New Maxtor 120 GB HDD locks my computer...

[Rod Speed]

That was my brain fart. The -12V rail, when its ever used at all,
is VERY non critical voltage wise. That value you have is finel

And now my cable modem is down. I am on dial-up. Oy! Curse.

You sure you aint been walking on someone's grave or sumfin ?

Time for bed. I will check later in the day.

When something else will apply its fangs to your arse no doubt |-)

 

[ANTant]

That was my brain fart. The -12V rail, when its ever used at all,
is VERY non critical voltage wise. That value you have is finel

You sure you aint been walking on someone's grave or sumfin ?

Nope unless someone put a curse on me. Cable modem was back online
when I woke up. Must be maintenance.

When something else will apply its fangs to your arse no doubt |-)

--
"No, I'd prefer a cooler WITHOUT an ant-door, thank you..." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )

 

[Tony Hwang]

Just curious. Can ribbon cable be affected by enromous heat? I wonder
if the cable gets damaged after being too hot. Remember that I had
problems before replacing the cable and my computer was happy for over
a day. After 4.5 hours today, no lock ups and clucking noises so far.
In the past, symptoms occur after an hour or so (not today so far). The
motherboard's temperature is currently at 106 degrees(F). Last night was
109-110 I think.

Hi,
Theory wise heat expands things. It can cause a loose connection.
If cable is supected, you can gently wiggle it when drive is busy.
Tony

 

[ANTant]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:
Hi,
Theory wise heat expands things. It can cause a loose connection.
If cable is supected, you can gently wiggle it when drive is busy.

I can try that, but I can't seem to find a pattern between heat. The
lock up occurred after 2 hours (4.5 hours already) later. I am on the
second cable. Is this loose cable connection related to heat a common
problem with HDDs?
--
"No, I'd prefer a cooler WITHOUT an ant-door, thank you..." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )

 

[Tony Hwang]

I can try that, but I can't seem to find a pattern between heat. The
lock up occurred after 2 hours (4.5 hours already) later. I am on the
second cable. Is this loose cable connection related to heat a common
problem with HDDs?

Hi,
Heat related cable problem is rare as far as I know. Poorly
assembled(crimped, soldered, punched) is more common. Another thing to
consider is to run Maxtor drive test on loop for a few hours to
flush out failure status code. I still believe the drive is intermittent
one. You mentioned lokcing up with busy light(LED) on which means the
drive was hung. It did not finish what it was supposes to do
(read, write or seek). Did you format the drive when put into service?
Also ran scakdisk(chkdsk)?
Tony

 

[Steve Carter]

Ant,

Interesting. I just returned a Maxtor with the S57 error. First, the drive
returned timeout errors in the log during a defrag pass. Next, Win 2000
failed to see it at all. I ran the Maxtor diag program, got my error code
and an RMA. I then low level formatted it (3 passes) while I awaited my
replacement. Disk manager could then see it as a blank disk. Two days
later, just before I swapped it, the drives SMART system reported to Windows
that it was "about" to fail.

Hope this isn't going to be the rule with Maxtors. The drive that failed
was a 160g. I have 4 120g's in a raid array running well so far. Hope it
stays that way.

SBC

 

[Steve Knoblock]

Several WD drives went bad on me one summer. Diagnostics showed no surface
defects, but they would work for a while then begin to lose files, lock with
the HD light on. Eventually, they would fail. It turned out to be a bad PSU
that was likely starving the HD's for current, overheating causing
electronics to fail, not the disk. I began to suspect the PSU and replaced
it with the highest quality one I could fine. No more drive failures. I
tested the PSU and found nothing wrong with its voltages, but it was
apparently unable to supply the drives under load. When drive electronics
are affected this intermittant problem can go on for some time and is hard
to discover because HD diagnostics are centered around disc surface
failures. Like you, I tried for months to find a pattern or find evidence of
the cause until I just eliminated everything but the PSU, which was one that
came with the case.

