Undependable Hardware Connections

[gecko]

I never see a post on this subject. I also never hear of others
having my problem. So I am wondering why me?

Anyway - This is my experience:

I have two XP AMD machines, each with two IDE hard drives and one IDE
DVD burner. I run them both, using a KVM to select each one. They
both are some 3 years old. I have discovered that periodically one or
the other (usually not at the same time) will not boot up, or will not
recognize one or more drives if it does boot. Not often, but every
month or so.

The only solution seems to be to jiggle or otherwise disconnect and
reconnect either the power or the IDE connectors, or both. This
ALWAYS works. I have changed the IDE cables and the power connectors,
which seems to help, but the problem keeps recurring.

I have long since stopped replacing the covers on the machines because
I figured what's the use. I would just have to then remove them again
to fix the problem. I also thought exposing the machines to open air
would be good for cooling purposes. Maybe not?

As I said, I never hear of others having this problem, which would and
could be unmanageable for someone without any knowledge of the
innards. And they are all around me. IOW, their machine would always
be 'in the shop', which would quickly become unacceptable.

So - what do you guys think?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I can continue to live with this,
but I'd like to try another approach.

Thanks

-GECKO

 

[Jon Danniken]

I never see a post on this subject. I also never hear of others
having my problem. So I am wondering why me?

Anyway - This is my experience:

I have two XP AMD machines, each with two IDE hard drives and one IDE
DVD burner. I run them both, using a KVM to select each one. They
both are some 3 years old. I have discovered that periodically one or
the other (usually not at the same time) will not boot up, or will not
recognize one or more drives if it does boot. Not often, but every
month or so.

The only solution seems to be to jiggle or otherwise disconnect and
reconnect either the power or the IDE connectors, or both. This
ALWAYS works. I have changed the IDE cables and the power connectors,
which seems to help, but the problem keeps recurring.

I had a machine once that would occasionally to "click" and reboot. After a
time of doing this, I opened it up and jiggled things with a chopstick.

The culprit was the female molex connectors not making a positive enough
connection with the pins on the HDD. I used a pair of tweezers to close
them up a bit and the problem went away.

Jon

 

[gecko]

I had a machine once that would occasionally to "click" and reboot. After a
time of doing this, I opened it up and jiggled things with a chopstick.

The culprit was the female molex connectors not making a positive enough
connection with the pins on the HDD. I used a pair of tweezers to close
them up a bit and the problem went away.

Jon

I am glad for you.

I bought and used some new molex connectors, and they helped for a
long while, but now the problem is back. Needle-nosed pliers may be
the next thing to try, Same question, though. why don't I hear of
similar complaints from others? The way it is happening to me, it
would seem to be a common complaint.

Thanks

-GECKO

 

[gecko]

These power connectors must be the nastiest connectors ever seen in PCs. I
regularly use fine-nosed pliers, or just a screwdriver rammed between the
plastic body and the female connectors to distort the female and so increase
the contact force between male and female. A year or so later, they need it
again.

It doesn't just make drives unreliable, by the way, it can also disconnect
cooling fans - causing the drives to overheat and fail.

By the way, it has been mentioned in newsgroups many times.

Peter Able

Mebbe so Peter. If so, I apologize. It is just another example of my
inability to search out things correctly in the news group(s). I just
know - this problem is a continuing perplexation to me.

Nice to know though - that I am not alone. Sometimes I feel thataway.

Thanks

-GECKO

 

[gecko]

The problem varies quite a bit depending on the quality of
the connectors used. Some psu just have terrible connectors
on them, and many of the inline adapters, y-splitters, etc,
have even worse connectors.

A year ago, I bought a few y-splitters, to see the effect. As far as
I can see, they work no better than the connectors that came with the
PSU.

Given PSU with good connectors and no inline adapters, the
problem is rare unless the environment is very dirty and the
connector being used had sat unused so the mating surfaces
became contaminated. Another problem is sea air, it tends
to do bad things to nickle plated connectors.

Aye, there's the rub! I leave 8 miles from the ocean.

More often with drives I find the connector and/or PSU plug
plastic portions were too tight a fit and someone had pushed
hard in a sideways motion which cracked the PCB or a solder
joint, then it makes intermittend connection based on
temperature or moving the cables which flexes the end of the
PCB a little bit.

The other option is that the PSU isn't allowing the hard
drives to spin up fast enough, and/or the bios doesn't pause
long enough to allow that to happen. In some cases the mobo
bios has a setting to delay HDD detection for a period of
seconds to allow longer for spinup to complete. Otherwise a
PSU with higher 12V current rating may help.

This is a possibility. I have cheap PSUs.