a UPS? Might be a good time to invest in one. Sounds like a brown in your circuit, or your circuit cant handle the total Amperage load, yet not break the breaker.

Also what PSU do you have?

to aigo listen you must. much wisdom he has, yes, hhhmmmmm.

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Another VERY weird thing happened too. Everytime I would power up the PC, the screen on my TV nearby would freeze, turn the PC off and the TV works again. The TV is not connected to the PC, but they do share a circuit in the house.

I disconnected all the peripherals, leaving only the monitor, mouse & keyboard attached. Now the PC got to the initializing SATA devices and froze, and also warned me about a SMART error (turned out to be false).

Sounds like a power problem.

Do you have a UPS? Might be a good time to invest in one. Sounds like a brown in your circuit, or your circuit cant handle the total Amperage load, yet not break the breaker.

Also what PSU do you have?

this.

 

[Cutthroat]

Everything is almost back to normal now. The Velociraptor is installed and working great, very fast. And I'm back to my normal keyboard, I still need to reinstall my other 2 DIMM's and try my old overclock again now that I'm back to 3 drives.

The PC is plugged into a UPS (Belkin 1200VA), and the TV is plugged into the surge protect only on the UPS. This is an old house, everything in this room is on the same circuit.

My PSU is an OCZ GameXStream 700W.

EDIT: I should note it was the cable that was freezing, the TV still had power, and I could change channels and stuff. The power light was still on on the converter box. The box is also plugged into the surge protect on the UPS, and the coaxial cable is connected through a surge protector too.

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
EDIT: I should note it was the cable that was freezing, the TV still had power, and I could change channels and stuff. The power light was still on on the converter box. The box is also plugged into the surge protect on the UPS, and the coaxial cable is connected through a surge protector too.

Damn, just when I was gonna edit my post you post what was wrong, and I was gonn say to check cables for shorts...

'cause few years ago I encountered a mouse that would turn off any computer it was plugged into and the pc wouldn't turn on again unless you unplugged it; fun time diagnosing that problem it was.

Glad it's working now though.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
EDIT: I should note it was the cable that was freezing, the TV still had power, and I could change channels and stuff. The power light was still on on the converter box. The box is also plugged into the surge protect on the UPS, and the coaxial cable is connected through a surge protector too.

OHH... thats something different.

However, this doesnt make sense. I still think you have a wierd connection.

It makes absolutely no sense how it wouldnt work, and now it works.

Never assume luck is on your side, you still need to debug whats wrong.


Anyhow because its working at some times, and it doesnt at others, im still guessing a power problem somewhere.

 

[Mwing]

I saw my velociraptor doing the same

It is the power problem

but i fixed it, it was caused by the IDE>SATA power adapter, I changed to another one, and no problem at all.

I suspected it wasnt the adapter to be precise, it should be the male power connector on the VR, and SATA connector as well, poor designed.

Hope this helps

 

[Cutthroat]

Originally posted by: Mwing
I saw my velociraptor doing the same

What exactly did yours do? Mine did a few things.

I'm back to normal now. My FSB is back to 440, and I'm back to 6GB RAM. Everything is working as it should, and I'm just doing a backup of my data now much faster than before.

Perhaps I will try to connect my other spare drive (which I just removed) in a couple days and see if I can recreate my troubles.

 

[Mwing]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Originally posted by: Mwing
I saw my velociraptor doing the same

What exactly did yours do? Mine did a few things.

I'm back to normal now. My FSB is back to 440, and I'm back to 6GB RAM. Everything is working as it should, and I'm just doing a backup of my data now much faster than before.

Perhaps I will try to connect my other spare drive (which I just removed) in a couple days and see if I can recreate my troubles.

No post, or stuck at the detecting ide/sata devices after memory test.

How did you fix yours?

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Mwing
I saw my velociraptor doing the same

It is the power problem

but i fixed it, it was caused by the IDE>SATA power adapter, I changed to another one, and no problem at all.

I suspected it wasnt the adapter to be precise, it should be the male power connector on the VR, and SATA connector as well, poor designed.

Hope this helps

If this is the problem then he just solved it for you, and you no longer got lucky.

 

[Cutthroat]

Originally posted by: Mwing

Originally posted by: Cutthroat

Originally posted by: Mwing
I saw my velociraptor doing the same

What exactly did yours do? Mine did a few things.

I'm back to normal now. My FSB is back to 440, and I'm back to 6GB RAM. Everything is working as it should, and I'm just doing a backup of my data now much faster than before.

