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Alternatively: A HDD murder mystery - is the motherboard the culprit? Problem description:Machine is one I built for my brother, he uses lots of hard drives and insisted on a large case. Approximately 15 months after putting it together a HDD became inaccessible with no intermediate degradation. BIOS did not detect it, did not fully spin up on power up. No real resolution, drive was not salvageable. He had me change the PSU suspecting it (though looking at the specs after the fact, probably not). On boot after the PSU change 2 more dead HDDs, no detection on an alternate PC or in BIOS, no spin up. The original dead drive had been used for a while, but the later 2 were fairly new. Is the motherboard (ASRock Z370 PRO 4) killing the HDDs? Two separate incidents? Something else to investigate? I'm running out of ideas, plenty of dead computer parts though. Attempted fixes: PSU change. HDDs tested in alternate Linux computer, confirming dead status. Dead HDDs did not spin up based on sound/vibrations when powered. BIOS updated with latest drivers. All SATA cables tested, no problems. All SATA sockets on MB worked with still functional drives. Recent changes: Problem persisted and worsened after PSU change. Operating system: Windows 10 System specs: ASRock Z370 Pro4 LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z370 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard Fractal Design Define XL R2 EATX Case Intel Core i5-8400 + Stock Cooler CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 CMK16GX4M2B3000C15 Asus Radeon HD 5450 Silent PSU: Original: Seasonic FOCUS SSR-650FX 650W 80+ Gold Replacement: Corsair RM 850X SAMSUNG 850 EVO 500GB SSD HDDs: Alive: Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB WD10EADS Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST1000DM0030 Dead: Western Digital Blue 4TB WD40EZRZ (~1 month old) Western Digital Red 6TB WD60EFRX (15 months old) Seagate 3TB (now recycled) Location: Canada I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yes Smiling Demon fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Dec 11, 2019 |
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Dec 11, 2019 07:51
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When you swapped out the PSU, did you also swap out all of the modular PSU cables?
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Dec 12, 2019 00:43
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Actuarial Fables posted:When you swapped out the PSU, did you also swap out all of the modular PSU cables? All but one, which better fit the drives. Could that be the culprit? Edit: I did remove the last original PSU cable *after* the incident. That cable would have had powered the dead drives, though the SSD as well. Smiling Demon fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Dec 12, 2019 |
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Dec 12, 2019 02:47
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Smiling Demon posted:All but one, which better fit the drives. Could that be the culprit? Edit: I did remove the last original PSU cable *after* the incident. That cable would have had powered the dead drives, though the SSD as well. It would certainly match what happened - throw in a new PSU but the 12v line is wired differently on the modular plug, ground is now hot and your HDDs aren't designed to handle this scenario and poof. The modular plugs and cables on PSUs are not standardized between manufacturers and models, so make a habit of always removing all of them when you replace a PSU. Most SSDs only use the 5v line, so you may have lucked out and the 5v was actually going to the 5v wire.
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Dec 13, 2019 19:18
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Well, many thanks! It's good to at least have an idea of what went wrong. Lesson: never assume things are standardized. At least I won't have to take a multimeter to the PSUs now. Further information from my brother seems to imply that the first drive failure was more mechanical in nature, being quite noisy.
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Dec 14, 2019 05:07
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