Help! What could possibly be wrong?

[tempac]

Hello,

I have a pc consisting of the following components:

Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3
WinXP Pro sp3
Intel Quad Core running at stock speed.
4gb Ram
Corsair HX 620 psu
ATI 8800 GT

Sorry, it's been a while since I've been into the thing and so I'm a little sketchy as to whats in the thing. Howeer, I'm more or less correct.

So I was playing a game the other night and everything is fine, then suddenly the game takes from its usual 20 secconds save time, its taking so much longer by 10 minutes I was worried. At 30 minutes I had had enough and hit the 'reset' switch.

The computer went through its usual boot routine but was noticeably slower, it found each drive and in turn it needed to 'scan' each one to ensure that the 'file structure was complete', so I let it go through that scanning as it went. Then we're into the desktop environment and things are noticeably sluggish, it takes a good 10 minutes to populate the desktop of its icons. That completes and the system runs slowly, but turnng off the system meant waiting another 10 minutes.

Resetting the system, didn't do anything, neither did using the old System Restore, it booted slowly back to this environment.

So looking through the eventviewer tells me that I've an 'atapi' problem, it points to not the dvd drive but insead the Harddrive, disk 0 in fact. So I purchase a replacement harddrive, it arrives then a friend and I set about rebuilding the system with this new harddrive, it's noticeable quicker using this new drive however, as soon as we put the drive back into the case. Everything gets sluggish back to things as it was, the problem doesn't seem to be the harddrive.

Reconnecting the old drive, as long as it's outside the case supports this, as does leaving the new drive outside the case. We check all the cables to the Corsair everything is fine, bar one that's a little exposed which we put electrical tape around, putting the drives back into the case = sluggish response.

Taking drives out system works flawlessly Arghhh ffxxxxxx!! Ripping all wires\cables out and reconnecting and everything is as it should be, everything is fine and double checked, everything is as it should be. However, the dame thing doesn't work as it should!

Has anyone any ideas as to what the problem could possibly be? Please!!

Thank you for your time.

 

[awsomeness]

Hmm maybe the motherboard isnt mounted correctly and something is touching metal? im not sure if this would do that or just make the pc not turn on XD o well i tried lol

 

[siumatfung]

could it possibly be that the ide controller on the mobo has gone?
have you tried individual sticks of RAM etc etc?

 

[Dutchman]

Just to clarify, are you saying that with the hdd being outside the case it's fine, but with the hdd mounted within the case it's sluggish ? So when it's either out or in, both power and sata cables used remain the same ?
What you described performance wise sounds like a faulty hdd, almost as if it had some OS files on bad sectors and it takes quite a while to actually continue.

 

[Mattus]

So it works with both the old drive and the new drive when they're outside the case?

Only thing I can think of is a broken SATA cable. Installing the drive in the case is bending the duff cable enough to make the connection dodgy.

 

[tempac]

Thanks for the suggestions Guys. Yes the system is fine whilst the harddrives are outside the case, but putting them inside the case results in the thing running slowly.

It's not just the harddrive that was in it at the time, I put in an emmergency order on friday just gone for 2 harddrives, 1 seagate 1tb and a wd terrabyte drive, we put the segate in and it reacted exactly the same way, both my friend and I spent upto 0500hrs on Monday morning scratching our heads over this one and we still had no clue.

We of course checked all the cables everything was fine, all fitted snugly bar one that had a retainer snapped on one edge, but that had to be pulled out with force resulting in that sudden burst of strength you exert when you're pulling the psu cables from harddrives, so it wasn't loose at all.

The motherboard for what it's worth was seated into that case around 6 months ago and it's not moved since, there was nothing to suggest that it was loose either, but it's worth checking regardless thank you for that suggestion.

Don't suppose anyone can think of any other possibilities could you?

Thanks.