6800GT Causes HD "Clicks" = Weak PSU?

9mmx19

[H]ard|Gawd
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Okay just got a Chaintech 6800GT from eBay. When I play games, i hear "clicks" from my harddrive like the ones you hear when you just power up your machine. I thought it was my power supply so I unplugged everything and only have the HD, the video card, and floppy drive plugged in. Symptoms:

1) In Black&White 2, every 6ish seconds, Ill hear a HD Click, everything will freeze up for 5 seconds, then itll return to normal for 1-5seconds, repeat.

2) In World of Warcraft, Ill hear the click maybe every couple of minutes, everything freezes for a few seconds, then resumes as if I had never stopped doing whatever it is I was doing. Like I'll come back and a monster I was fighting would be dead.

3) In Quake 4, no clicks but every few seconds Ill see this slight "stutter" in FPS.

4) In HL2:Lost Coast, I had one click during the main menu but none when I played through it.

5) Only hear clicks regularly when Im playing games.

6) Dont hear clicks when Im on the XP desktop (or right now). However, I HAVE heard clicks occasionally when using my BFG 6800 in the past. Sometimes it would temporarily freeze up my games other times it wouldnt.

Because of 5-6 I dont think its the HD. Because of 1-4 I dont think its the video card. If the card was screwed up I dont think I could play anything at all. Could it be my power supply being too weak? Thats my only guess. Its some crappy no name 350W one, "Codegen" or something. Im going to change it this weekend but I wanted some input. Thanks in advance.
 
Sounds like power issues.
I had a bad PSU kill two HDs on me.

However, does it make clicks when doing large copies to/from the drive? (I.e. sustained disk access?) while in XP?
 
Make sure you back everything up, even if it is the power causing that issue, the HD could still fail on you.
 
So you guys think it is the PSU then?

BTW the regular clicking thing in WoW was when I had another drive and CDROM plugged in. Now when its only the HD and Video card I only heard it once in a couple hours of play... Sigh damn computers so much hassle... =)
 
Harddrives seem to be more sensitive than most parts to failing power and the clicking you are hearing is exactly like what I heard when my old power supply started giving out. It could also be a bad connection on one of the molex connecters or in one of your wires coming from the PSU, if the computer is on and you are not doing anything and wiggling the wires causes the clicking then you may just have a bad connection.
 
Your PSU is giving out and most likely killing your hard drive. Back up everything now. My crystal ball predicts an expensive couple of weeks ahead :(
 
9mmx19 said:
Okay just got a Chaintech 6800GT from eBay. When I play games, i hear "clicks" from my harddrive like the ones you hear when you just power up your machine. I thought it was my power supply so I unplugged everything and only have the HD, the video card, and floppy drive plugged in. Symptoms:

1) In Black&White 2, every 6ish seconds, Ill hear a HD Click, everything will freeze up for 5 seconds, then itll return to normal for 1-5seconds, repeat.

2) In World of Warcraft, Ill hear the click maybe every couple of minutes, everything freezes for a few seconds, then resumes as if I had never stopped doing whatever it is I was doing. Like I'll come back and a monster I was fighting would be dead.

3) In Quake 4, no clicks but every few seconds Ill see this slight "stutter" in FPS.

4) In HL2:Lost Coast, I had one click during the main menu but none when I played through it.

5) Only hear clicks regularly when Im playing games.

6) Dont hear clicks when Im on the XP desktop (or right now). However, I HAVE heard clicks occasionally when using my BFG 6800 in the past. Sometimes it would temporarily freeze up my games other times it wouldnt.

Because of 5-6 I dont think its the HD. Because of 1-4 I dont think its the video card. If the card was screwed up I dont think I could play anything at all. Could it be my power supply being too weak? Thats my only guess. Its some crappy no name 350W one, "Codegen" or something. Im going to change it this weekend but I wanted some input. Thanks in advance.


who makes the hd?
 
Its a WD 120GB w/8MB buffer. I have a feeling now though everyone is going to say a different brand is "best" haha. Maxtor, Seagate, etc...

So in conclusion weve ruled out the video card being bad right? I want to finish the transaction and leave feedback and be done with it. Its PSU probably and possibly HD right?
 
9mmx19 said:
So in conclusion weve ruled out the video card being bad right? I want to finish the transaction and leave feedback and be done with it. Its PSU probably and possibly HD right?
Yes--

I'm almost certain it's the PSU. I was trying to run my (long gone) 6800GT on a crappy no-name 450 watt (omg) PSU. After about ten minutes, there was a horrible popping sound and the damn power supply gave up in a puff of purple smoke. I'm lucky that the only thing that got fucked up was my DVD ROM drive (and of course the PSU)

For anything above a 6600, you should really invest in a decent power supply. 70 bucks can go a long way.
 
Okay so put in a 500W PSU and the clicking stopped in B&W2 which had the most severe problem. Didnt notice it in WoW either (which is the most important after all right?) so Im happy =)
 
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