One of our older PC's will somtimes have its IDE cable come loose or even
fall out of the socket on the change of seasons due to expansion and
contraction.

It is also possible for an IDE cable to get a break in one of the wires if
it takes a particularly torturous path through the case.

Steve

 

[ANTant]

Possinly resolved, but still too early to confirm:

My friend (he knows computer hardware setups well) seem to have fixed the
problem after investigations witn trial and errors. Here's what he said:

The power supply has extremely long leads (10 inches) with quite a few power
extensions in series, with many of the Maxtor drive, the fans and the video
card (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW card) being on one circuit. My belief is
either:

1. That particular line had too high a load on the 5 v rail causing the
higher draw devices on this particular chain to "adapt". Since most drive
electronics are run off the 5 volt rail, this would cause the Maxtor to
respin when the electronics experienced a voltage spike thus making the
clucking noise.

2. Maxtor drive has faulty drive electronics. I swapped the Maxtor for a
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB 8 meg cache drive and re-wired the fans/extensions to
be on their own circuit since there's no electronics in them that would be
susceptible to voltage spikes from having such a long circuit.


It seems like my replaced HDD is holding up. Even Seagate HDD was acting
funny before resolving the problem. I hope this was resolved. Has anyone
experienced this problem?

Hello all.

I am having a problem with my new added HDD for my computer upgrade. Last week, I replaced my WinFast A250 LE TD - MyVIVO Edition Ti4200 video card with an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9800 Pro (128 MB) and added a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 120 GB HDD (6Y120P0; 7200 RPM; 8 MB cache). Since I already had a CD burner, a DVD-ROM drive, two existing HDDs, etc. and wanted to add a new HDD, I had to my ASUS BIOS enable the Raid feature (http://www.anycities.com/user/mainboards/asus/asus.html).

I had problems with my Windows XP Professional SP1 (all updates) with lock ups (HDD light get stuck, Windows become unresponsive after a few seconds -- can't even ping this computer from another machine, and then I am forced to do a hard reboot). Windows' event logs showed problems:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: ultra
Event Category: None
Event ID: 9
Date: 9/22/2003
Time: 12:12:45 AM
User: N/A
Computer: Box
Description:
The device, \Device\Scsi\ultra1, did not respond within the timeout period.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 0f 00 10 00 01 00 64 00 ......d.
0008: 00 00 00 00 09 00 04 c0 .......À
0010: 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 57 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 W.......
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 ........
0030: 00 00 00 00 07 00 00 00 ........

Event Type: Error
Event Source: ultra
Event Category: None
Event ID: 9
Date: 9/22/2003
Time: 12:12:59 AM
User: N/A
Computer: Box
Description:
The device, \Device\Scsi\ultra1, did not respond within the timeout period.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 0f 00 10 00 01 00 64 00 ......d.
0008: 00 00 00 00 09 00 04 c0 .......À
0010: 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 0b 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 ........
0030: 00 00 00 00 07 00 00 00 ........

Sometimes, I heard clucking sounds (not clicks). I don't know what that means. I found out disabling WinXP Promise MBUltra133 (PDC20276) IDE Controller OR disabling Pure-UDMA (PDCC20276 BIOS v2.2.0.1020.13 BIOS will not show these problems. Basically, I have no new HDD when I do this. Eventually after trials and errors, I found out the cable ribbon (used before) was bad because BIOS eventually couldn't find my new HDD anymore (D2; Maxtor 6Y120P0; LBA; 117248 MB; UDMA 6). I notice this happens after the computer has been powered on for over 30 minutes.

New cable (80 pin conductor ATA) fixed it for a day, then the problem SLOWLY came back. I had a lock up when I tried to access fils from the new HDD last night. Tonight, I tried to record a video from my ATI's TV tuner and computer locked up. A few hours later, I had more lock ups and heard clucking noises! Maybe a heat issue (don't I have enough cooling now)? Why did the new cable replaced worked for a day? Shouldn't the cables be able to handle the heat if it is damaged by heat? My motherboard is usually 109 degrees (F) and CPU is average 120 degress (F). However, I have seen the CPU go high as 140 degrees(F) when gaming or doing anything intensive.

