The spinning death!!!!!!!

[agentx]

so far i've had 6! hdd die on me in the last 6 months. i suppose it doesnt help that i stupidly bought them from best buy, its getting to the point when i am starting to wander if my computer is infected with some kind of disease that kills hard drives while i sleep. the latest victim is a westren digital caviar black 1tb drive that lasted 2 weeks. the best part of all this is that bestbuy wont even give me cash back but a store credit, like i'll buy anything else from them after today.

i plan on buying a hitachi drive soon to replace this one but have no garentee that it wont die aswell. sorry for the rant but this is getting stupendously outragous

 

[JN]

Have you tested the voltages of your PSU at all? Could be something like that killing off your HDD's

 

[Rastalovich]

6 in 6 months is beyond coincidence, beyond bad batches (hmmm maybe), beyond even blaming a manufacturer or retailer.

(unless there's some1 in the store jabbing screwdrivers in them when they see U buy em)

Imo I'd look directly at the psu - OR - how ur attaching ur power connectors.

Bought a good number of manager special drives from Best Buy, never heard anything bad to this point. IDE/SATA, even opticals and memory tbh.

Another thing too, if u have 1 cable from a psu with 4 molex on it (or similar) and occuppy each one, then perhaps introduce a fan or 2, use a splitter, do something else - it can be too much. The drive will appear to fail. Then remove all the other crap, just leaving the drive there, and it may work.

 

[agentx]

i suppose it could be the psu (though i dont think so). i dont have a tester but its a 1k watt ultrax3, i use 2 seperate sata power cables one (with 2 connectors) for the optical and 100gb hdd, and one for the main hdd and the back up.

i guess it might have been hasty to blame BB but im sure you guys can under stand.

anyway i just got done running a full diagnostic on that drive using disk check, WD tools, and hd tune. the WD tools says it fine accross the board, HD tune pro says its fine (the error checking tool) but disk check sad it had 236 kb of bad sector (though it didnt fix it until i ran disk check 4 times!) ATM its working and i've updated my back up library so if it does die i dont lose anything but the drive.

do you recomend that i buy a voltage checker (w/e its called) or wait and see if the drive dies. also is therea software i can use to do that or does it require a device?

thanks.

 

[JN]

do you recomend that i buy a voltage checker (w/e its called) or wait and see if the drive dies. also is therea software i can use to do that or does it require a device?

thanks.

I'd buy a multimeter regardless tbh. They can be very good for diagnosing faults and you don't need anything more than a £10 one off eBay for checking stuff like this at home

 

[agentx]

ok, i'll have to look into that then. thanks

 

[Rastalovich]

Oh, another thing to look out for.

How long are the screws ur using to mount the drives ?

There are certain drives that dont have retainers for screws, and so allow u to screw until u either hit the pcb or go slightly over the top of it.

Do check.

Ofc if ur mounting all these drives in the same place and using the same screws - therein could be the issue.

 

[JN]

Oh, another thing to look out for.

How long are the screws ur using to mount the drives ?

There are certain drives that dont have retainers for screws, and so allow u to screw until u either hit the pcb or go slightly over the top of it.

Do check.

Ofc if ur mounting all these drives in the same place and using the same screws - therein could be the issue.

Good call Rasta.

6" Wood screws are especially problematic

 

[agentx]

Good call Rasta.

6" Wood screws are especially problematic

so thats wat was wrong , no the screws came with my case i dont think they are that long and they dont screw in over the pcb.

EDIT: well i'll be buying a multimeter in the morning, but the bios says the following 3.3v= 3.28; 3.3v dual= 3.28; 12v= 10.34; 5v= 4.88. since its lifetime warrentied i dont have to worry too much (since i dont have to buy a new one though that might be better) but should i be concerned over a 1.76 v short fall on the 12?

 

[JN]

Yeah 10.34v on the +12v rail could easily be the cause of the problems if it really is that low. Have you tried any of the failed disks in any other machines?

 

[agentx]

no i took them back and exchanged them, since moneys tight i couldnt afford to keep buying new ones at 100$ a pop. so since i no longer have them i cant though i have tested this one in my sisters rig (since mine is down) and the WD tools said it was fine but disk check kept telling me it had bad sectors (236kb worth). i thought i finally ha it working last night until it started restarting for no apperent reason so at that point i assumed its the psu. i just dont know if its worth having it replaced (rma'ed) since this ones only been running at ~50% load, kept cool and ~dust free(to say whats the point if the replacement doesnt last either, i could get stuck paying fedex to ship psu's over and over again).

i saw the new enermax evolution85+ (effiency was a selling point when i bought the x3) but dont have the $ to do any upgrades at this time if i dont (absolutely 100%) have to.

the challenge now is to stay up long enough for the store to open so i can get this multimeter an test the damn thing(i read online that the bios isnt always accurate), but if i understand your response correctly thats quite a gap.

will post back l8er today or tommorrow (sorry for the long post), cheers.

