Hi everyone, I have some pea sea woes and I'm hoping someone can give me advice, suggestions, and general help.
About 3 years ago, I built my own system. The specs are as follows:
Intel P4 2.60C GHz
Asus P4P800 i865PE
OCZ Dual Channel PC3200 2x512MB EL DDR 400MHz CL2 Copper Heatspreader
Thermalright SLK-800U Socket -A/478 Copper Heatsink
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 6y080M0 80Gb SATA150 7200RPM
SH 465W PSU
ATI Radeon 9600XT AGP 8x/4x 128b
Building this system cost me a fortune. However, about 6 months ago, I noticed that my computer acted strangely. Occassionally, my computer wouldn't exactly turn on. The keyboard lights would go on, the fan starts running, etc. But nothing showed on the monitor. Whenever this happened, I would wait a while and then press the reset button. After that, everything works ok. Since this was during frigid winter season, I assumed that it wouldn't start because it was too cold in my room and warmer in the other rooms. But now it isn't so cold and it still acts like this. It's gotten to the point where I have to reset the machine everytime I try to turn it on. Now, I'm not entirely sure if this is related but I ran a Seagate/Maxtor diagnostic and got a failed test result. The diagnostic said I should replace the drive. It's a brand new hard drive. It's barely 3 years old and I already have to replace it! I've gotten some suggestions from people but it's really all over the place. Some say that it's the PSU (I used a generic, unmarked, and possibly refurbished model). Something about unstable power fluctuations damaging my hard drive. Another said that I just got a HD with a shorter than usual lifespan. And yet another said that the PSU might have even damaged my mobo!
Regardless, I'm going to replace the HD with a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320Gb SATA 3Gb/s 16Mb buffer. I also ran some PSU power consumption tests (those online estimates) and I'm going to get an Antec TruePower 2.0 430W Dual 12V outputs. The question is, do I need to replace my mobo? I mean, how would I check to see if it sustained any damage? Right now, I don't even know what the real problem is! I could really use some help. If I'm going to fix my build, I'd like to do it at once and get it right at the same time. Getting the new HD and PSU will already cost me around $300 CDN. I really hope I don't have to replace the CPU and the mobo. Might as well build a new machine! I'd appreciate some suggestions/help on what to do in this case and as soon as possible. From the extreme slowness of my machine (the average disk queue length is going off the charts every few secs!), I think my HD will die on me any moment now.
About 3 years ago, I built my own system. The specs are as follows:
Intel P4 2.60C GHz
Asus P4P800 i865PE
OCZ Dual Channel PC3200 2x512MB EL DDR 400MHz CL2 Copper Heatspreader
Thermalright SLK-800U Socket -A/478 Copper Heatsink
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 6y080M0 80Gb SATA150 7200RPM
SH 465W PSU
ATI Radeon 9600XT AGP 8x/4x 128b
Building this system cost me a fortune. However, about 6 months ago, I noticed that my computer acted strangely. Occassionally, my computer wouldn't exactly turn on. The keyboard lights would go on, the fan starts running, etc. But nothing showed on the monitor. Whenever this happened, I would wait a while and then press the reset button. After that, everything works ok. Since this was during frigid winter season, I assumed that it wouldn't start because it was too cold in my room and warmer in the other rooms. But now it isn't so cold and it still acts like this. It's gotten to the point where I have to reset the machine everytime I try to turn it on. Now, I'm not entirely sure if this is related but I ran a Seagate/Maxtor diagnostic and got a failed test result. The diagnostic said I should replace the drive. It's a brand new hard drive. It's barely 3 years old and I already have to replace it! I've gotten some suggestions from people but it's really all over the place. Some say that it's the PSU (I used a generic, unmarked, and possibly refurbished model). Something about unstable power fluctuations damaging my hard drive. Another said that I just got a HD with a shorter than usual lifespan. And yet another said that the PSU might have even damaged my mobo!
Regardless, I'm going to replace the HD with a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320Gb SATA 3Gb/s 16Mb buffer. I also ran some PSU power consumption tests (those online estimates) and I'm going to get an Antec TruePower 2.0 430W Dual 12V outputs. The question is, do I need to replace my mobo? I mean, how would I check to see if it sustained any damage? Right now, I don't even know what the real problem is! I could really use some help. If I'm going to fix my build, I'd like to do it at once and get it right at the same time. Getting the new HD and PSU will already cost me around $300 CDN. I really hope I don't have to replace the CPU and the mobo. Might as well build a new machine! I'd appreciate some suggestions/help on what to do in this case and as soon as possible. From the extreme slowness of my machine (the average disk queue length is going off the charts every few secs!), I think my HD will die on me any moment now.