My computer specification can be found at http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/computers.txt (primary computer) and MSINFO32 results are at http://apu.edu/~philpi/temp/msinfo32.txt (374 KB)
Using WindowsXP Promise MBUltra 133 (PDC20276) IDE Controller; 8/29/2002; v2.0.1020.40.

For now, I will leave the new HDD disabled in Windows until I can figure out what is going on and to avoid more annoying lock ups. I am going to run Maxtor's powermax.exe overnight.

Thank you in advance.

--
"No, I'd prefer a cooler WITHOUT an ant-door, thank you..." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )

 

[Steve Knoblock]

Possinly resolved, but still too early to confirm:

My friend (he knows computer hardware setups well) seem to have fixed the
problem after investigations witn trial and errors. Here's what he said:

The power supply has extremely long leads (10 inches) with quite a few power
extensions in series, with many of the Maxtor drive, the fans and the video
card (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW card) being on one circuit. My belief is
either:

1. That particular line had too high a load on the 5 v rail causing the
higher draw devices on this particular chain to "adapt". Since most drive
electronics are run off the 5 volt rail, this would cause the Maxtor to
respin when the electronics experienced a voltage spike thus making the
clucking noise.

2. Maxtor drive has faulty drive electronics. I swapped the Maxtor for a
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB 8 meg cache drive and re-wired the fans/extensions to
be on their own circuit since there's no electronics in them that would be
susceptible to voltage spikes from having such a long circuit.

Actually, mine has been quiet recently. Hope it holds up.

Steve

 

[Steve Carter]

Ant,

The drives are 12 volt. Your Maxtor returned an error in testing which
allows you to return it for replacement. Trust me it will fail on that
error and it is defective. I spoke with the Maxtor people about mine and
they assured me that nothing I did or didn't do caused the failure.

SBC

Possinly resolved, but still too early to confirm:

My friend (he knows computer hardware setups well) seem to have fixed the
problem after investigations witn trial and errors. Here's what he said:

The power supply has extremely long leads (10 inches) with quite a few power
extensions in series, with many of the Maxtor drive, the fans and the video
card (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW card) being on one circuit. My belief is
either:

1. That particular line had too high a load on the 5 v rail causing the
higher draw devices on this particular chain to "adapt". Since most drive
electronics are run off the 5 volt rail, this would cause the Maxtor to
respin when the electronics experienced a voltage spike thus making the
clucking noise.

2. Maxtor drive has faulty drive electronics. I swapped the Maxtor for a
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB 8 meg cache drive and re-wired the fans/extensions to
be on their own circuit since there's no electronics in them that would be
susceptible to voltage spikes from having such a long circuit.


It seems like my replaced HDD is holding up. Even Seagate HDD was acting
funny before resolving the problem. I hope this was resolved. Has anyone
experienced this problem?

Last week, I replaced my WinFast A250 LE TD - MyVIVO Edition Ti4200 video
card with an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9800 Pro (128 MB) and added a Maxtor
DiamondMax Plus 120 GB HDD (6Y120P0; 7200 RPM; 8 MB cache). Since I already
had a CD burner, a DVD-ROM drive, two existing HDDs, etc. and wanted to add
a new HDD, I had to my ASUS BIOS enable the Raid feature
(http://www.anycities.com/user/mainboards/asus/asus.html).lock ups (HDD light get stuck, Windows become unresponsive after a few
seconds -- can't even ping this computer from another machine, and then I am
forced to do a hard reboot). Windows' event logs showed problems:

period. period.

