Hard Drive Woes

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

I have an HP a730n Desktop Pavilion that was purchased last October. The
original hard drive crashed in February and was replaced by HP. The
replacement hard drive crashed this week, and HP is once again sending out a
replacement. Although I'm grateful for the replacements, I'd like to try to
figure out the cause of these hard drive failures. HP attributes most hard
drive failures to the computer not shutting down properly. There were only a
couple of instances of this occurring due to weather-related issues. I have
other computers in the house that are doing just fine. I asked HP if a
faulty power supply could be to blame and they told me that generally there
would be motherboard problems if the power supply was causing these
failures. I was also wondering if the tower is getting too warm...right
after the last failure, I went into the BIOS and the hardware monitor stated
that the CPU temp was around 51°C/125°F. I went to the hardware monitor
again this evening right after starting the computer, and the monitor
reported a temp of 47°C with a CPU fan speed of 1734 rpm and a system fan
speed of 2665 rpm. Could the internal temp be causing the hard drives to
crash? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to remedy the
problem before the new hard drive arrives.

Thanks,

Leigh

(Remove the "not" to respond by e-mail.)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

On the seventh day, Leigh Freston wrote...

> I have an HP a730n Desktop Pavilion that was purchased last October. The
> original hard drive crashed in February and was replaced by HP. The
> replacement hard drive crashed this week, and HP is once again sending out a
> replacement. Although I'm grateful for the replacements, I'd like to try to
> figure out the cause of these hard drive failures. HP attributes most hard
> drive failures to the computer not shutting down properly. There were only a
> couple of instances of this occurring due to weather-related issues. I have
> other computers in the house that are doing just fine. I asked HP if a
> faulty power supply could be to blame and they told me that generally there
> would be motherboard problems if the power supply was causing these
> failures. I was also wondering if the tower is getting too warm...right
> after the last failure, I went into the BIOS and the hardware monitor stated
> that the CPU temp was around 51°C/125°F. I went to the hardware monitor
> again this evening right after starting the computer, and the monitor
> reported a temp of 47°C with a CPU fan speed of 1734 rpm and a system fan
> speed of 2665 rpm. Could the internal temp be causing the hard drives to
> crash? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to remedy the
> problem before the new hard drive arrives.

Hello, Leigh,

it's always a good idea to find out what's causing problems in the first
place. I am not very familiar to your specific model, though. Besides, you
forgot to mention your hard drive model. I'd suggest, you post this
information.

A good start to troubleshoot is to check the failure on your last drive. Do
you think you could just run a knoppix based live cd on your PC with your
old drive attached (if it is found by your PC's BIOS that is) and run
"smartctl -a /dev/hda" (minus quotes)? Then post the results, please (only
the table is important).

As to temperature: it's always possible that temperature is an issue.
However, you said you found 51°C for your CPU in BIOS monitor, that's
pretty good. That doesn't say much about the general temperature in your
casing, but you could guess your system is healthy.

--
mit freundlichen Grüßen/with kind regards
Christian Dürrhauer, Institute of Geography, FU Berlin

You carry the fate of us all little one. - Boromir

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

Thanks for trying to help me, but unfortunately the old hard drive is
already on its way back to HP. In the meantime, I've discovered that I
haven't been running ScanDisk or Defrag enough. I guess that could be part
of my problem. Thanks again!

Leigh

"Christian Dürrhauer" <cduerr@geog.fu-berlin.de> wrote in message
news:5dhx3rey6lk7$.dlg@73137.user.dfncis.de...
> On the seventh day, Leigh Freston wrote...
>
> > I have an HP a730n Desktop Pavilion that was purchased last October. The
> > original hard drive crashed in February and was replaced by HP. The
> > replacement hard drive crashed this week, and HP is once again sending
out a
> > replacement. Although I'm grateful for the replacements, I'd like to try
to
> > figure out the cause of these hard drive failures. HP attributes most
hard
> > drive failures to the computer not shutting down properly. There were
only a
> > couple of instances of this occurring due to weather-related issues. I
have
> > other computers in the house that are doing just fine. I asked HP if a
> > faulty power supply could be to blame and they told me that generally
there
> > would be motherboard problems if the power supply was causing these
> > failures. I was also wondering if the tower is getting too warm...right
> > after the last failure, I went into the BIOS and the hardware monitor
stated
> > that the CPU temp was around 51°C/125°F. I went to the hardware monitor
> > again this evening right after starting the computer, and the monitor
> > reported a temp of 47°C with a CPU fan speed of 1734 rpm and a system
fan
> > speed of 2665 rpm. Could the internal temp be causing the hard drives to
> > crash? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to remedy the
> > problem before the new hard drive arrives.
>
> Hello, Leigh,
>
> it's always a good idea to find out what's causing problems in the first
> place. I am not very familiar to your specific model, though. Besides, you
> forgot to mention your hard drive model. I'd suggest, you post this
> information.
>
> A good start to troubleshoot is to check the failure on your last drive.
Do
> you think you could just run a knoppix based live cd on your PC with your
> old drive attached (if it is found by your PC's BIOS that is) and run
> "smartctl -a /dev/hda" (minus quotes)? Then post the results, please (only
> the table is important).
>
> As to temperature: it's always possible that temperature is an issue.
> However, you said you found 51°C for your CPU in BIOS monitor, that's
> pretty good. That doesn't say much about the general temperature in your
> casing, but you could guess your system is healthy.
>
> --
> mit freundlichen Grüßen/with kind regards
> Christian Dürrhauer, Institute of Geography, FU Berlin
>
> You carry the fate of us all little one. - Boromir

 

[fred]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

"Leigh Freston" <LnotFreston@peoplepc.com> wrote in message
news:7AmNe.6656$RZ2.5369@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> Thanks for trying to help me, but unfortunately the old hard drive is
> already on its way back to HP. In the meantime, I've discovered that I
> haven't been running ScanDisk or Defrag enough. I guess that could be part
> of my problem. Thanks again!
>
> Leigh

I seriously doubt that frequent scanning (chkdsk) and defragging a hard
drive is going to have any impact on it's longevity.