Hard drives keeps turning itself off and on.

Vegeta · 20 Mar 2006 at 02:52

After about 30mins to 1hour of bf2 play my hard drive stops spinning ingame, then starts again - the game resumes, these become closer and closer until it eventually does it non stop.
I recently installed cold cathods and my hard drive i was getting its power not directly from the psu - i.e via extra molex connectors then ontop of that the ones provided by the neon lights.
Am I right in thinking that its not getting enough power as its way too down the line? Maybe I should connect a molex from the psu straight to the hard drive?

SPEC:
western digital cavalier se 16 sata 2 16mb
xpro 460w psu
Barton 2500@3200
Leadtek 6800gt @ 410/1130
1 gig pc3200 6,3,3,2 ram
2X optical drives
1Xfdd
2X pci cards
2X cathodes

semi-pro waster · 20 Mar 2006 at 10:18

I'd connect the hard drive as near to the top of the chain as possible since it is by far a more important component that a cathode. The PSU should easily be able to cope but it might be an idea to try disconnecting the cathodes altogether to test and see if the problem re-occurs. I'd also back up vital files just in case the drive is failing.

smids · 20 Mar 2006 at 10:51

I've seen this a lot recently - most notably on my WD Raptor 150 which I RMA'ed because it was doing that. I think it's a faulty controller board.

this_is_gav · 21 Mar 2006 at 10:56

If it's only in games/under heavy load, it'll be the PSU. You'll need to either reduce load by removing devices, or better still, get a meatier PSU.

Exact same thing happened to me.

ChrisLX200 · 21 Mar 2006 at 14:13

I dunno, given the kit you have a 460watt PSU (good one) seems ample to me. The highest current load is when they're spinning up to speed so if you have no probs booting it's not likely to be the PSU.

Do the drives feel really hot when it's shutting down like that? Maybe it's a thermal thing...

Vegeta · 22 Mar 2006 at 00:54

Well I fixed the problem (or so I think) - just connected the hard drive directly to the psu.

kjab3068 · 22 Mar 2006 at 12:26

hiya, this is happening to my comp as well, i'm running 3 hdd's and it's only affecting the SATA one (other 2 are IDE). it works again after rebooting comp. I'm using a 580W hiper PSU which should be pretty meaty - otherwise running A64 not overclocked, 7800GT.

should i be getting a new HDD? it doesn't make any funny clicking noises or anything so dont think there is anything mechanically wrong with it...

CHeers

Behemoth · 22 Mar 2006 at 23:37

Well I've been having the same porblem, where all my HDD's would cut out, so have just bought a good quality power supply, 480 Watt Xilence power job, only mine would cut out in windows, it's got a proper sata connector on it, the moles to sata adaptors to me always seemed to be flimsy which is wjhy I think my drives cut out. All my HDD's are now wired directly into the supply.