I've done my fair share of computer repairs in my time, but this one has me stumped. i'd like to hear any suggestions if you have any.
my pc stays on pretty much 24/7 but i give it a rest every so often. this morning i go and make myself breakfast and when i come back the comp has rebooted and is stuck on the detecting ide drives part. i hear the sound of my 4 drives all spinning up and then stopping (a sort of electrical zzzzzup.....zzzzzup.......zzzzzup sound from all of them). i quickly turn the pc off and check the connections, etc. try rebooting many times to no avail. this all seems very weird seeing as one of the drives in my pc is plugged into the psu but not connecterd to the motherboard but this one is also affected (telling me it can't be virus or something). so i think it must be my psu. i have 2 psus (one for the mobo, cpu and gpu and the other for the drives, fans and water pump and they are both sufficiently powerful at 420W and 480W OCZ and antec). i go and dig out my 3rd backup antec 480w and try it on the drives......same thing happens, so it is clearly not the psu. even weirder, all drives work if they are the only one powered up. as soon as i try powering another one of the drives together, they fail, even if one psu is powering one drive and another psu is powering the other drive. WTF! i get my voltmeter out and check the voltages on the lines. when one drive is plugged in the 12v is solid. when another is plugged in the voltage fluctuates to 11.9 and 12.1 but this is probably due to the fact that the drives draw alot of current when spinning up and since they keep spiining up then stopping over and over, the voltage is expected to fluctuate. my last guess is that there is somekind of short or something between the drives in the drive cage but i take the cage out and find nothing abnormal. i'll take the drives out and try them when they are not close together. but otherwise, any ideas? this is really messed up
[edit] well it's definitely a power issue. i hooked up 2 drives to my ocz powerstream instead of the antecs and they seem ok. why do they work on the ocz (420W) but not the 2 antecs (480W). the ocz has a higher current rating than the antecs. seems like the drives just suddenly said to themselves "hmmm, i think i feel like drawing more current today"
my pc stays on pretty much 24/7 but i give it a rest every so often. this morning i go and make myself breakfast and when i come back the comp has rebooted and is stuck on the detecting ide drives part. i hear the sound of my 4 drives all spinning up and then stopping (a sort of electrical zzzzzup.....zzzzzup.......zzzzzup sound from all of them). i quickly turn the pc off and check the connections, etc. try rebooting many times to no avail. this all seems very weird seeing as one of the drives in my pc is plugged into the psu but not connecterd to the motherboard but this one is also affected (telling me it can't be virus or something). so i think it must be my psu. i have 2 psus (one for the mobo, cpu and gpu and the other for the drives, fans and water pump and they are both sufficiently powerful at 420W and 480W OCZ and antec). i go and dig out my 3rd backup antec 480w and try it on the drives......same thing happens, so it is clearly not the psu. even weirder, all drives work if they are the only one powered up. as soon as i try powering another one of the drives together, they fail, even if one psu is powering one drive and another psu is powering the other drive. WTF! i get my voltmeter out and check the voltages on the lines. when one drive is plugged in the 12v is solid. when another is plugged in the voltage fluctuates to 11.9 and 12.1 but this is probably due to the fact that the drives draw alot of current when spinning up and since they keep spiining up then stopping over and over, the voltage is expected to fluctuate. my last guess is that there is somekind of short or something between the drives in the drive cage but i take the cage out and find nothing abnormal. i'll take the drives out and try them when they are not close together. but otherwise, any ideas? this is really messed up
[edit] well it's definitely a power issue. i hooked up 2 drives to my ocz powerstream instead of the antecs and they seem ok. why do they work on the ocz (420W) but not the 2 antecs (480W). the ocz has a higher current rating than the antecs. seems like the drives just suddenly said to themselves "hmmm, i think i feel like drawing more current today"
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