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Computer Kills Any Hard Drive in 3 Days
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scarcius
Newbie
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11. April 2006 @ 21:32 |
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I have abit of a weird situation, my computer is determined to kill and hard drive that I install into it within three days. I have replaced the motherboard ahnd ave a new power supply and swaped out 4 hard drives in less than 9 days. The drives all get bad sectors written to them and last on average about 10-15 hours then simply die, all the while making the most annoying high picthed noise that you can imagine, making it really annoying to use the machine.
I have contacted Western Digital, returned the dead hard drives and gotten new ones back, run hard drive software, everything is telling me nothing is wrong with the hard drives. Of course in a few days my hard drive dies, and I lose all my data because by the time, I load windows, get my files on and load my programs on, the hard drive is starting to whine, meaning I only have a few hours to use the machine.
I assume since what Western Digital is telling me and from what other people are saying, something is causing my hard drives to die, either my motherboard misfiring, but it has been replaced, my power supply, but it is new. Some people tell me my computer is not getting enough power but I am using a 500 watt power supply, and my case is kept really cool about 81 degrees C, considering it has alot of hardware in it. I am stumped on this one, and no one that I have come across has been able to break this computer's terrible habit. I am considering just scrapping the machine and buying a laptop, which would be sad because this was my Christmas gift to myself.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Member
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11. April 2006 @ 21:43 |
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And my case is kept really cool about 81 degrees C, considering it has alot of hardware in it.
If your case is at 81C you just found the problem. On this planet, 81C is freaking hot.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 11. April 2006 @ 21:45
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scarcius
Newbie
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11. April 2006 @ 22:43 |
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Well, I did just do a little experiment. I opened my case and plugged in my hard drive and let it hang out of the case, and used the computer waiting for it to start whining again. It started whining and I started to try to locate where the noise is coming from. I first disconnected the hard drive's power supply, no luck, then the hard drive's data cable, no luck.
I started to check all the fans in the case, I found that the bottom fan on my power supply(Extreme Gamer Vigor 500) is the cause of the whining, leading me to perhaps believe that this is the cause. But I find it hard to believe that a whining power supply fan would be killing my hard drives.
Also in the post above you state that having a computer case run at 81C is bad?? I would ask if you know how to get it cooler, because I have like 8 fans in the case and 81C is the lowest I can get it. It ranges between 81-85 and the house is like 70C. I have a dual 3.0 processor, 1 hard drive, 500 watt power supply and 2 GB ram, and a 256mb video card. What would you recommend the temperature to be at inorder to run this better. Also 81C is the average temperature in the computer I have no idea what the core temperature is around say my processors or hard drives is. Perhaps the power supply is getting to hot and thus ruinging the hard drives?
When I first upgraded the computer in December the computer ran fine for about a month and a half then it just started killing hard drives.
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Member
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11. April 2006 @ 23:03 |
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You say 70C is the temperature in the house??
You realize that's 158F???
I'm guessing you just got mixed up. It's okay, I won't give you too hard of time about it. lol.
And the whinning, may be just from the fan, but maybe it is causing the PSU to overheat or reduce wattage. You say the HD dies soon after the noise starts. Sounds to me like there is a connection there.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 11. April 2006 @ 23:06
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scarcius
Newbie
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11. April 2006 @ 23:06 |
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Man, I must sound like an idiot, sorry lol, that 70F. Geezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Well I guess everyone makes mistakes, I just downloaded a program called HDD Thermometer and it says that my hard drive is running at 84F and my computer is currently running at 75.3F which is the coolest I can get it, I had a small amount of dust in the case. Gonna run it again for awhile and see if the power supply fan whines again. Is this still to high to have the inside of my case, though? 75.3F
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scarcius
Newbie
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11. April 2006 @ 23:09 |
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Well the power supply also have a switch that I can run it at 110 or 230 assuming this must mean watts or something, but perhaps the power supply fan sticks, or whatever makes it hot and distorts the power to the hard drive and causes bad sectors on it. By bad sectors it only ruins the part of the hard drive that the OS is one, funny thing is I can put the ruined hard drive in an external hard drive case and access files off of it, using an USB cable.
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Member
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11. April 2006 @ 23:14 |
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Well the power supply also have a switch that I can run it at 110 or 230 assuming this must mean watts or something
Make sure that's on 110. Unless your plugged up to a 220(highly unlikely) 110 is you choice.
No,in Farenheit, your temps aren't bad at all. Weird that you can access the files. So it's not killing the HD itself, just erasing data. Then technically could you re-install windows on any of those drives??
You say they are WD, but what's the model number? IDE or SATA?
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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12. April 2006 @ 08:48 |
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Your 110/220 selector is voltage (you hopefully know what your local voltage is) (UK 240 US 110).
If you've had that set wrong, then you really have screwed yourself from the start.
Depending which way around you set it (110 setting plugged into 240 is very very bad) (240 setting plugged into 110, not so bad but will make psu perform incorrectly) chances are some components will handle the incorrect outputs better than others (looks like HDDs really don't like it).
To get better cooling, make sure the fans are working in the correct direction in relation to where they are placed.
You need to pull air into the case, across the board and components from the front and side, and then have it extracted outwards at the rear and top.
Make sure the CPU fan is working in the best direction with the airflow (not pulling against the rest of the air).
Tidy up your cabling and make sure that there is as much free air space as possble.
Maybe upgarde you video cooler and us a cooler with a combined exhaust out of the rear, this gets one of the greatest sources of heat straight out of the case.
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scarcius
Newbie
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12. April 2006 @ 09:21 |
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Well, after talking with some people everyone seems to agree that the power supply fan whining is causing it to alter the voltage coming out of the power supply and causing damage to the hard drive. The power supply is under warranty so I am gonna try to get it replaced hopefully this will solve this issue, because replacing hard drives is becoming a bit of a drag just to use a computer.
I post later if this doesn't resolve the situation, also I have a dual fan on the back of the case and another dual set coming off the power supply so my case has the following.
2 front fans
1 video card fan
1 processor 64 bit fan
2 side fans
1 top fan
2 power supply fans
2 rear case fans
11 fans, the only thing my case does not have is a dual fan set directly behind the hard drive area, like I have seen in my server cases, which I could not mount because it was to big. This keeps the case at 75.6C - 78.2C, the best I can acheieve with the ThermalTake case I have, perhaps I will bump up some of the fans, since they don't push alot of air to keep the case running silent. It ran cooler when I have 2(2.0 AMD MP) but I changed the motherboard and also have 2gb ram and a dual 3.0 processors so the case runs about 5-7 degrees hotter.
Again thanks for all the input guys, I really am grateful for it all.
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ddp
Moderator
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12. April 2006 @ 12:12 |
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have you tried another ide cable?
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scarcius
Newbie
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12. April 2006 @ 17:28 |
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No i haven't but that is the only other thing that I could think of that would be the problem, perhaps just to be on the safe side I will also change it out as well as get the power supply replaced.
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