God, My Luck Continues

[anotherfiz]

In the last 6 weeks, Ive had my computers main hard drive (2x 15.0gig raid0) die, and my laptop hard drive start to give me signs that its going aswell.


As a replacement, for the 2 15 gigs that died, i ordered two 36gb Raptors.

So far they work sweet, fast as hell.

Today, i was playing Final Fantasy XI and i heard , what sounded like a hard drive, click, turn off, then spin back up. No halt in computer use or game play. (For all i know could be the PSU fan or somehting dying too then coming back)

Because my system did not lock up, i figured there was nothing wrong and kept using it. HTought maybe i had heard somehting else.

THen i went to take a nap. WHen i woke up i found my system FROZEN at the screensaver. Perplexed, i turned my machine off and rebooted, all seemed well. Except the network card (on board gbit Nic on P4c800 dluxe) wasnt seeing a cable plugged in, i remedied that by restarting the ROUTER.

Then i decided to burn a data DVD. (about 2 hours later) Opened up the program and selected "click to add files" (which owuld access my C: right away) and the systme locked up AGAIN.

At this point im like hmmm not good.. So i force power down and reboot, and what happens? I hear this wierd noise that sonds like a drive turning off and then on and spinning up again, not once, not twice, but THREE times. SYstem does not boot, and just sits there.

I reboot and its booted up and working now.

ANy idea whats going on? Are the drivers getting too hot or something and casuing to force shut down? Its a bit hotter in my house now due to the heat for winter.

Im at a loss, i dont know what to do, i dont wanna RMA them to newegg or WD because i dont want to waste the time.

Help =(

Just to give some info...

P4C 3ghz not OCED (ignore sig)
P4C800 Dluxe
1024 PC3200LLPT corsair (4x 256) running 2-3-2-6 (not 2-2-2- because of 4 sticks)
Raid0 Raptor 10k RPM
120GB WD storagge drive.

Drives are plugged into PROMISE controller, as i do not have ICH5r

hmm what else.. It is in a Lian Li Pc-65 Case, so TWO of the three hard drives are in VERY close proximity(if you see the hard drive cage that comes with it you know what i mean), is this possibly causing too much heat? or did i get a bad drive.

[anotherfiz]

Upon rethinking the last week. ANd the incident today

I think that my Raptors are fine.



I belive the problem to be the 120 GIG drive i have for storage.

The raptors are in Raid0 config, SO if one drive suddenly powers on and off WHILE the system is in use or even on, it would Definatly crash wouldnt it? I mean the way Raid works, wouldnt i even incurr data loss like that?

Also, i remmeber about a week ago i was using my comp, booted up working fine everything was there and i cpopied some files over from my D: (120) to my C: (raptors)

Few hours later, no reboot or anything, i went to my computer and my D: was GONE. not there. Poof.

REbooted, and drive didnt show up in bois

Turned system off opened up and made sure cables were seated, turned on, didnt see it..

Turned it off for like 15 mins, turned it on, and it worked again.


the 120 is one of the first special editions with 8 meg cache, about 1.5 years old.


One of the raptors is in very close proximitry with the 120, literally less than half an inch between the two drives.

Could this be causing the 120 drive logic board to overheat and crash? casuing a reboot of the DRIVE?

[phongshader]

some mobo monitoring programs also have s.m.a.r.t detection, allowing them to monitor hd temps. i know that speedfan allows this monitoring. check those against the hd maker's reccomended operating temps to see if they are within spec.

i have to say, though, i think your best bet is running scandisk and checking for corruption on the 120 gig drive.

[synergistic]

Just out of curiosity, what sound card are you using?

[anotherfiz]

SB Live 5.1 i think?

Very veyr old

[synergistic]

I'm only asking because when my Audigy 2 was going bad, it caused numerous random anomalies with my system. Kind of similar to what you are experiencing. It may be a long shot, but Creative products are certainly notorious for causing problems, so it may be worthwhile looking into.

Also, what power supply are you using?

[P4Northwood]

I would not use your computer until you replace the PSU. When PSU's go bad, they will fry all kinds of (stuff)-(Out of respect for our children members). So dont take chances. Your system looks to be worth alot of money, and I would hate to see you buying stuff once a week till you find out it was the PSU.. It sounds like it is.... Buy a PSU tester. They are real cheap... Here is a link..


http://www.svc.com/atxposute.html

[anotherfiz]

Antec tru430