Rosewill Capstone 750 Watt: bizarre issue

[magellan]

I bought this PSU used in 2015. I never had any real problems with it until I built a x99 5820k rig with it. At that point, one of the HDD's (a Toshiba 2 TiB) began disappearing once windows loaded. It wasn't the boot drive and on a warm reboot the HDD would be found by the BIOS but disappear again once windows loaded. My initial solution was to use an external PSU to power just the Toshiba HDD and that worked. After that I tried using a molex-to-SATA power connector with the internal Rosewill Capstone 750 Watt and that worked.

Everything was fine for a while until my HP 1260d DVD-RW began exhibiting the exact same problem. I figured it was dead but on testing it on my x79 box it worked fine.

Fast forward to this month and now my Samsung 850 Pro 256 GiB SSD begins disappearing (but only under heavy gaming load, not even prime95 or orthos cause it to disappear it has to be a gaming load). Once again, I tried connecting it via a molex-to-SATA power connector and the problem disappeared.

Can power supply cables go bad? Or maybe the Rosewill Capstone 750 Watt had lousy SATA power connectors from the get-go? Or maybe it's because I live in a humid area (I once had a EIDE HDD that had to have its data cable regularly disconnected and reconnected otherwise it would disappear). Then again my x79 rig has never had any problems like this and it has all SATA HDD's, SSD's and even a DVD-ROM.

 

[dejo]

If you can get to the power supply cables, I would unplug them and reseat them several times. This can "clean" the connections and may fix your issue. Also, make sure that all the cables look like they are seated into the connectors fully, sometimes they are barely in and may not be locked where they should be.

 

[EarthDog]

Heavy gaming load? HDDs aren't used much at all in most games.. same in P95 tests... not sure if ortho has a hdd test...weird testing....

What does the smart info say on these drives? Are you using the latest bios? Which ports are these plugged into? What system is this happening with? I see you referenced x79, but the new system isn't listed in your signature (literally been asking you to update this since you came back weeks ago, lol... how about helping us help you....).

I agree 100% to reseat all of those components as well as both data and power connections at the psu and device side.

 

[magellan]

If you can get to the power supply cables, I would unplug them and reseat them several times. This can "clean" the connections and may fix your issue. Also, make sure that all the cables look like they are seated into the connectors fully, sometimes they are barely in and may not be locked where they should be.

When the Samsung 850 Pro 256 GiB and the Toshiba 2 TiB HDD (and even the old IBM EIDE HDD) disappeared that was the first thing I tried (disconnecting and reconnecting the SATA data and power cables). This works but the problem always inevitably cropped up again. When the Samsung 850 Pro 256 GiB disappeared the last time it took three cold boots to get it to be recognized by the BIOS again, but once I swapped the SATA power connector for a molex-to-SATA adapter it came up the first time out.

Even stranger is I have one ancient WD 160 GiB HDD (that has both molex and SATA power connectors) and it's on a SATA power cable and it never exhibits the problem (maybe it's using the one good SATA power connector)? It is using the SATA power connector that has the shortest cable run to the PSU.

Heavy gaming load? HDDs aren't used much at all in most games.. same in P95 tests... not sure if ortho has a hdd test...weird testing....

What does the smart info say on these drives? Are you using the latest bios? Which ports are these plugged into? What system is this happening with? I see you referenced x79, but the new system isn't listed in your signature (literally been asking you to update this since you came back weeks ago, lol... how about helping us help you....).

I agree 100% to reseat all of those components as well as both data and power connections at the psu and device side.

My profile shows my current rig. It won't matter much longer anyway, I intent to install the Seasonic 850Gm sometime in the next month or two.

When the Samsung 850 Pro 256 GiB was recognized and connected via the PSU SATA power it would work fine -- until I fired up any game or even unigine heaven. Then the system would freeze and on reboot the Samsung 850 Pro 256 GiB would no longer be seen by the BIOS. HWiNFO 64 indicates both PCIe 8-pin connectors show the 12V line dropping as does the PCIe slot, but still staying within the ATX +-%5 specification.

