- Aug 28, 2017
- 16
- 0
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My computer broke this week, and I've been trying to fix it but I need a little help.
Original computer:
HP p6320f
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01959721
M2N78-LA (Violet 6) motherboard 64 bit
8 GB DDR3 memory
AMD Phenom II X4 logo quadcore 2.8 GHz
Originally, 1TB HDD
Long time ago upgraded to 2TB HDD (Call this HDD "OLD-C")
4TB HDD (Call this HDD "MYDATA")
Windows 7 Home Premium
Other Upgrades:
Samsung 1 TB SSD (Call this SSD "NEW-C")
Corsair 300R case
Corsair 750M power supply
4x 4GB DDR3 memory
Patient History and Symptoms
When I upgraded to NEW-C, I kept OLD-C in the case but unplugged, because a bootable drive is a good thing to keep around. Of course, both NEW-C and OLD-C have three partitions: System, C:, and D: (Recovery).
I recently upgraded the case and power supply so I could get off the NVIDIA integrated graphics onto a PCI-E graphics card, but I didn't get to installing that yet due to these problems. I had no problems with the switchover to the new case.
The upgrade to 16 GB memory is recent. I forgot to give the memory a good diagnostics, so that is currently one of my lower priority goals, currently stymied, see below.
So, when installing NEW-C and MYDATA, each had to install a driver instead of just working, NEW-C I guess because it's an SSD, and MYDATA I think because of its size. Consequently, each was listed in the Eject Media icons in Notifications, as if they were removable media. A few days ago, I started hearing Device Connect and Device Disconnect system sounds, such as you hear when you remove and reinsert a thumb drive, but I had no removable media in use. Also, the system would freeze for 20 to 30 seconds at a time. I got a message that one of my drives was going bad, but it went by before I could read which one. OLD-C was unplugged, so it was either NEW-C or MYDATA that was losing its connection with the mobo.
I have most things backed up automatically and I soon saved the last few things manually, so fortunately my data is safe. But as I was backing those last few things up, the system started behaving very erratically, freezing, having to reboot, and eventually refusing to boot from NEW-C. It wanted to CHKDSK NEW-C but during reboot the CHKDSK process gave errors about not being able to access various locations. Not filesystem errors, but disk communication errors, so I canceled. And then it would not boot from NEW-C because it insisted on CHKDSK'ing, but I wouldn't let it because I was a little freaked out by then and I did not trust it.
I took all the disks out and mounted them as data disks on another computer. MYDATA may or may not be hosed, I think I may just need a driver for it on the test machine. OLD-C and NEW-C are fine. I ran CHKDSK successfully, twice, on all partitions (except MYDATA).
I decided to try booting with OLD-C. It booted up. I scheduled a memory diagnostic and rebooted. It came up and started the diags and ran for a while so I left and came back and everything was powered off. It would not boot from OLD-C, then it would, then not. Sometimes POST would see the disk sometimes not. When it did, it might boot or might not. I tried different SATA ports and cables - same.
I also tried booting off different CDs containing an Acronis bootable, GPARTED, and a Ubuntu installer. The Ubuntu installer has a memory diagnostic I wanted to run. However, the optical drive suffers the same issues, variously seen or not seen by POST, and even if seen it quickly stops working. (Update: The SATA issues seem to happen less when booting cold. So I just now booted cold and it has worked at least long enough to get the Ubuntu memcheck running.)
I put OLD-C back on the other computer and it's still fine. But I don't want to try booting the other computer with it because it's a different processor (AMD Athlon II X2 240) and motherboard (M2N68-LA Narra), so I'm not sure what will happen or if it will screw up the disk. At this point I'm going with the assumption that OLD-C and NEW-C are both bootable, but only for the processor they were installed for. Is this correct?
I believe I have a hardware problem on the motherboard, or possibly just the on-board SATA controller.
My number one priority is to get my computer running Windows 7 again. Only Windows 7, I do not want any other OS. If I end up getting forced to upgrade to Windows 10 I would consider that a major failure. I have lots of reasons but I don't want to debate that here please.
I have Windows 7 on NEW-C (preferable) and OLD-C (fallback position -- it's a couple years old). A fresh install is also okay and has the advantage it would probably clean out a lot of cruft.
I have the system recovery disk, but I'm afraid to try it with hardware that might fail in the middle of something important.
How can I tell if the problem is the on-board SATA controller or the entire motherboard?
If the problem is just the SATA, I can try a PCI-e x1 SATA controller. I have room for a couple of these:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=15-150-095
Would my disk performance suffer by using the PCI-e bus instead of the SATA bus?
I would be getting SATA II now instead of plain SATA from my motherboard. I think the throughput of PCI-e 2.0 is 500 MB/s but I might have PCI-e 1.0, which is 250 MB/s. For SATA II, I will need 200 MB/s. So it's close either way. Is this the right way to look at it? If this works I should be able to just use NEW-C again, and restore to a NEW-MYDATA.
If I just get a new motherboard, I can obviously benefit from newer technology, but will I be able to install Windows 7 again. either from scratch for the new CPU, or from the Recovery partition on NEW-C (or OLD-C)?
