Desktop acting weird after installing SSD

kcheleb

Honorable
Jun 22, 2012
18
0
10,510
Hello everyone I apologize in advance for the long post, please bare with me and I really hope someone can assist me in diagnosing my problem.

Recently I purchased a Samsung 840 series 120 GB SSD to put in my desktop, the specs of my desktop are as follows:

- 64-bit Windows 7 Professional
- Intel Core i5 3470 @ 3.20 Ghz Ivy Bridge CPU
- 8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 memory HyperXBlu
- Gigabyte Technology B75M-D3H motherboard
- 1024 MB Gigabyte Raden HD 7750 video card
- 120 GB Samsung SSd 840 series
- 500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKX HDD
- Asus DRW-24B1ST optical drive
- XFX Pro550W power supply

so before I did not have an SSD, just a regular HDD and the desktop was working flawlessly at all times

Recently I put my SSD in my new build, I also did some wire management as well. I have the SSD in my sata 3 spot on the motherboard, and I put the optical drive and my HDD in the other sata ports I have.As far as I know other than moving wires around this is the only thing I have changed. I also have both of my fans connected to the PSU and a front fan cooling the hard drives connected to the motherboard.

Ever since I put the new SSD in and did the new wire arrangement my PC has been acting weird in the following ways

1) the optical drive sometimes does not work. I will put a DVD in and it doesn't load or read it. I restart the computer and then it works. It's like off and on, sometimes works sometimes doesn't

2) The comp will sometimes shut down right out of the blue BOOM out of no where it just shuts off. Twice I noticed that it shut off right after I was connecting my printer's ethernet cable into my router


I thought it was because the SATA cable was sliding out of the SSD because the SSD wasn't mounted (I'm waiting to get a 2.5 to 3.5 bracket to do it), so I mounted one side of the SSD that I could and made sure it was firmly in. I thought that had fixed the problem but nope it still happened after and I know now for sure it's not because the SATA on the SSD is sliding out

Also it's not an overheating issue as all the temps are fine, the temps are the following (in Celsius)

CPU 36-42 degrees
Motherboard 28-30 degrees
Video card 31-40 degrees
Hard drives 25-30 degrees


These are my theories and they could be silly

1) Only other thing I could think of is maybe my motherboard is not properly grounded and there's a short? But what does this have to do with the optical drive not working sometimes?

2) The sata cable I now put into the optical drive is kinda old, I grabbed it from a friend who had an extra .. could this may be a faulty wire? But even if it was that only explains one of the problems, and not why the desktop shuts off/restarts out of nowhere

3) Faulty PSU .. I don't think so though, it's a fairly new computer build only about 14-15 months old. I don't think I'm running any heavy hardware and 550 watts should be just fine

I'm gonna take it to my friend to make sure all the hardware is put in properly, but if anyone has any suggestions or any theories please let me know, here are some pics of my build

28v9iy1.jpg


2z89qh1.jpg
 

kcheleb

Honorable
Jun 22, 2012
18
0
10,510
Okay so just to clarify.. my computer actually does NOT shut off. It actually restarts itself. So would that be a short? Does a short cause the computer to restart or shut off completely? I highly highly doubt it is the PSU

I was on the computer for about 40-50 minutes just surfing the internet watching YouTube performing mundane actions nothing special. I didn't move anything or plug anything in.. then out of the blue shuts off and reboots itself




I think I am also going to rule out that it is a bad PSU ... because I went into BIOS and checked the voltages and they were as follows,

CPU Vcore --------- 1.164 V
Dram Voltage ------- 1.524 V
+3.3V ---------------- 3.344 V
+12V ----------------- 12.096 V

so doesn't that seem as though the PSU is working perfectly fine? If the +12 V was much lower then I would be having a problem correct?

I'm definitely starting to think that there is a short that is occurring somewhere, now I just have to figure out where and if that's actually the case

Can a short only be triggered by the motherboard or can a PSU also cause a short? I'm starting to think it has something to do with my 2 case fans .. I plugged the molex of one fan into the molex of the 2nd fan, then plugged that 2nd fan straight into the PSU ...... should I perhaps plug both molex's of the fans separately each into the PSU?
 
It sure does sound like a device being removed that is not hot-swappable. Can you try leaving that optical drive entirely disconnected? Pull the SATA cable out of the motherboard side. If the system continues to show the same behavior, try pulling the HDD sata cable the same way. If the SATA cable is an older version that doesn't have the small metal retention spring device on the end, it might be loose like you said and causing the BSOD's/reset behavior.

Daisy chaining the case fans shouldn't be causing this issue, but to test that, leave everything disconnected other than your SSD, video card, memory and motherboard front panel headers etc. On the note of the front panel headers, make sure these are firmly and properly seated on the motherboard pins.

Best way to diagnose something like this is to remove all extra non-essential parts and add each piece back in individually until the system fails again.