Please Help, my machine now consumes hard drives!!!!!

computerpro3

LightningRod
Joined
Mar 29, 2003
Messages
8,702
Well, the last 2 days have been a nightmare. My chilly1 modded phase change came in, so i took my mohterboard out to install it. I did, and it works great. So I ended up setting up my computer on a cardboard box for now because I wanted to verify everything works fine. It does for one day. Towards the end of the day, upon a cold boot, it cant find my 250GB PATA maxtor drive. So I turn it off, change cables and ide ports, clear cmos, and boom it works. Worked great till I turned my machine off for the night.

Today around noon I went to turn it on. Same crap as last night. Spent about 2 hours swapping cables, everything etc. Finally I get it recognized, but at the veryfying DMI setting screen (or whatever it is right after post) it says "error loading OS". I then noticed that the hard drive was VERY hot, and It wasnt spinning up.

So I go to swap hard drives. I pop in a 120GB maxtor from an old install. It works fine, tries to load into windows but then since it came from an old HP it started setup. Not wanting to reinstall yet, i swapped it out. It was in for maybe 5min total.

Next I tried my old WD 80GB pata drive, from a previous install of this system. I tried holding it in my hand this time, figuring maybe vibrations from the phase change compressor was screwing it up. It gets recognized in bios, same error loading os. Then, the machine reboots, I hear and FEEL a "thunk" and the hard drive stops spinning. Then, I dropped the drive onto the desk because it got BURNING hot right where my finger was. I immediatley cut power.

This is on the machine in my sig. What is going on? 2 dead hard drives in one day? There are no shorts since the pc is not in a case. My power supply is the best on the market. I honestly cannot think of anything that could cause this.

Anyone have a theory? I'm afraid to go hook up my next best hard drive (80GB maxtor) in case it dies. Then I'd be stuck with a 10GB seagate......

Thanks
 
3.3v = 3.5v
5v = 5.25v
12v = 12.3

I have adjustable pots, and set them to that 2 years ago. Just took readings with multimeter, they haven't moved a bit. It's a pc power and cooling 510 deluxe, its not the problem. After the first drive died, I set the voltages back to stock.

Some other volts:

when the first drive died:

vcore = 1.8v
vdimm = 3.4v
ltd = 1.3v
chipset = 1.6v

For the other drive, cmos was reset so everything was stock.
 
Motherboard maybe, Too many volts somehow getting to the ATA/ide port.
Have you tried the sata ? I know, don't really want to mess up another drive.
Or go to DFI-Street forums and see if anyone else has that problem.
All i could think of.
 
BTW herb that's why I haven't been able to test the dvd rom (I was also in NY for a confrence). You're first in line for it if it works. Sorry about that.
 
Thats cool, I hope you get it up and running.
With mach cooling and all it'll be badass.
 
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