That's my dilemma.
Original computer:
HP p6320f
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01959721
M2N78-LA (Violet 6) motherboard 64 bit
8 GB DDR3 memory
AMD Phenom II X4 logo quadcore 2.8 GHz
Originally, 1TB HDD
Long time ago upgraded to 2TB HDD (Call this HDD "OLD-C")
4TB HDD (Call this HDD "MYDATA")
Windows 7 Home Premium
Other Upgrades:
Samsung 1 TB SSD (Call this SSD "NEW-C")
Corsair 300R case
Corsair 750M power supply
4x 4GB DDR3 memory
Patient History and Symptoms
When I upgraded to NEW-C, I kept OLD-C in the case but unplugged, because a bootable drive is a good thing to keep around. Of course, both NEW-C and OLD-C have three partitions: System, C:, and D: (Recovery).
I recently upgraded the case and power supply so I could get off the NVIDIA integrated graphics onto a PCI-E graphics card, but I didn't get to installing that yet due to these problems. I had no problems with the switchover to the new case.
The upgrade to 16 GB memory is recent. I forgot to give the memory a good diagnostics, so that is currently one of my lower priority goals, currently stymied, see below.
So, when installing NEW-C and MYDATA, each had to install a driver instead of just working, NEW-C I guess because it's an SSD, and MYDATA I think because of its size. Consequently, each was listed in the Eject Media icons in Notifications, as if they were removable media. A few days ago, I started hearing Device Connect and Device Disconnect system sounds, such as you hear when you remove and reinsert a thumb drive, but I had no removable media in use. Also, the system would freeze for 20 to 30 seconds at a time. I got a message that one of my drives was going bad, but it went by before I could read which one. OLD-C was unplugged, so it was either NEW-C or MYDATA that was losing its connection with the mobo.
I have most things backed up automatically and I soon saved the last few things manually, so fortunately my data is safe. But as I was backing those last few things up, the system started behaving very erratically, freezing, having to reboot, and eventually refusing to boot from NEW-C. It wanted to CHKDSK NEW-C but during reboot the CHKDSK process gave errors about not being able to access various locations. Not filesystem errors, but disk communication errors, so I canceled. And then it would not boot from NEW-C because it insisted on CHKDSK'ing, but I wouldn't let it because I was a little freaked out by then and I did not trust it.
I took all the disks out and mounted them as data disks on another computer. MYDATA may or may not be hosed, I think I may just need a driver for it on the test machine. OLD-C and NEW-C are fine. I ran CHKDSK successfully, twice, on all partitions (except MYDATA).
I decided to try booting with OLD-C. It booted up. I scheduled a memory diagnostic and rebooted. It came up and started the diags and ran for a while so I left and came back and everything was powered off. It would not boot from OLD-C, then it would, then not. Sometimes POST would see the disk sometimes not. When it did, it might boot or might not. I tried different SATA ports and cables - same.
I also tried booting off different CDs containing an Acronis bootable, GPARTED, and a Ubuntu installer. The Ubuntu installer has a memory diagnostic I wanted to run. However, the optical drive suffers the same issues, variously seen or not seen by POST, and even if seen it quickly stops working. (Update: The SATA issues seem to happen less when booting cold. So I just now booted cold and it has worked at least long enough to get the Ubuntu memcheck running.)
I put OLD-C back on the other computer and it's still fine. But I don't want to try booting the other computer with it because it's a different processor (AMD Athlon II X2 240) and motherboard (M2N68-LA Narra), so I'm not sure what will happen or if it will screw up the disk. At this point I'm going with the assumption that OLD-C and NEW-C are both bootable, but only for the processor they were installed for. Is this correct?
I believe I have a hardware problem on the motherboard, or possibly just the on-board SATA controller.
My number one priority is to get my computer running Windows 7 again. Only Windows 7, I do not want any other OS. If I end up getting forced to upgrade to Windows 10 I would consider that a major failure. I have lots of reasons but I don't want to debate that here please.
I have Windows 7 on NEW-C (preferable) and OLD-C (fallback position -- it's a couple years old). A fresh install is also okay and has the advantage it would probably clean out a lot of cruft.
I have the system recovery disk, but I'm afraid to try it with hardware that might fail in the middle of something important.
How can I tell if the problem is the on-board SATA controller or the entire motherboard?
If the problem is just the SATA, I can try a PCI-e x1 SATA controller. I have room for a couple of these:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=15-150-095
Would my disk performance suffer by using the PCI-e bus instead of the SATA bus?
I would be getting SATA II now instead of plain SATA from my motherboard. I think the throughput of PCI-e 2.0 is 500 MB/s but I might have PCI-e 1.0, which is 250 MB/s. For SATA II, I will need 200 MB/s. So it's close either way. Is this the right way to look at it? If this works I should be able to just use NEW-C again, and restore to a NEW-MYDATA.
If I just get a new motherboard, I can obviously benefit from newer technology, but will I be able to install Windows 7 again. either from scratch for the new CPU, or from the Recovery partition on NEW-C (or OLD-C)?
That's my dilemma.
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