Perhaps I will try to connect my other spare drive (which I just removed) in a couple days and see if I can recreate my troubles.

No post, or stuck at the detecting ide/sata devices after memory test.

How did you fix yours?

Initially just by lowering my FSB to 435MHZ. I was still using the same cables and all (the VR was just resting outside the case at the time).

The only thing that really changed in the end was the addition of an extra HDD. I don't know if that overloaded the PSU, or the particular rail (I was using 3 SATA power connectors on 1 cable). Or if it had something to do with my UPS, or my house power.

The thing with the cable TV freezing was really weird though.

 

[toadeater]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
The thing with the cable TV freezing was really weird though.

EM interference can screw up digital equipment on the circuit. Since you said the TV was freezing that was the first thing that came to mind. But now it sounds more like you just had a brown out of some kind.

 

[Mwing]

I treat my VR very good, it has its own rail becoz it is the most over priced component in my rig

glad to hear that it is fixed

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
The only thing that really changed in the end was the addition of an extra HDD. I don't know if that overloaded the PSU, or the particular rail (I was using 3 SATA power connectors on 1 cable). Or if it had something to do with my UPS, or my house power.

It's almost definitely your highly overloaded UPS. You aren't supposed to run everything in a room from your UPS, man. Grab yourself a surge suppressor for your television, cable box, DVD player, etc.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
The only thing that really changed in the end was the addition of an extra HDD. I don't know if that overloaded the PSU, or the particular rail (I was using 3 SATA power connectors on 1 cable). Or if it had something to do with my UPS, or my house power.

It's almost definitely your highly overloaded UPS. You aren't supposed to run everything in a room from your UPS, man. Grab yourself a surge suppressor for your television, cable box, DVD player, etc.

he's only using the computer on battery and the tv on surge only.

So its fine. He isnt overloading his ups.

However what he shows is a common brown, which is almost impossible on a UPS. Did your ups go off and make a beep noise?

 

[Cutthroat]

Yeah only the PC is plugged into the protected plugs of the UPS, the TV is in the surge only plugs. Belkin software shows the UPS at 28% load while the PC is at 100% load running F@H. The UPS did not beep, there was no actual power loss in the room, the lights did not even dim.

The cable box and the TV is plugged into the surge only plugs on the UPS, the coaxial cable is connected through a surge protector too.

I also have cable internet, and the RJ45 cables are connected through the surge protection on the UPS as well.

Everything is still good, I've been running F@H all night. I might try to hook up the other drive tomorrow and see if I can recreate the problems.

 

[aigomorla]

my last guess is its your PSU.

It doesnt like the Amperage draw on that last drive, and its causing a bad flux in voltage.

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
Yeah only the PC is plugged into the protected plugs of the UPS, the TV is in the surge only plugs. Belkin software shows the UPS at 28% load while the PC is at 100% load running F@H. The UPS did not beep, there was no actual power loss in the room, the lights did not even dim.

The cable box and the TV is plugged into the surge only plugs on the UPS, the coaxial cable is connected through a surge protector too.

I also have cable internet, and the RJ45 cables are connected through the surge protection on the UPS as well.

Everything is still good, I've been running F@H all night. I might try to hook up the other drive tomorrow and see if I can recreate the problems.

So everything that failed or acted strange was running through the same UPS? It seems to me like that UPS may have been part of the problem, even if the non-computer components only used surge protection. It only seems logical that the common link is part of the problem.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Martimus

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
Yeah only the PC is plugged into the protected plugs of the UPS, the TV is in the surge only plugs. Belkin software shows the UPS at 28% load while the PC is at 100% load running F@H. The UPS did not beep, there was no actual power loss in the room, the lights did not even dim.

The cable box and the TV is plugged into the surge only plugs on the UPS, the coaxial cable is connected through a surge protector too.

I also have cable internet, and the RJ45 cables are connected through the surge protection on the UPS as well.

Everything is still good, I've been running F@H all night. I might try to hook up the other drive tomorrow and see if I can recreate the problems.

So everything that failed or acted strange was running through the same UPS? It seems to me like that UPS may have been part of the problem, even if the non-computer components only used surge protection. It only seems logical that the common link is part of the problem.

which is why i said it feels like a brown somewhere, however, the UPS? i havent heard of a bad UPS, unless the battery was bad.

 

[Drsignguy]

Edit: to let dead dogs lie