means. I found out disabling WinXP Promise MBUltra133 (PDC20276) IDE
Controller OR disabling Pure-UDMA (PDCC20276 BIOS v2.2.0.1020.13 BIOS will
not show these problems. Basically, I have no new HDD when I do this.
Eventually after trials and errors, I found out the cable ribbon (used
before) was bad because BIOS eventually couldn't find my new HDD anymore
(D2; Maxtor 6Y120P0; LBA; 117248 MB; UDMA 6). I notice this happens after
the computer has been powered on for over 30 minutes.SLOWLY came back. I had a lock up when I tried to access fils from the new
HDD last night. Tonight, I tried to record a video from my ATI's TV tuner
and computer locked up. A few hours later, I had more lock ups and heard
clucking noises! Maybe a heat issue (don't I have enough cooling now)? Why
did the new cable replaced worked for a day? Shouldn't the cables be able to
handle the heat if it is damaged by heat? My motherboard is usually 109
degrees (F) and CPU is average 120 degress (F). However, I have seen the CPU
go high as 140 degrees(F) when gaming or doing anything intensive.http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/computers.txt (primary computer)
and MSINFO32 results are at http://apu.edu/~philpi/temp/msinfo32.txt (374
KB)

8/29/2002; v2.0.1020.40.

out what is going on and to avoid more annoying lock ups. I am going to run
Maxtor's powermax.exe overnight.

 

[ANTant]

Ant,

The drives are 12 volt. Your Maxtor returned an error in testing which
allows you to return it for replacement. Trust me it will fail on that
error and it is defective. I spoke with the Maxtor people about mine and
they assured me that nothing I did or didn't do caused the failure.

Steve, that doesn't explain why Maxtor HDD worked and stopped making clucking
noises after that fix.

Last week, I replaced my WinFast A250 LE TD - MyVIVO Edition Ti4200 video
card with an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9800 Pro (128 MB) and added a Maxtor
DiamondMax Plus 120 GB HDD (6Y120P0; 7200 RPM; 8 MB cache). Since I already
had a CD burner, a DVD-ROM drive, two existing HDDs, etc. and wanted to add
a new HDD, I had to my ASUS BIOS enable the Raid feature
(http://www.anycities.com/user/mainboards/asus/asus.html).
lock ups (HDD light get stuck, Windows become unresponsive after a few
seconds -- can't even ping this computer from another machine, and then I am
forced to do a hard reboot). Windows' event logs showed problems:
means. I found out disabling WinXP Promise MBUltra133 (PDC20276) IDE
Controller OR disabling Pure-UDMA (PDCC20276 BIOS v2.2.0.1020.13 BIOS will
not show these problems. Basically, I have no new HDD when I do this.
Eventually after trials and errors, I found out the cable ribbon (used
before) was bad because BIOS eventually couldn't find my new HDD anymore
(D2; Maxtor 6Y120P0; LBA; 117248 MB; UDMA 6). I notice this happens after
the computer has been powered on for over 30 minutes.
SLOWLY came back. I had a lock up when I tried to access fils from the new
HDD last night. Tonight, I tried to record a video from my ATI's TV tuner
and computer locked up. A few hours later, I had more lock ups and heard
clucking noises! Maybe a heat issue (don't I have enough cooling now)? Why
did the new cable replaced worked for a day? Shouldn't the cables be able to
handle the heat if it is damaged by heat? My motherboard is usually 109
degrees (F) and CPU is average 120 degress (F). However, I have seen the CPU
go high as 140 degrees(F) when gaming or doing anything intensive.
http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/computers.txt (primary computer)
and MSINFO32 results are at http://apu.edu/~philpi/temp/msinfo32.txt (374
KB)
out what is going on and to avoid more annoying lock ups. I am going to run
Maxtor's powermax.exe overnight.

--
"Now I have you where I want you... where is my jar of Bull ants?"
--unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )

 

[Tony Hwang]

Hi,
If it were voltage loading down problem, weren't you monitoring
the voltages with MBM or PC Probe? How big is your PSU?
10 in. long lead is not detrimental but the crimps inside plugs
may be loose or poorly done. I've seen this many times.
Tony

 

[Steve Carter]

Ant,

OK, suit yourself. See my earlier post about low level format and the SMART
report. The drive returned a RMA error during Maxtor test, right? Call
them if you don't believe me. It will fail and nothing else you did caused
it. Again, if you know better than Maxtor, suit yourself.

