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Need help narrowing down an issue

P

Phandalyon

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Joined
Jun 12, 2001
Messages
5,839
OK. Lets start at the beginning, here are the specs of the PC:

Gigabyte GASINXP1394 Motherboard
P4 2.4B
512 MB Corsair XMS PC2700 in dual channel
Radeon 9600 256MB
Antec 430W PSU
WD 80gb SATA HD
Windows XP Pro

The issue is this:

Computer was shut down overnight and when it was restarted the next morning, it got locked in an endless boot cycle. Brought the computer in and tried previous working config, same problem. Tried safe mode, same problem.

Opened up computer. The Coolmax 550W PSU had both fans siezed, so replaced with the current Antec. Seagate SATA Hard Drive showed 3 bad sectores, replaced with a WD. All other hardware checked out fine. Installed XP on the WD drive and everthing went smoothly. Got it up and running. Ran for 1 day. Now the same issue has started again.

Only software installed before reboot that started the endless loop was Logitech mouse software which had been run for over 6 months without issues.

Anyone have a thought? Could that Coolmax PSU have fried the motherboard?

I am checking the new HD for bad sectors right now. New Antec PSU is still working fine.
 
One more detail, and this one bugs me.

After the format when I installed the SATA driver in Windows, it would no longer boot. I had to revert to a previous good configuration and then everything was fine. This bugs me because it is weird, but I have used this same motherboard 3 or 4 times and noted the same issue each time, so I don't think it is really related.

2 more details:

I tried one stick of RAM at a time with no change.

I tried to repair the Windows Xp install and when I do that I get a STOP error...
 
Well crap. The plot thickens

I ran the WD bootable drive utility from their site and it found an error on the drive and repaired it. Once the error is repaired, the drive was able to boot normally (No reboot cycle.

This one is beyond me. What could have cause the error on the drive, and what could cause it to keep coming back?
 
Bad drive? Bad controller? Bad cable? (long shot, but you seem to be out of ideas)
 
Buckus said:
Bad drive? Bad controller? Bad cable? (long shot, but you seem to be out of ideas)
Click to expand...

Well, since "fixing" it last night I have not been able to get it to break again. I think I will replace the cable since I have a ton of SATA cables lying around anyway just to see what happens. Hopefully it will take care of the issue. If its a bad controller, I have to replace the motherboard since its onboard. The drive could conceivable be bad, but that would be 2 drives in a row from different companies with the same issue.

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Just remember SATA cables do not like to be bent sharply...and caution with the connectors, they damage easily.
 
twajetmech said:
Just remember SATA cables do not like to be bent sharply...and caution with the connectors, they damage easily.
Click to expand...


;) These are both lessons I have learned the hard way. I build a lot of computers and mistakes are bound to happen. Thanks for the heads up.
 
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