SATA drive hangs on P4P800 Deluxe board.

[Diman]

have been struggling with this for a while now...
I have a comp with asus p4p800 deluxe mobo and three hdd's one IDE
and two SATA.
ide and one of the SATA drives are 120 GB both and second sata drive
was Seagate Barracuda 300 GB.
right from the beginning my sata drivers were working fine but i have
expirienced HDD crash
and replaced 120 gb sata disk and it have been working fine since then.
Not so long ago ny 300 GB started to hang itself, (two or three
clicking sounds, LED is on constantly, and if i try to access it via
explorer whole comp hangs) Actually it did so for a while now, but
always missed it cause it happened when my girlfriend was using the
comp... I, of course, didn't believe her and thought that she was doing
something wrong.
But then i saw it myself.
I had to shut the comp down completelly wait a while (probably for
plates to stop spinning) and the power on again. Worked fine couple of
times, but then this hangs became more regular. I first thought it was
the hdd dying, and i ordered a new one, and this time i bought WD
instead of Seagate. WD have always been reliable (to me at least).
Anyhow i moved all data and put the new WD sata drive in place and
after maybe on - two hours it hanged itself just like the old drive
did.

I banged my head in the wall and finally put my mojo together and
updated mobo's bios to latest non-beta version. Didn't help :-(
I even tried to load defaults in the bios, swap sata drives cables in
mobo connectors, and running diagnostics (on seagate, not WD) nothing
have given any results...
I suspect the mobo can't handle 300 gb or somehow glitches when read /
write load is high..

Dunno

Any help ?
thanks in advance.

 

[Paul]

have been struggling with this for a while now...
I have a comp with asus p4p800 deluxe mobo and three hdd's one IDE
and two SATA.
ide and one of the SATA drives are 120 GB both and second sata drive
was Seagate Barracuda 300 GB.
right from the beginning my sata drivers were working fine but i have
expirienced HDD crash
and replaced 120 gb sata disk and it have been working fine since then.
Not so long ago ny 300 GB started to hang itself, (two or three
clicking sounds, LED is on constantly, and if i try to access it via
explorer whole comp hangs) Actually it did so for a while now, but
always missed it cause it happened when my girlfriend was using the
comp... I, of course, didn't believe her and thought that she was doing
something wrong.
But then i saw it myself.
I had to shut the comp down completelly wait a while (probably for
plates to stop spinning) and the power on again. Worked fine couple of
times, but then this hangs became more regular. I first thought it was
the hdd dying, and i ordered a new one, and this time i bought WD
instead of Seagate. WD have always been reliable (to me at least).
Anyhow i moved all data and put the new WD sata drive in place and
after maybe on - two hours it hanged itself just like the old drive
did.

I banged my head in the wall and finally put my mojo together and
updated mobo's bios to latest non-beta version. Didn't help :-(
I even tried to load defaults in the bios, swap sata drives cables in
mobo connectors, and running diagnostics (on seagate, not WD) nothing
have given any results...
I suspect the mobo can't handle 300 gb or somehow glitches when read /
write load is high..

Dunno

Any help ?
thanks in advance.

A couple possibilities.

1) Check power supply voltages. A weak +12V or weak +5V could have
an effect on a disk. It could even be a bad cable or connector
from the PSU to the disk drive. The label on the power supply
will say +/- 5% , and using the motherboard hardware monitor,
you are looking for deviations from that limit on any output
power rail.

Get a copy of Prime95 from mersenne.org . Run the "torture test"
option from the menu of options. This will load the processor
to 100% and put a load on the power supply. While Prime95 is
running, try to access the drive. If the drive tends to hang
sooner while Prime95 is running, than when it isn't, replace
the power supply. Use a copy of Asus Probe or mbm from
mbm.livewiredev.com to measure the voltages while the system
is running.

2) The Southbridge on the motherboard is starting to fail. You
could test this possibility, by finding a SIL3112 based
controller board and using it. SIL3112 boards can be found
for $25, but are getting hard to find for some reason. If
the drives work well with SIL3112, but not with the motherboard
interface, then you could consider doing an RMA under warranty
with Asus.

3) All the drives could have been bad But the odds of that
seem rather low.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Mercury]

Check the power cables & check you do not have anything else on the HDD
cable. Switch cables... Check the seating of the SATA connectors...

 

[Rob Hemmings]

A couple possibilities.

1) Check power supply voltages. A weak +12V or weak +5V could have
an effect on a disk. It could even be a bad cable or connector
from the PSU to the disk drive. The label on the power supply
will say +/- 5% , and using the motherboard hardware monitor,
you are looking for deviations from that limit on any output
power rail.

Get a copy of Prime95 from mersenne.org . Run the "torture test"
option from the menu of options. This will load the processor
to 100% and put a load on the power supply. While Prime95 is
running, try to access the drive. If the drive tends to hang
sooner while Prime95 is running, than when it isn't, replace
the power supply. Use a copy of Asus Probe or mbm from
mbm.livewiredev.com to measure the voltages while the system
is running.

2) The Southbridge on the motherboard is starting to fail. You
could test this possibility, by finding a SIL3112 based
controller board and using it. SIL3112 boards can be found
for $25, but are getting hard to find for some reason. If
the drives work well with SIL3112, but not with the motherboard
interface, then you could consider doing an RMA under warranty
with Asus.

3) All the drives could have been bad But the odds of that
seem rather low.

I'll just add to Paul's excellent advice that it could also be an
overheating issue. If you try mbm5 and configure it to read
the temperature of your HDs (not all HDs have this capability
though), you should be worried if they are running at much above
about 45C. The same applies to the Southbridge - if mbm or
asusprobe reports case temps in the high 40s or above (especially
when running Prime95), IME, mobo failure is more than likely.
HTH

 

[Diman]

Thanks for your repl.ies
I will try everything. I hope it helps.

Thanks again!!

 

[Jdr]

What Paul says is essential, however, from my experience
SATA is know to have problems with its connectors.
Even the slightest sudden move of PC could cause
the partial disconnection of hard disk drive.
Be aware of it, before you start checking everything else.