 

[JN]

. i just dont know if its worth having it replaced (rma'ed) since this ones only been running at ~50% load, kept cool and ~dust free(to say whats the point if the replacement doesnt last either, i could get stuck paying fedex to ship psu's over and over again).

If it does turn out to be the PSU I'd be tempted to RMA it and then sell the replacement unit on ebay to help fund getting a different PSU. But thats just me

i saw the new enermax evolution85+ (effiency was a selling point when i bought the x3) but dont have the $ to do any upgrades at this time if i dont (absolutely 100%) have to.

the challenge now is to stay up long enough for the store to open so i can get this multimeter an test the damn thing(i read online that the bios isnt always accurate), but if i understand your response correctly thats quite a gap.

will post back l8er today or tommorrow (sorry for the long post), cheers.

Yeah the BIOS is often slightly wrong (give or take 10% i'd say) but i've never seen one that far out, so it does sound like something is wrong there.

 

[monkey7]

If it does turn out to be the PSU I'd be tempted to RMA it and then sell the replacement unit on ebay to help fund getting a different PSU. But thats just me

Isn't 10.72v out of spec? The max. deviation would be 10% (1.2V) resulting in a minimum of 10.8v. Depite not being american, can't you make them refund components damaged by the product, with legal force if neccessary? With six 100 pound drives the compensation is quite significant.

 

[agentx]

If it does turn out to be the PSU I'd be tempted to RMA it and then sell the replacement unit on ebay to help fund getting a different PSU. But thats just me

ya, from all the reviews i read before i bought it there wasnt any complaints(some FUD) but thats about it. i'd give the replacement a go and if that one failed then id rma and sell the 2nd replacement on ebay(maybe this one was just bad luck)

Yeah the BIOS is often slightly wrong (give or take 10% i'd say) but i've never seen one that far out, so it does sound like something is wrong there.

ya when i saw that in the bios i told myself that theres no way its off by that much

Isn't 10.72v out of spec? The max. deviation would be 10% (1.2V) resulting in a minimum of 10.8v. Depite not being american, can't you make them refund components damaged by the product, with legal force if neccessary? With six 100 pound drives the compensation is quite significant.

sorry money7 but i think theres a misunderstanding somewhere. i am american (so is ultra, i think) but since bestbuy exchanged the bricked drives im only out the original price. the price i paid for the 1st drive was ~130USD (for a 1tb hdd) and it came down since then, and since i still need a hdd (gonna take this one backjust to be safe) as for legal action i dont have the money to spend fighting a corporation in court and since i'd most likely lose anyway i'll settle for an rma.

 

[monkey7]

I'm sorry I must have missed the bestbuy replacement part. And I always assume everyone on here is from the UK with the odd one out of europe and australia.

My apologies.

 

[agentx]

I'm sorry I must have missed the bestbuy replacement part. And I always assume everyone on here is from the UK with the odd one out of europe and australia.

My apologies.

no worries i dont mind, anyway i just got done testing and its rma time resualts are as follows(i shut down here means power when shiutting down and NOT when turned off)

3.3v

post= 3.42

boot= 3.42

windows start up= 3.42

sys idle= 3.42

sys load (both gfx and cpu @ 100%)= 3.42

sys shutdown= 3.42

5v

post= 5.04 (dipped below 4 of a split second [almost missed it])

boot= 5.04

windows start up= 5.04

sys idle= 5.04

sys load (both gfx and cpu @ 100%)= 5.04

sys shutdown= 5.04

12v

post= 10.6

boot= 10.6

windows start up= 10.6

sys idle= 10.6

sys load (both gfx and cpu @ 100%)= 10.59

sys shutdown= 10.61

as you can see the 12v line/rail is far below spec and i will be calling ultra tomorrow for an rma (i'd email them but i have some questions i want cleared up right away). With any amount of luck the replacement will last longer (crosses fingers) like 3-4 years. i'll also be exchanging the hdd just to be safe as its still within the 30 day window.

thank you for all the help reps coming your way.