Strange one - Anyone had problems with HDD's in P182?

[Chris1712]

Morning all. I'm having some problems with hdd slowdown/crashing and amazingly, I think it may well be the cramped nature of the case letting me down.

Now I love the design, but theres just not enough room between the lower (4-bay) HDD cage and the central divider/fan. Now I've filled up that bay the cables are so crammed in that I'm getting problems.
At least I think this is the case as, remove the caddy and just have it laying next to my machine and poof everythings a ok.

It doesnt help that any power cables you chuck down there are extra bunched up because of the length between connectors. I'd really rather not drop £100 on a new case when my P182 otherwise serves me very well.


So, are there any nifty mods out there that might help me?

Help!

 

[EsaT]

Are those HDDs having problems in maintaining read speed or exactly what?

I have vague recollection that in one Finnish forum one user actually found that sideway soft mounting to cause some performance problems in some drive.

 

[alex24]

Funnily enough, I've recently been experiencing lots of errors in event viewer relating to my hard drives. Not just one, but several. I think the cause is bad SATA cables because they're bent round at such an angle in the lower bay that they may have degraded over time. I'm going to try some other cables and see if that helps.

I'm also thinking of taking the bottom fan out and seeing if the PSU can cope with just pulling air through on it's own. If the HDD temps are still good I'll leave it out.

Some people have also modded the middle fan to fit in front of the HDD cage, a la P183. This, however, would probably result in needing to hack the case to bits, and I don't want to do anything like that to my shiny shiny P182SE!

Another option would be to mount them in the 5.25" bays with some adapters, though this might disrupt other airflow going on.

I also think right-angled cables should help ease the stress a little, though that pesky fan still gets in the way of the PSU cables too sometimes.

 

[Chris1712]

Are those HDDs having problems in maintaining read speed or exactly what?

I have vague recollection that in one Finnish forum one user actually found that sideway soft mounting to cause some performance problems in some drive.

Sounds plausible. Its generally write speed I think (this is just what i notice it happening with anyway). They're sat upright outside the case at the moment we'll see how it goes.

Funnily enough, I've recently been experiencing lots of errors in event viewer relating to my hard drives. Not just one, but several. I think the cause is bad SATA cables because they're bent round at such an angle in the lower bay that they may have degraded over time. I'm going to try some other cables and see if that helps.

I'm also thinking of taking the bottom fan out and seeing if the PSU can cope with just pulling air through on it's own. If the HDD temps are still good I'll leave it out.

Some people have also modded the middle fan to fit in front of the HDD cage, a la P183. This, however, would probably result in needing to hack the case to bits, and I don't want to do anything like that to my shiny shiny P182SE!

Another option would be to mount them in the 5.25" bays with some adapters, though this might disrupt other airflow going on.

I also think right-angled cables should help ease the stress a little, though that pesky fan still gets in the way of the PSU cables too sometimes.

All the SATA cables are right angle, and the PSU cables are the thin inline type. They all seem pretty secure to be honest.

its so frustrating, I just cannot trouble shoot it! Its happened now with two different HDD's, I've changed the cables and the ports on the motherboard and still it occasionally rears its head!

Is it at all possible that the onboard controller is just overwhelmed??
Currently have....

Intel Controller
1: 1.5tb
2: 1.5tb
3: 1tb
4: 1tb
5: 250 ---5/6 in RAID0
6: 250
Marvell Controller
7: DVD-RW

This time last week I had 2x500 drives inplace of the 1.5tb's and no such problems . However, the first time I had the problem it was one of my 1tb drives that was playing up, rrrrraaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhh!!!

 

[alex24]

Ah, lots of storage! Perhaps that is your problem. Could something like the southbridge be overheating?

Might be a silly question, but you've tested all the hard drives for faults with the right tests yeah?

 

[Chris1712]

Ah, lots of storage! Perhaps that is your problem. Could something like the southbridge be overheating?

Might be a silly question, but you've tested all the hard drives for faults with the right tests yeah?

Indeed I have. The first time I did it the dodgy drive failed with a bad sector. Replug the cables and boom its fine, passes full scans no worries.

Southbridge overheating, or maybe undervolting sounds possible! The southbridge is indeed bare on my mobo (P5Q-PRO). Its not THAT much storage though really, and its not like I'm constantly thrashing the drives.

See how it goes with them all flat and the right way up.

EDIT: The southbridge is pretty cool to the touch. Warm but certainly not hot, and it does have a small passive heatsink on it.

 

[wingnuttzz]

seems strange, and i doubt its the southbridge, espically when you say the hard-drives are fine when you take the rack out of the case.

Are the hard-drives themselves overheating? I think most hard-drives start to have probems when they pass 65% or something

another thought is with the SATA cables, while the connections might be fine, but what sorts of bends are in them when you have crammed all the cables into the bottom section etc?

 

[Chris1712]

seems strange, and i doubt its the southbridge, espically when you say the hard-drives are fine when you take the rack out of the case.

Are the hard-drives themselves overheating? I think most hard-drives start to have probems when they pass 65% or something

another thought is with the SATA cables, while the connections might be fine, but what sorts of bends are in them when you have crammed all the cables into the bottom section etc?

Indeed. Pretty nasty bends tbh. They are all 90 deg but they still go all over the place before they get there. I've pulled the slack through to the top section to try and relieve some of the stress.

Heat wise they seem fine, temperatures hovver around 30deg.