HDD stops pc from starting up, works fine under different PSU

Status
Not open for further replies.

Vindye

Beta member
Messages
1
I've got a little unusual problem that I've been trying to figure out all day.

I rarely turn off my pc, or even reboot it. For no particular reason I decided to turn off my PC this morning and about one hour later I came back to turn it on, only that it now refuses to turn on.

The first thing I was able to notice was an usual whistling noise which turned out to be coming from my hard drive. After unplugging my hard drive, the PC turned on fine and worked like a cham (of course it didn't load up XP since there was nothing to load)

Since I have two PCs in the house I tried plugging the hard drive into my other PC and wouldn't ya know it, it worked fine. I even swapped the power source and my computer worked normally, however the power source on my second pc isn't the greatest and my PC started turning off every 30 mins or so (I'm guessing it was over heating, the PSU was really hot)

Even stranger, since I had the PSU that was causing the problems in my second PC I decided to plug in the HDD to see if the PSU was the problem and the hard drive worked. Apon changing PSU's back to my main PC the hard drive was giving the error I started out with.

I'll try being a little more specific with the problem. The computer never starts, it doesn't even get to the bios, it just constantly reboots. Once I power up the PC my HD spins for less then a second, then stops (also makes an odd whistling noise which it normally doesn't make), my CDrom also spins for a split second but then stops. And it just goes into an infinte loop of this little thing.

I'll just quickly summarize what the problems are

- PC never starts up, HDD makes an unusual ticking noise, CDROM starts to spon but stops after a second, goes into a loop of this.

- Tried HDD under a different PSU and it works perfectly, starts up, with no problems

- With a different HDD my PC will start up just fine with no problems at all.

- Swapped PSU to another computer and the PC works fine with no problems. The HDD also works fine under this PSU (but it's in a different PC)

- Switched around RAM chips several times and result remains the same

Any suggestions? From what I can tell the problem is either from the PSU or HDD, but I really don't want to go out and waste $30-50 on a new PSU, or a hundred or two on a new HDD unless I know it's the root of the problem. Right now I'm completely stumped.

Thanks
Alex
 
Id say definatly the PSU is to blame. If you tried swapping your HD's and it worked fine in another PC, then the PSU's to blame. Are you sure the whistling is the HD and not the PSU, ive had whilstling PSU's before.

PSU's are always going wrong, if they over heat due to overloading then they will stop working due to the trip switch. (hence the restarting ever 30 mins, please tell me if i have read this wrong)

You say you have already swapped the PSU for another one, from your other pc, was that the one resarting every 30 mins? If so then your overloading the PSU, thus overheating and then the restart to try and save its life. If you did not swap it, then your original PSU has gone wrong and needs to be replaced anyhow.

I know this is a load of crap, but im thinking that suggesting things is better then keeping quite and not getting the problem solved.

Hope you get it fixed.

Horris
 
Yea...you never turn it off....unfortunatly...that's what happens to psus that are always are on...they just die.
 
actually, if I'm reading this right the following are happening (computer A being the original problem PC and computer B being the second working one):

1. you took the HDD from computer A and works fine in computer B
2. you took the PSU from computer B and put it in computer A and
this caused a shutdown after 30 min or so
3. With the PSU from computer A and the PSU from computer A put
into computer B it runs fine, too.

I would have to say maybe there is a short on the MBD, since the PSU and the HDD works in computer B, but the PSU from computer B seems to overheat and shutdown when in computer A. That or there is a grounding issue, check to see if it runs fine with all components running out of the case on a non static surface.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom