Q: First, I give you my specs:
AMD Athon 64 3500 977 503 POV GeForce 6800GT
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB SATA
Asus nForce4 board
Running Windows XP SP1 (still wary of SP2)
Now, I have two problems now and then I would be very appreciate comments. The hard drive problem:
– Occasionally, I put the computer to find that no hard drives could be found useful to boot from an OS. This is usually immediately solved by rebooting or switching power on and off. Annoying. I also noticed that sometimes after I shut down Windows (or restart), and the clean shutdown, I get the “Consistency checks required” screen. He is never a problem. I do not know if this is related. I took a dive with SATA, but I hope I do not make mistakes there . SATA is a relatively new technology.
-I had some problems with my mouse. I have not been able to reproduce this behavior, so I have not tested much. Its happened a few times that my mouse stops moving. All actions will still work, and I can click and move, its just that the mouse pointer will not correspondent to the actual “mouse” position. When I reboot, this problem is solved. Im not sure if this can be hardware-related Windows is a joke with someone me.
If has no ideas, that would be great. Thanks a lot!
Best Answer: I would suggest manually testing the voltage on your PSU. The link in the source section will tell you step by step what to do.
The goal when testing the PSU will be to get a reading during system hang. This will give you an indication as to whether the power supply is to blame.
Another thing it could be is your HDD. I only mention this because you have that old 80GB. A failing HDD may not just immediately quit working. If it is failing it could cause the problem and you may not realize that it's going out. See if that HDD has S.M.A.R.T. capabilities (I think it does) and check that. You may very well find the health of the HDD in your BIOS.
You may be able to find the cause of the problem by going into your BIOS and selecting the Standard CMOS features. I don't have this mobo but take this information from the manual:
"Standard CMOS Features
Use this menu to configure the system time and date, hard drive types, floppy disk drive types,
and the type of errors that stop the system boot, etc."
As a last resort switch your IDE and SATA cables for new ones. A loose connector or break in the ribbon can cause your system to hang. This is also something that may cause the problem as you described…sometimes it hangs, sometimes it doesn't.
If the PSU is the culprit I would recommend RMAing it if it's under warranty. If not you should buy a new one. You risk damaging other components in your system if you try to repair it yourself.
Re:The system's been alive for maybe a month. It's brand new and I didn't build it myself, but had it professionally done. I hope I can trust that they knew what they were doing, since I payed them money and all.
Re:How long has this system been together for? Was it running for a while with no problems and this just started, or have you always had the problem. Have you made sure you don't have any loose connections? Considering the 2 seeming unrelated problems you are having, I would really suspect that the motherboard isn't mounted properly and there may be a standoff out of place, that is shorting the motherboard, or a loose screw underneath.
Re:Nobody's got an idea, then?
Are there other people with SATA drives experiencing random problems?Re:Sorry, did I leave that part out?
It's a pretty good one as far as I'm concerned:
- Tagan TG480-U01 480 Watt
Can't see a problem there, but who knows?
Re:what brand/wattage is your power supply?
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