The only errors SMART shows are UltraDMA CRC Error Counts that are less than 10 for the Samsung 850 Pro 256 GiB that was disappearing and the ancient WD 160GiB HDD with the SATA and molex power connectors.

 

[EarthDog]

Nobody knows to click into a profile. Thats what wigs are for.. A signature travels with each post and takes literally no effort to look at. People have to ask, or dig to see your specs. Just saying that isn't optimal for the volunteers answering these (frequent) questions.

I mean, we can guess if it's the cable, or you can get another one and test. That's the only way. If one drove is good and you think the power is good, swap drives and see. Investigate your hunches.

Pcie 6+2 and the slot itself doesn't have much of anything to do with sata power. If you want to know what the 12v rail is doing look at the 12v rail itself.

 

[magellan]

Nobody knows to click into a profile. Thats what wigs are for.. A signature travels with each post and takes literally no effort to look at. People have to ask, or dig to see your specs. Just saying that isn't optimal for the volunteers answering these (frequent) questions.

I mean, we can guess if it's the cable, or you can get another one and test. That's the only way. If one drove is good and you think the power is good, swap drives and see. Investigate your hunches.

Pcie 6+2 and the slot itself doesn't have much of anything to do with sata power. If you want to know what the 12v rail is doing look at the 12v rail itself.

I don't know if I agree with that last statement considering the PSU in question has a SINGLE 12V rail powering both the PCIe 6+2 pin connectors the 12V PCIe slot power and the SATA power connectors.

 

[EarthDog]

My point was to look at the 12V reading in software...where I thought you were reading it.

Though its best to use a multimeter.

 

[magellan]

My point was to look at the 12V reading in software...where I thought you were reading it.

Though its best to use a multimeter.

The 12V readings I quoted were from HWiNFO64, I presume they were being read from the videocard itself.

The 12V readings indicated for the motherboard in HWiNFO64 indicated the 12V line never dipped below 12V.

 

[Blaylock]

Have you tried swapping out the questionable PSU? This would be the most likely cause for the issues presented. Obviously, you will need to swap out the power cable too as most PSUs have different pin-outs.

 

[magellan]

Have you tried swapping out the questionable PSU? This would be the most likely cause for the issues presented. Obviously, you will need to swap out the power cable too as most PSUs have different pin-outs.

The Rosewill PSU isn't modular, and the problem seems to have be fixed, but I have a seasonic 850gm on order.

 

[trents]

1. The molex to SATA adapters fixed the issue and both types of connections use the same 12v rail.
2. Putting one of the disappearing drives in another rig did not produce a disappearing drive.

To me, this adds up to wimpy SATA connectors on the Rosewill PSU.

 

[magellan]

1. The molex to SATA adapters fixed the issue and both types of connections use the same 12v rail.
2. Putting one of the disappearing drives in another rig did not produce a disappearing drive.

To me, this adds up to wimpy SATA connectors on the Rosewill PSU.

That's what I figured as well, either the SATA power connectors are marginal or maybe the wire gauge used for the SATA power connectors is too small. It's interesting to note that the one HDD that hasn't had any problems throughout all of this is connected to the first SATA connector in the chain. It's also an oddball HDD in that it's so old it has both SATA and molex 4-pin power connectors.

 

[EarthDog]

I'd bet on the connector. Sata cable doesn't send but a few/several watts (per drive).

 

[magellan]

But why would +5V SSD be affected? I can see how the 1080Ti is drawing a lot of +12V power but why would that affect a +5V only SSD? Maybe I'm getting ripple on both the +12V and +5V lines when the 1080ti is drawing large amounts of current? HWiNFO64 indicates the +12V and +5 lines drop their voltage when the 1080Ti is drawing lots of power, but they're still at or above 12V and 5V. Maybe the marginal SATA connectors or cables work as long as the +12V and +5V lines are above their rated voltages, but not when they drop?