[accapella4]

I have had 4 hard drive failures in a year now. I'm at my wits end. I have a Asus P5Q-E motherboard that I bought in Oct of 2008, when I bought a new computer. It worked fine for the first 2 years, but then I had hard drive failure #1. I bought a new set of SATA HDD's. One only lasted 2 weeks. The 3rd one lasted about 6 months, but this last one has only lasted about one month. It's always the second HD. On Port 1.

It has 2 additional fans running. It's in the same spot my other computers were in, on the same surge protector. I dont have any power surges or failures going on, so I dont think that's the issue.

What I did notice was that the failures always appear to happen after the computer went in sleep mode. Or it froze, and I had to shut it down manually. Then when I would re-boot, I would see the message that the hard drive was failing. By the 2nd re-boot it was gone. Dead. MIA. So this last time, I deactivated sleep mode. That wasnt the problem I guess. Cause the computer froze again last week, and the brand new HD was dead again. Same as before.

I'm thinking the raid controller on the motherboard is toast? Or would the computer freezing, loss of the ability to use the mouse, fried HD after being in sleep mode imply the power supply is going out?

The store I bought the computer from and had built for me said last time it was probably the raid controller and here, buy a new $120 raid controller for it. Or they said to just buy a new motherboard. (They keep having to give me new hard drives for free. But.. Excuse me, but the motherboard is under warranty still. But then again, I dont want to be without a computer for 3 weeks while they send the motherboard back to Asus to figure out if it's defective or not. And then if it's not.. I'm back to square one.

So here I am. Hoping that some of you out there in tech land, have some ideas to shoot my way to figure out the culprit and what's the best action to take? Cough up the money for a new motherboard and power supply and hope that's the ticket?

Thanks

 

[ssd-tweak]

Please list more details.

Make and model of the HDD('s), RAID controller, PSU, RAM, CPU and GPU would be great.

 

[sobeit]

also how old is the surge protector, over time they lose their protection as it protects your computer because of constant surges. If it is older than two years then it may need to be replaced.

 

[accapella4]

I have two 320 0 Seagate HDD
Motherboard: Asus P5Q-E
CPU: INT S775 E8400 1333FSB
RAM: Brand? Unknown: Two (2GB) DDR2 800MHZ
Video Card: ATI 4850 512 MB

 

[accapella4]

Would a power failure like a dysfunctional surge protector or power supply cause the failure of a hard drive on the same port Port 1? Does the fact that the 4 HD failures so far, that are always on the same bank, same Port not imply a Motherboard Raid Controller issue more than a power supply issue?

 

[ssd-tweak]

If it is that consistent with a certain port, you may be right. You can either keep using your mobo and simply avoid that troubled port and see if that eliminates the problem, or you can get a new mobo if you cannot manage with one SATA port lacking.

This is only a suggestion, but I do have a strong feeling that your suspicion towards the port may be right.

 

[Stu_computer]

What I did notice was that the failures always appear to happen after the computer went in sleep mode. Or it froze, and I had to shut it down manually. Then when I would re-boot, I would see the message that the hard drive was failing.

I have two 320 0 Seagate HDD

Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2 SATA, and DiamondMax 22 Drives

A firmware issue has been identified that affects a small number of Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive models which may result in data becoming inaccessible after a power-off/on operation.

i would think its likely your hdd is one of these models. if so, check seagate's website for a firmware update.


you should download the SeaTools utility and run the short test to check if current hdd's have any issues.

another issue may be the physical location of the hdds. if they are stacked atop each other there could be an overheating problem for the upper hdd due to the lower hdd's heat rising and 'cooking' the upper hdd. it also makes it more difficult for the upper hdd to dissipate it's own heat. solution is to move the upper hdd to another location. SeaTools will show you the current temperature of a selected hdd.

Would a power failure like a dysfunctional surge protector or power supply cause the failure of a hard drive on the same port Port 1? Does the fact that the 4 HD failures so far, that are always on the same bank, same Port not imply a Motherboard Raid Controller issue more than a power supply issue?

it's very unlikely, that is just a 250mV data signal not a power circuit. if there had been a power surge that made its way into data paths then there would've been extensive damage done to the rest of the mobo as well and the mobo would be unuseable.

and it's more likely you used the same power connector for all 4 hdds as well and if there were a power surge that is the connector that would be affected, not the data connector, and there would be evidence of a damaged connector because of the small pins used.

but it is very very unlikely its due to repeated power surges targeting that particular connection four times and no other connections/components have ever been affected.

i think you can safely rule out the power surge senario.