New HDDs keep failing - what's to blame?
Experts,
I'm at a loss. I have an OLD P3-500 system with the following setup:
- 350 W PSU
- 512 MB DDR
- 3 Case fans, 2 HDD cooler
- 3 HDDs (2 ATA, 1 SATA)
- 2 DVD-RW drives
The problem I have is that most of my HDDs only last about 12 months before they start having sector errors. I keep exchanging them under warranty or occasionally buy new ones. Recently, I bought a new Western Digital 250 MB SATA and a Promise PCI-SATA controller to connect it to the motherboard. It worked until yesterday, then Windows started freezing up and the Event Log is full of "CRC read errors, LBA block blablabla".
Average temperature inside the box is 70 at the bottom and about 85-95 at the top, according to the temperature sensors built into the Antec HDD-coolers. The HDDs are installed at the top of the case in 5.25 drive bays (old type ATX big tower).
The HDDs that fail are always Western Digital, I've had a IBM 5GB IDE-HDD in the system for probably 8 years that I use for my most important data only and it has never given me problems. But it also doesn't get near the traffic the Western Digital HDDs get (moving around lots of video material for DVDs (wedding filming)) and sometimes the PC stays on all day while processing/burning but the temperature stays within the 90s max.
The other day, our A/C failed and the tower temperature spiked to 101 before I noticed it and shut the system off. Next reboot, I had problems. But previous failures never had anything like that happen and always occurred in December, when it's cool.
I've had problems once before when I installed a Silicon Image RAID-PCI adapter to run another HDD off. Said HDD (WD 100GB) failed within a week (spin up, spin down, spin up, spin down) because IDE-cable was damaged. But now I wonder if maybe lack of PSU power was the problem?!
So here's the QUESTION: is my box too hot or my PSU failing? PSU is about 5-6 years old probably.
I don't want to put money on a PSU if the whole system is simply running too hot as it is. Can't add anymore fans...
Thanks,
J
I'm at a loss. I have an OLD P3-500 system with the following setup:
- 350 W PSU
- 512 MB DDR
- 3 Case fans, 2 HDD cooler
- 3 HDDs (2 ATA, 1 SATA)
- 2 DVD-RW drives
The problem I have is that most of my HDDs only last about 12 months before they start having sector errors. I keep exchanging them under warranty or occasionally buy new ones. Recently, I bought a new Western Digital 250 MB SATA and a Promise PCI-SATA controller to connect it to the motherboard. It worked until yesterday, then Windows started freezing up and the Event Log is full of "CRC read errors, LBA block blablabla".
Average temperature inside the box is 70 at the bottom and about 85-95 at the top, according to the temperature sensors built into the Antec HDD-coolers. The HDDs are installed at the top of the case in 5.25 drive bays (old type ATX big tower).
The HDDs that fail are always Western Digital, I've had a IBM 5GB IDE-HDD in the system for probably 8 years that I use for my most important data only and it has never given me problems. But it also doesn't get near the traffic the Western Digital HDDs get (moving around lots of video material for DVDs (wedding filming)) and sometimes the PC stays on all day while processing/burning but the temperature stays within the 90s max.
The other day, our A/C failed and the tower temperature spiked to 101 before I noticed it and shut the system off. Next reboot, I had problems. But previous failures never had anything like that happen and always occurred in December, when it's cool.
I've had problems once before when I installed a Silicon Image RAID-PCI adapter to run another HDD off. Said HDD (WD 100GB) failed within a week (spin up, spin down, spin up, spin down) because IDE-cable was damaged. But now I wonder if maybe lack of PSU power was the problem?!
So here's the QUESTION: is my box too hot or my PSU failing? PSU is about 5-6 years old probably.
I don't want to put money on a PSU if the whole system is simply running too hot as it is. Can't add anymore fans...
Thanks,
J
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If you need to keep on installing so many drives etc. it is probably more practical to build your own system. Dells and most other retail PC's use rather small cases which are difficult to customize and add much more hardware to. If you keep to "Brands", you shouldn't have problems with vista once it's officially released. Using nonames will be a bigger problem.
SwissJay
the rig I suggested earlier should do fine. I always recommend a custom build(for those who are a little more tech savvy)
ATX case with 550W PSU
ASUS mainboard
AMD64 Processor
1GB DDR RAM
These should be no problem for vista.
the rig I suggested earlier should do fine. I always recommend a custom build(for those who are a little more tech savvy)
ATX case with 550W PSU
ASUS mainboard
AMD64 Processor
1GB DDR RAM
These should be no problem for vista.
ASKER
- Thanks for the "PSU undersized" statements, I kind of expected that.
- I've had good results with Seagate HDDs indeed, but I've also had total data loss in the past, due to IBM HDDs.
- Been thinking about getting a UPS for some time now.
- I believe, after reviweing all the suggestions, a new system would be in order. Should I however build one, or go with Dell or similar? Because if I'm going to put all that money into it, I'd like to make sure Vista will work on it and that the various hardware will co-operate with one another!!!!
- Power-Saving for my HDDs has been disabled for years, it slows the system down and, like sais, kills the motors...
Thanks guys, I hope I can come up with some money so I can retire good ole P3...