Other Plenty of problems in one sitting

Hello everybody,

I've had a terrible day that has got progressively worse, to the point which I now plead for your help.

I had been asked to make some data dvd's for a friend and found that my dvd drive was refusing to display the contents of the clearly burned dvd's, therefore I opened the case to check all was well. I noticed the cable was attached to a dormant hdisk so I gave it its own rail and set it to master. No joy and I now notice my primary hard disk is clicking (mechanical fault? Maybe the brush?) and the bios fails to recognise it. I then proceeded to try different power connectors and SATA cables to no avail. Then upon replacing everything, the computer will not display anything, though on intermittent attempts I will see graphical artifacts.

My hardware is as follows:

XFX 680i LT
4 gb OCZ Reaper (Each two dimm set has slightly differing latencies)
Q6600 original stepping (I have overclocked it in the past but its been running at stock for sometime)
GTX 275
Thermaltake tough power 750w
Windows Vista 64

Any thoughts? As you can see the hardware is not too ancient, and the g-card is fairly recent.. too recent to fail hopefully. The fact that things have seemed to fail in sequence is odd. Could it be a power issue? I hope so, and I hope there's been no lasting damage. I have taken measures to borrow a graphics card and another power supply in an attempt to diagnose. Any help would be much appreciated, thank you.


P.s. There was a fair amount of dust in there, though I've since hoovered it.

 

Put everything back as it was. You need to have the hard disc as the master. then any other discs need to be set as slaves. The dvd drive not reading could be down to dirt in the lens, you can clean it with a cotton bud and some alcohol

 

Hey thanks for the post, i'll try giving the DVD drive lens a clean. As to the rest, i've connected everything back as it was, and i'm still getting no display, and the hdisk is clicking, (approx 6 times). All cables are properly connected, and there is power to the CPU, case and gcard fans and the dvd drive.

 

Never use a hoover inside a computer.

 

Ok but I made sure the nozzle was a "safe" distance from cables and components, do you think that could be the cause? Now I have disconnected the second (faulty) hard disk and I now receive a corrupted display every time I boot and the same clicking from my remaining hard disk.

 

Get into the bios and set everything to default, if you can't get in try resetting the cmos, then run windows repair disk

 

I've cleared CMOS using the following method from the manual:

Clear CMOS Jumper: CLR_CMOS
The motherboard uses the CMOS RAM to store all the set parameters. The
CMOS can be cleared by removing the CMOS jumper.
Use the following procedure to clear CMOS:
1. Turn off the AC power supply and connect pins 1 and 2 together using the
jumper cap.
2. Return the jumper setting to normal (pins 2 and 3 together with the jumper
cap).
3. Turn the AC power supply back on.


There seems to be no change and the artefacts remain. And the clicking.

 

Could I have shorted the system by using the hoover? I have used a hoover in the past to clear dust and know others who have without apparent harm, though I understand how it could be risky.

Also I am using an extension lead with a circuit breaker. However could a power surge have caused this? Even static?

I will certainly learn more when I install the other card and PSU tomorrow.

 

Artifacts on the screen could be down to either a damaged graphics card ( or onboard graphics ), loose power coonector maybe ( for said card ), dirty plugs or corrupted drivers for the graphics card/ monitor. I wouldnt have started yanking cables around really (hind sight is 20/20 )- if the optical drive refused to play the dvds, then try it with a cd or another disc to confirm whether its the drive thats knacked or just the dvd. Maybe something to do with the format of the data? Pass...

 

This evening I tried an 8800 GT and it works. So my hard disk and gcard have died within half an hour of each other, and they happen to be the most recently purchased components.

What are the chances? Is this just bad luck?

 

Now you've got some life back into the pc run a disc checker...it's quite hard to kill a hard drive!

You may well find you've just corrupted it somehow

 

went to a friends once whose gpu ws supposedly onthe blink i left the huose 2 mins later when i checked the cable at the back of the machine (they have a screw system fora reason) i would double check that.

however to me it sounds as tho you machine is fairly neglected (dormant Hdd lots of dust etc)

i would first backup everything you need.

i would remove all components and give the case a good wash (some fairy and a sponge and some hot water) and wait for it to dry.

i would then give all my components a good clean, i like using baby wipes but compressed air can do a good job to. i would then place everything into the place it should be (starting with minimal parts)
and get it to boot, i would then seriously consider a complete reinstall of your system.

teh whole process may take a couple of hours but will be well worth it.

 

Thank you I shall give the pc a good clean, and shall also endeavour to regularly do so. I have heard of the benefits of compressed air. I will also attempt to access the drive later.
I'm intrigued as to what has happened, any thoughts? It appears to have happened randomly. Could the mobo or PSU have affected the card? I'm just worried that a similar situation could occur in the future.

 

IMO, it looks like the mobo has died.

Priority-wise, you need to get a backup (image or important files) from the sickly HDD ASAP.

Everything you've said regarding the failures seem to point to a central root cause, in this case the mobo. (Although that is a stretch without seeing the system in-person).

Hope you sort it,

SouperAndy

 

WAT?

You need to take a trip to the spelling and grammar thread mate, no offence or anything but that's practically unreadable.

And did you just say you like to use baby wipes to clean PC components? Erm... no. Isopropyl alcohol and some anti static microfiber cloth? Yes.

 

Hang on! Cleaning components with soapy water and baby wipes? Have you all gone totally feckin nuts!

Have i stumbled on to a forum version of "how clean is your house"

And as for you grammar Nazi's don't get me started again

 

I have no problem with cleaning an empty chassis with soapy water... I do it all the time after cutting with a dremel and before sending to paint or powdercoat, although I use a hose and industrial degreasing detergent, not fairy liquid. Cleaning components with baby wipes however, is not a good idea at all.

Sorry about the grammar Nazi-ism, but I found his post hard to read because of the lack of spelling & grammar.

 

Thats fine in an empty case ,thats the same way I clean engines, but like you said, on components , erm , no

I've got an old P4 board laying around. I'm going to put it through a boil wash and tumble dry it. I'll post the results tomorrow.

 

Not quite; the concept of "master" and "slave" drives doesn't apply to SATA.

Pretty sound advice, but it's not the actual vacuum motor that causes the problem; it's the brushes that are attached to the nozzles. They're usually made of nylon or some other artificial material that can cause a static build up.

Yeah, you need to get those dying HDDs into a system that is known to be working and back them up ASAP. SMART monitoring *should* pick up a hard drive that is dying, but it's not 100% effective. It would be worth running a surface scan on the hard drives to look for bad sectors. "Clicking" noises generally aren't a good sign for hard drives...

 

Right i've got a new drive and i'm going to reinstall windows on that and then run some diagnostics on the system, before attempting to pull data from the dying (hopefully not dead) drive. Can anyone recommend some decent programs for that? I'm aware of memtest for the ram, and prime 95 for the cpu, however i'm eager to test the mobo and the psu.

Thank you for the responses so far by the way.