SBC

 

[ANTant]

Yes, but he said it is very hard to notice it because it go so quick and
MBM, BIOS, etc. wouldn't catch it. It only results less than a second.
My powersupply is Enlight Powersupply (340 watts; 80 mm fan). I am having
no problems! No lockups and noises.

Hi,
If it were voltage loading down problem, weren't you monitoring
the voltages with MBM or PC Probe? How big is your PSU?
10 in. long lead is not detrimental but the crimps inside plugs
may be loose or poorly done. I've seen this many times.
Tony

Steve Knoblock wrote:

--
"Now I have you where I want you... where is my jar of Bull ants?"
--unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )

 

[ANTant]

Ant,

OK, suit yourself. See my earlier post about low level format and the SMAR

Yeah, I just saw it. When you say low-level format, is that part of Windows
XP's format? If so, then I didn't have any problems.

report. The drive returned a RMA error during Maxtor test, right? Call
them if you don't believe me. It will fail and nothing else you did caused
it. Again, if you know better than Maxtor, suit yourself.

I don't have the drive anymore. I am using Seagates so I am not dealing
with Maxtor drive . Oh, I forgot to mention when I was copying disks with
Norton Ghost last night. 1) BIOS could not find the drive even on IDE setup,
2) Norton Ghost hung (mouse cursor can move) sometimes when finding disks and
copying images eevn after BIOS found the drives.

Whatever, my fixed setup and new drive work great now.

--
"Now I have you where I want you... where is my jar of Bull ants?"
--unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )

 

[rotor]

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 16:29:28 GMT, "Muzzy"


Had the same prob as muzzy but with a 80gb 7200 133 maxtor, together
with the constant crap-outs hd error reports and self re-booting and
serious errors in xp.
I complained to the store who told me that they were changing from
maxtor drives to WD because this was not an isolated problem.
I think maxtor are getting a bit slack and are starting to dish out
sub-standard hds the answer is Ef Em Off!!

 

[Tony Hwang]

Hi,
Sounds like it was bad drive alright.
Tony

Yeah, I just saw it. When you say low-level format, is that part of Windows
XP's format? If so, then I didn't have any problems.





I don't have the drive anymore. I am using Seagates so I am not dealing
with Maxtor drive . Oh, I forgot to mention when I was copying disks with
Norton Ghost last night. 1) BIOS could not find the drive even on IDE setup,
2) Norton Ghost hung (mouse cursor can move) sometimes when finding disks and
copying images eevn after BIOS found the drives.

Whatever, my fixed setup and new drive work great now.

 

[Steve Carter]

Ant,

No. Low level format writes the entire drive with 0. It's a DOS function
included on the Maxtor utility disk. I did it to destroy the data on the
drive I returned. I hope you got your money back or a new drive.

SBC

 

[ANTant]

Got a new drive replaced. My friend is going to try the "defected" drive
to see if he has problem as well (testing only). I will follow-up with
the test results later on.

Ant,

No. Low level format writes the entire drive with 0. It's a DOS function
included on the Maxtor utility disk. I did it to destroy the data on the
drive I returned. I hope you got your money back or a new drive.

--
"Now I have you where I want you... where is my jar of Bull ants?"
--unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )

 

[Ed Jay]

Got a new drive replaced. My friend is going to try the "defected" drive
to see if he has problem as well (testing only). I will follow-up with
the test results later on.

FWIW: I recently installed two Maxtor 120 Gb S-ATA drives. I tried to
overclock my pci bus, which I've always been able to crank up to
43MHz, but I completely locked up at 36 MHz (10%+). That was first and
last test. I'm wondering if the electronics is running on the edge of
stability at 33 MHz.

Ed Jay (remove M to respond)