Hi all, i got alot of help here before when i had a problem in the past so im back again!

Ill give a brief description of my problem before posting my specs. Any help would be really appreiciated as im all out of ideas. Ive searched on google & the forum here but i cant seem to find a similar problem.

Basically i have a brand new 250 gig sata hard drive that i added to my current set up which had 2 two ide drives one of which has windows XP on.
Im now having continuing problems with the drive as it is constantly losing data & this causes my pc to run extremely slow. I must then perform chkdsk which will find several errors such as bad sectors, unreadble sectors & generally lots of problems with any new data that i have added to the drive. Once chkdsk is complete the drive works fine until new data is added & then the problem occurs again & chkdsk must be performed again. I also hear those nasty clicking sounds from the drive like it is struggling to spin.

When the loss occurs the pc suffers from extremly bad latency to the point where performing a simple task like playing an mp3 will cause major slow down to the point that the song becomes unplayable as it stutters so much. I also notice the cpu constantly spiking when this happens until i perform chkdsk again. Chkdsk will also take a very long time to scan.


Things ive done -

• I was so adamant the problem wasnt at my end (after doing the things below) that i took the hard drive back & had it replaced last week. Previously i had a maxtor 1 which suffered the exact same problem for months & after this occured sevral times & many chkdsks later i took it back & it was replaced with this seagate 1.
• I installed this new seagate sata drive on thursday setting it up as a secondary drive with the seagate disk wizard & following their online tutorial to the letter.
• Ive checked for virus's, adware, spyware & there was none of that.
• Formatted the drive (the maxtor 1) after this occured several times.
• Before reinstalling the new replacement seagate drive i formatted the C drive aswell & installed a new copy of windows & not alot else.
• Ive also updated the bios, mobo drivers, sound & grahics drivers.

Thats pretty much it really. As mentioned any help would be greatly appreiciated as im completely baffeled by this espeically since having the hard drive replaced. As promised heres my system specs...

Windows: Windows XP5.1 (Build 2600) Service Pack 2
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180
Memory (RAM): 1536 MB
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
CPU Speed: 2766.2 MHz
Sound card: Realtek AC97 Audio
Display Adapters: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT | NetMeeting driver | RDPDD Chained DD
Screen Resolution: 1280 X 1024 - 32 bit
:
Network Adapters: Hamachi Network Interface | NETGEAR DG632 USB Modem - Packet Scheduler Miniport | VIA Compatable Fast Ethernet Adapter - Packet Scheduler Miniport
CD / DVD Drives: D: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW TS-H552B | G: UN5634P QTS261R
:
COM Ports: COM1
LPT Ports: LPT1
Mouse: 5 Button Wheel Mouse Present
Hard Disks: C: 55.9GB | E: 232.9GB | F: 152.7GB
Hard Disks - Free: C: 17.2GB | E: 208.5GB | F: 5.6GB
USB Controllers: 5 host controllers.
Firewire (1394): Not Detected
:
Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
Product Make: 775Dual-880Pro
:
AC Power Status: OnLine
BIOS Info: ATAT COMPATIBLE 061606 A M I 6000616
Time Zone: Pacific Standard Time
Battery: No Battery
Motherboard: 775Dual-880Pro
Modem: Not detected

If any more info is needed please let me know, thanks.

Hello Zom-B,

Welcome back to PCHF. One thing comes to mind at the monent. *PSU* You did not mention the size of your Power Supply. What you discribe would indicate a possible weak or failing PSU. Could it be another bad drive. Possible, after all, if memory serves me right then a Seagate drive is just a Maxtor in sheeps clothing...Anyway...Have someone check the PSU voltages...

LC

Thanks for the quick response. The power supply is a 550 watt COLORSit switching power supply. Not sure if thats a good named brand or not. Its probably about 6 months old & ive no idea what the switching part means.
Ive got similar psu in my brothers computer, different brand i think, so i will try that for a week & see if it still occurs.
My friend is an electrician too so ill have to call him out to check the voltage on my one.

Thanks alot....ill let you know if its successful.

Since you hear that clicking then your hard drive is dying. I would save anything you can before it goes out.

You could have gotten another "bad drive as well" I have gotten 4 or 5 in a row. But that was an unlicky week lol

If you can get into your BIOS and turn on SMART.. it will tell you an estimate of when the drive is going to fail on you

Download speed fan and let us know what it says for the voltages
Download SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer

As requested heres the speedfan results, great program btw, thanks...

VCORE: 1.33V
+3.3V: 3.30V
+5V: 5.03V
+12V: 11.25V
-12V: 0.31V
-5V: 1.59V
+5VSB: 5.51V
VBAT: 2.05V

Heres a few other results, one had me a little concerned....

Fan1: 0rpm
Fan2: 2109rpm

Temp1: 34C
Temp2: 46C
HD0: 35C
HD1: 30C
HD2: 39C

HD2 is the sata drive that suffers the problems.
The figure that had me concerned was temp2. When i ran speedfan yesterday it showed up with about 56C-58C & had a picture of a flame, yikes! The pc had been running all day though.
When i performed the test above it had been on about 5 minutes with the side open with temp2 again started showing it was rising. I often leave my pc running all day like this & didnt think it would be a major problem.

Also on the back of that i left the hard drive unplugged last night to cool down & went to plug it in this morning before work but the pc would not start & got stuck on a black screen before the windows logo. This occured twice again when i got home...i was about to give up & grab the other PSU from my brothers pc but on the third attempt it booted up ok!

Thats all for now, thaks again for the ongoing help, i freakin love you guys!

Hello Zom-B,

I believe Merlin may have the right of it. All voltages are in spec tho the +12volt is a tad low. That could be because of a failing controller card on the drive. Also the failing drive could cause the boot problems. I looked over the motherboard manual. That ASRock MB is nice. I may give it a try myself. Very upgradable. Check the processor fan to see if it is working. Just as an after thought and it sounds silly but check your BIOS version. Get the latest update if you haven't already..

LC