Motherboard not working
I have an Asus P5N73-AM Motherboard with a P4-HT 2.93 Ghz processor in it. Its been working quite fantastic up until now. It also has some extra capacitors or something that help keep the motherboard safe in power fluctuations etc.
Few days ago I had my 500 GB SATA HDD crashed in it. Actually the spped of R/W on HDD would go so slow that would reach 2.5 MB/s read speed and 1.5 MB/s write speed sometimes and without even being on for 1 hour. It was new so I sent it for replacement and received a certified repaired HDD. The problem remained with new HDD, I had a full version of HD Tune Pro installed that time to monitor my R/W speeds and same happened with new replacement HDD. I gave it in again for replacement and while waiting to receive another drive I installed an old 40 GB PATA drive in my system. After going good for a few days like 4-5 days it also started getting slow and R/W speed would come to crawl like previous ones. I figured it was either PSU or Motherboard itself. One day I was playing a really low-end game No one lives forever-2 and it literally started crawling and system finally got shut-off by itself and never turned on again.
I checked HDD was working fine on other system, processor was fine, I sent motherboard to be checked and repaired and found that mobo was gone and the guy couldnt get it repaired. I really have doubt on his skills and I know that he can't do much about it I have to get my mobo sent to certified servicemen.
But still I wanna know is there anything I can do for it? Has anyone any experience with it?
Few days ago I had my 500 GB SATA HDD crashed in it. Actually the spped of R/W on HDD would go so slow that would reach 2.5 MB/s read speed and 1.5 MB/s write speed sometimes and without even being on for 1 hour. It was new so I sent it for replacement and received a certified repaired HDD. The problem remained with new HDD, I had a full version of HD Tune Pro installed that time to monitor my R/W speeds and same happened with new replacement HDD. I gave it in again for replacement and while waiting to receive another drive I installed an old 40 GB PATA drive in my system. After going good for a few days like 4-5 days it also started getting slow and R/W speed would come to crawl like previous ones. I figured it was either PSU or Motherboard itself. One day I was playing a really low-end game No one lives forever-2 and it literally started crawling and system finally got shut-off by itself and never turned on again.
I checked HDD was working fine on other system, processor was fine, I sent motherboard to be checked and repaired and found that mobo was gone and the guy couldnt get it repaired. I really have doubt on his skills and I know that he can't do much about it I have to get my mobo sent to certified servicemen.
But still I wanna know is there anything I can do for it? Has anyone any experience with it?
ASKER
Thanks for your answer but I want to know why and how the mobo caused three of my Hard drives to crawling speeds even when one of them was brand new? Plus how did it die while playing the game, what might have caused it?
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Personally, I would invest in two NEW drives, set up RAID1. Then not only do they cover each other in event of bad blocks, but a drive failure. Is your data worth $150 or so?
ASKER
You're right thanks. We learn from our mistakes though I always keep backup of my data and did the same before this happened.
Thanks for the input anyway, really appreciate the answer and advice from someone experienced.
Thanks for the input anyway, really appreciate the answer and advice from someone experienced.
You're welcome. But you are dismissing the value of RAID1. It is much more probable you'll develop bad blocks (as you have seen), then a drive failure. RAID1 will self-correct and detect this. Just doing backups will not. You can develop bad block on source and/or backup. but with RAID1 they are in sync. (But you still need to at least archive offsite). A lot of good RAID1 will do in case of fire, tornado, theft, etc ...
ASKER
That's definitely what I am going to do along with upgrading my system. Any advices for upgrading? I'm not going on a high budget upgrade but it still needs to be going on with current generation.
Assuming you are running windows 7, then no reason to buy a RAID controller. The O/S is perfectly capable of doing RAID1, and you will get MUCH better performance if if you let the O/S do it ... unless you want to spend several hundred for a premium controller. As for disk drives, all consumer class disks are crap, so buy two. You're better off with two consumer class disks then a single enterprise class SATA drive.
If your motherboard has RAID DON'T use it. Those are fake-RAID, and aren't suitable for anybody unless your O/S doesn't support software-based RAID. The fake-raid cards do the work with a device driver anyway, so there is no performance advantage.
If your motherboard has RAID DON'T use it. Those are fake-RAID, and aren't suitable for anybody unless your O/S doesn't support software-based RAID. The fake-raid cards do the work with a device driver anyway, so there is no performance advantage.
ASKER
I'll keep that in mind thanks man.
Basically, without anything you smell it, see if you have that burnt oil smell, and look for bulging electrolytic capacitors. But since the other guy probably has the proper equipment to fix a mobo, and failed, then this tells you it is most likely a chip on the motherboard.
Dispose of it properly through an electronics recycler, and buy a replacement. If a pro can't fix it, then don't waste your time.