HDD Failures

Duchy0 · 8 Apr 2007 at 23:33

Hi, i have got a Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo P pc. I bought at the end of 2005 and 3 months in i had a HDD failure. I got a new one under thw warrenty then 9 month later that failed. I had to buy a new one then 3 months later that failed. I'm currently on my 4th and its making a clicking noice just like the other when they were about to fail. It takes for ever to load at the windows xp screen (much longer than usual). I have only had this HDD 3 weeks! I took the pc into my local shop and they did tests on the CPU and PSU etc and they all passed and that it was a faulty HDD but 3 failures and maybe a 4th is a bit too unlucky. My temperatures are (high 30s to low 40s). Do you know why this is happeneing? :confused:

killer_uk · 8 Apr 2007 at 23:48

What make and model of hard drive are they?

Justintime · 9 Apr 2007 at 00:16

What brand and wattage psu, also what other components do you have?

PhillyDee · 9 Apr 2007 at 00:17

Always the same make / model of hard drive?

Cupra · 9 Apr 2007 at 01:39

id say thats more than unlucky. ide/sata change ide cables to be on the safe side. also check your not overloading your psu..

are you using a hdd cooler??? the ones that have 2 fans on the bottom are crap... ive had them before and they made my harddrives slower as the fans were tapping the drive slightly.. after a while it got louder and louder till the drives where unusable

Duchy0 · 9 Apr 2007 at 12:26

The first HDD i dont know the make of. The second was a Samsung, the third was a Seagate and my cuurrent one is a Maxtor. The only thing i have plugged into my pc is my wireless adapter, my X52 joystick, my webcam, my printer and my usb hub for my wireless keyboard. The only things plugged in all the time are the keyboard and wireless adapter, the rest are used now and then. I have on fan over my HDD and one big on for the rest of my computer. The temperatures are around the high 30s to low 40s.

PhillyDee · 9 Apr 2007 at 13:51

Hmm. Very suspicious. As JustinTime asked whats your full PC specs? And specifically, what brand / wattage psu / model numebr is it?

Duchy0 · 9 Apr 2007 at 16:10

Its a Pentium 4 with HT running at 3GHz, 1GB RAM, 256MB ATi Radeom X600 with a 250GB Maxtor HDD. The PSU i don't know yet but shall take the cover and take a picture so you guys can read the sticker on it as if i remember correctly it was a bit confusing.

Duchy0 · 9 Apr 2007 at 17:16

Here is the PSU. Sorry if you cant read it.

The HDD itself.

megatron · 9 Apr 2007 at 19:05

First suggestion is buy a new PSU.

Second suggestion is to check to see if you can detect which lead is the black 12v1(10a) rail (black) and the 12v2(15a)rail (yellow/black). Then check that you have devices plugged into both rails. Also there if for example you had 2 hard drives, then plug 1 into each rail because some PSU need a load on both rails to work properly.

If you had a multimeter you could check the voltage the 12v rail was giving to see if its too high or low.

Duchy0 · 9 Apr 2007 at 20:32

Sorry for being so awkward but is it possible if you could put that into more plain english? I don't quiet understand.

megatron · 9 Apr 2007 at 21:54

Well the power supply has 2 rails I can tell since its written on the specifications first rail is 12v1 and the 2nd rail is 12v2, the first rail has only 10amps on it and the 2nd rail has 15amps. Hard drives draw power from the 12v rail of the power supply.

So I said find the colour coded wires which correspond to the 2 separate rails. One is coded black and the other is coded yellow/black.

After u have found the both rails all u can do is check that both rails have some device plugged into them and give the yellow/black 2nd rail called 12v2 in the specifications has the slight majority of things plugged into it.

However u can skip all that and just buy a new power supply. If u want to upgrade the graphics card u will definately need a bigger PSU, and is it worth the hastle of blowing up hard drives?

Really since u know there is a problem and u keep buying new hard drives without trying to fix it u are be negligent really and u are RMAing drives that u know will die sooner or later. Its not really fair to the reseller and it must be very frustrating for you too.

Duchy0 · 9 Apr 2007 at 21:58

Right i understand now. Its not the fact i just raming in new HDDs though, we phoned up the first time and they gave us a new one. Seen that it last 3 times longer than the older one we bought a new one. Then that failed and we then took it to the shop. They said everything was OK and gave a new one free. We haven't bought all the new HDDs, we have effctivly bought 1 and the other under warrenty. Thanks for the help. You recommend in good PSUs?

IAmATeaf · 9 Apr 2007 at 22:00

I'll throw something else into the equation - namely heat.

Does your case have any fans installed, most Fujitsu based systems have a really good ducted system for CPU cooling but seem to leave the rest of the system uncooled or unventilated.

I used to have a similar problem in the days when I ran my system with SCSI 10K disks, they'd die every 6 months or so so I upgraded the cooling, relocated the disks so that a fan was blowing across them and never had a problem afterwards.

EDIT: Damn should have looked more closely at the pics as I can see a fan in front of the drive, bang goes that idea

smids · 9 Apr 2007 at 23:17

If I'm not mistaken, hard drives draw from the 5.0V rail or the 3.3V rail... (I think older ones used the 3.3v more and now it is predominantly the 5V rail).

snowdog · 9 Apr 2007 at 23:27

smids said:
If I'm not mistaken, hard drives draw from the 5.0V rail or the 3.3V rail... (I think older ones used the 3.3v more and now it is predominantly the 5V rail).

12 and 5 volt lines, how much is depending on hdd, but pretty much all hdd's i looked at show how much amps they take form 12 and 5 volt lines and theres 2x black (grnd) 1x red ( 5v) and 1x yellow (12v) wires on a molex & sata, dunno where u got 3.3 volt from, i can't renember hdd's even in the AT era using 3.3 volt lines.

smids · 9 Apr 2007 at 23:34

Serial ATA needs 3.3v for hotplugging I think... vague memory of that. I know the Serial-ATA power connector has a 3.3v line (except for converters).

Parallel ATA uses 5v predominantly... but yeah, just checked on my HDU and there is some 12V play.

snowdog · 10 Apr 2007 at 11:42

smids said:
Serial ATA needs 3.3v for hotplugging I think... vague memory of that. I know the Serial-ATA power connector has a 3.3v line (except for converters).

Parallel ATA uses 5v predominantly... but yeah, just checked on my HDU and there is some 12V play.

Omg you're right, i never noticed that orange wire on my sata plugs from my psu :eek:

, well ide hdd's use 5 & 12 volt and sata's 3.3,5 and 12 volt then.

megatron · 10 Apr 2007 at 20:20

So yeah, get a new PSU.

Tell whoever u bought the PC off that your not happy about this, you might want to wait for the results with a new PSU first. They probably wont care though.

Duchy0 · 11 Apr 2007 at 16:51

Yeah, however, it's out the warrenty from where i bought it therefore i have to a new PSU myself which i don't mind however, can you recommend a good, reliable and quiet PSU that could run a top spec pc today as i'm thinking of upgrading soon therefore i might get a good PSU aswell.