Overclock too high for external HDD?

[madmaca]

OK - riddle me this...

I have a AMD Phenom II X3 720BE - unlocked multiplyer means it's very easy to overclock. I have it coupled with a ASUS M4A78Pro motherboard. I've had the combination up to 3.6ghz without much of a sweat using quiet air cooling.

However.

I have a Western Digital MyBook 500Gb External HDD with USB, Firewire and eSATA interface.

All is fine and dandy with it UNLESS the PC is clocked over 3.2Ghz. Above that and the MyBook is no longer detected by Windows at startup - I have to go into device manager and scan for new hardware - at which point it is added. After that all is fine until I reboot, then the process is repeated.

Like I said at 3.2Ghz and below the MyBook behaves normally and is detected by Windows at startup.

The BIOS detects the MyBook fine at any clock speed though.



Any ideas of what I could try or change?

I ain't tried connecting it via USB yet, but really didn't want to do that since eSATA is so much faster...

 

[madindehead]

How is it connected currently?

 

[madmaca]

How is it connected currently?

By eSata using a backplate eSATA to SATA adapter that connects directly to one of the internal SATA ports on the mobo....

 

[madindehead]

That doesn't make a lot of sense really. However, I generally don't trust external hard drives anymore. Far too temperamental for my liking. Had two, that constantly disconnected themselves when on USB.

But back to your problem, maybe try connecting via USB, just to check if it happens at 3.2GHz.

 

[SlugForAButt]

I got the same external drive connected via USB with no problems overclocked to 4Ghz.
Give USB a try.