Hardware Issues

[veldthui]

I am having a problem with my PC. It is a home built with a Gigabyte EP45T Extreme motherboard with a Intel 9550 CPU, 4 GB DDR3 Corsair ram, Gigabyte Nivida GT280 video card and 2 700GB Sata 2 drives set up in a RAID0 array.
I have tried overclocking and cannot get it stable. Runs fine for a time and then suddenly starts not to POST. I have gone back to completely standard to see if I can find the problem and even with that there are issues. The drive has two Primary partitions and one extended that is devided up into other partitions. The first primary holds Vista x64 and the second is going to hold Windows Server 2008 as a demo trial.

Symptoms. One symptom is that when it goes to power up the fans start up, it tries to POST and then shuts itself down and does that in a continuous loop. There is no beeps or any response at all. Looking at the lights on the MB all seems normal. To fix this I have to remove the video card and pop out the memory and put it all back in and then it works. Almost as though something has not seated properly.
Second symptom is that access to the drive appears very slow but a read test shows quite good compared to another PC that is slightly under powered from this one. Getting up around 220MB/sec read speeds.
Third symptom and has only just started since I tried to install Windows Server 2008. Got it installed but the version I had must have had a preinstalled key on it and it would not give me the trial so I reformated the partition and started again.
Now every time I go to install it, it will fail saying the file is corrupt. After cancelling and restarting the POST screen takes ages to scan through the SATA ports and one drive is usually missing (I am assuming this is the cause of the corrupt file as well). Other times the drives show up but the RAID array does not show up. Only way to fix it is to power the machine down (not simply reset) and power up again and it usually boots up fine.

Sorry for the long post but it is driving me batty. This is my 6th PC I have built and while I have had the odd trouble with the others they have been quickly traced down to faulty memory or a drive that failed. I am at a loss with this one.

The video card is huge and actually sits on the SATA connector for the DVD but it looks fully seated and is locked in with the clip.

The only other thing nearby is a Draytek 2820n router that has wireless. It is sitting fairly close to the PC and above it.

Any suggestions welcome.

 

[stoneys-nutz]

Hello veldthui,
I had a very similar problem, (different hardware), i found that upping the voltage to the NB and memory fixed it for me, i don't suppose this is going to be that easy, but may be worth a try.

I think i would try just one HDD and a fresh install until the system is running OK.

Symptom One, does it do this when the Bios is set to default ?, because thats normally the sign of a bad OC.

Hope this helps, good luck and post your results.

 

[veldthui]

Thanks. I was going to try and up the voltage next but am always a bit wary of it. Don't want to go to much. They are all on Auto at present. Yes it it does it when the BIOS is set to "optimised" settings which is suppose to be the default. I did try and clock from 2.83Ghz to 3.0Ghz which was when the trouble started but went back. At one stage it was reporting all sorts of strange clocking values such as 400hz but once booted up Windows reported it as 2.83Ghz.
One other strange thing is that it is a Quad core and while 2 of the core temps read about 40 degrees when working relatively hard the other two cores will read 30 and 28 degrees. Maybe my CPU might be faulty and is causing all the problems? I have an Artic Freezer Cooler on it which does a wonderful cooling job.

 

[stoneys-nutz]

Try setting the voltage manually on the CPU and Memory, (recommend settings), and the North Bridge (small steps) as for the temps, you might find they sort themselves out when its running OK.
Also, set the Memory timings manually too, in fact, take as much as your able to off Auto.

 

[veldthui]

Set the voltages manually but still getting strange results. Windows Vista appears to be working fine. However if I install Server 2008 into the second partition it eithers stops expanding the files or says the file is corrupt.
On a cancel and reboot the hardware gets hung up trying to find the two hard drives (The RAID0 array). They are just not there. Have to power the machine down just to get them to re-appear.

Did a complete format of the second partiton in case of sector errors and it took nearly 3 hours to format the 68GB partition.

 

[stoneys-nutz]

Have you thought about using a partition manager ?.
If Vista is running OK on its own, then it seems the problem is in the partition, or the way the partition is organised/managed.

Best FREE Partition Manager for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 - EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition freeware.

Sorry i cant be of more help, if this does not work, I'm not sure what would be the best way to go with this.
Anyway, try this and see how it goes.

 

[veldthui]

The drive was partitioned by a comercial product and seems to work fine. I had a break through today though.
I remembered I had a single 250GB SATA2 drive lying around (from a failed RAID0 pair) that was still good. I disconnected the two drives in my PC and hooked in the drive by itself, changed the BIOS from SATA RAID XHD to IDE and let it go.
Installed no probem at all. So it has something to do with the RAID0 array or the hardware controlling the array.

May buy another matched pair of drives (cheaper than a new PC) and hook that up as a RAID array and install with the partition at the front instead of the second one.

 

[stoneys-nutz]

Glad you are getting there, it may be worth checking to see if there has there been a Bios update for your MB too.
Anyhoo, thanks for the update, it may help somebody in the future, good luck.

 

[veldthui]

BIOS update was the first thing I tried.
Cheers