FOUR hard drives killed... by WHAT?

[Rooster]

Alright, this is pissing me off.

I put in a 40GB, used but healthy drive for my friend comes up with errors, goes bonkers - dies. (Seagate)

I put in a 10GB (was in my Daughters a while ago, it was fine) as a temp until the 40GB comes back from warranty. Problems (WD) with sectors.

I put in a 16GB (was in my Son's a while ago, no problems) drive as a 2nd temp.I ran tests on this drive before he got it, just to make sure it wasn't flaky because I was suspicious. More problems. (Seagate)

I put in a near-new 40GB Maxtor, it NOW has problems.

WTF is going on here? I mean, it sounds like the drive is physically damaged now. I had every single build running perfectly before he got it.

All he does is load some Canon ImageClass Printer drivers from CD, maybe some Mortgage software (yeah, he's my mortgage agent, my friend from H.S.... we're supposed to close FRIDAY, and he's without his damn computer).

The controller passes all it's tests.

DOUBLE YOU TEE EHF!

[spyder913]

I would say the mobo or the power supply... or that is some shitty ass software!

[Swifty_Johnson]

Check all the voltages and see if any are out of tolerance.

Swifty

[Rooster]

Wes (MyU) suggested the same, and now that I think about it, it makes sense...

But, I put in a brand new 400Watt P/S about 6 months ago, when we started fixing this whole thing - he was having spontaneous reboots when he'd flip windows or something similar.

We upgraded his mobo, cpu, ram, nic (on board) & sound (on board) - his power supply got changed just before those got put in.

Now, that doesn't rule out the p/s, but it sure makes it less likely.

ANOTHER thing... He just upgraded video cards (to a 9800 Pro!). I put it in last week, ran tests, everything is GREAT. (Keep in mind, everything is great when it's at my place, until he gets it). Then Wednesday, the power went off for about 20 seconds. The video card was dead (1 long, 8 shorts). I replaced with his old GF4MX 440, had some odd problems not showing up on reboots. Then I tried an old GF4MX 420 I had on hand, worked great, then it did the ole' no video response. Hmm... k... maybe it's the AGP slot! Put in my son's GeForce 3... couldn't get it to break. Okay, 2 questionable GF4MX's... no big deal - one was questionable anyway, the other, I have no idea where it came from. So I RMA his video card. Then I put in a PCI video card (only thing left, his board requires 4x or 8x)

He takes the thing home, within 4 hours, he's got problems.

[Rooster]

Now, I'm thinkin -- how does one go about turning ON the power supply and check voltages without screwing with the motherboard.

I have a multimeter, and know how to test power...

[Tammarion]

Well in my case, I was lucky enough to have an ASUS mobo, which gives the voltages involved while in BIOS setting mode.

[Rooster]

It does report some of the voltages - and none appear wonky.

[Tammarion]

Well it doesn't rule out the PS quite yet - its working fine for the moment. If it starts doing the reboot thing then pay the bios a visit.

With mine, everything looked fine even if the 12V was a little weak (11 or so). Only when the comp was acting up (couldn't finish loading windows without a reboot) did I find the 5V was down to 3 :(

[Rooster]

Thing is, his computer works GREAT at my place - even running overnight, etc... I normally say anything within 10% is acceptable. There was nothing like that (5V rail running at 3V) goin' on.

[Swifty_Johnson]

Check the wall outlets at his place.

Swifty

[Figtoria]

I've seen bad power supplies and/or mbs eat a few hard drives.

That's definately where I would be looking.

Try putting him on a UPS too for a test - smooth out any brown-outs.

[Riddick]

I would kick it. From the Side. While wearing boots. Hard.

Early gratz on the closing btw. :p

[Rooster]

Yeah, I was going to loan him one of my UPS's (I have 2 on my system!).