[Resolved: BAD HDD] comp problems with sob 2.2.0 *AND* 2.3.0

[timmay256]

spent about 2 nights trying to figure this out. had DCOM errors flying at me left and right (everything from MSN to IIS), slow downs at start up, and my 160gb would spin up, click, spin down, repeat every time i started up, causing the system to become unresponsive. only time my system would work is when i disconnected the drive or started up in safe mode(weird). ended up every time sb.exe would start grinding away at a block (i could open sb and not have problems), the 160gb started going nuts, so for now im waiting till v2.4.0 :P unless somebody can tell me whats up (registry entries, some secret page file besides the z###### file thats going on my 160gb drive, sob interacting with viaide.sys/disk.sys/atapi.sys/storprop.dll/SMART functions/activating hard drive standby mode(spin down when not in use)/something else???)



system in question:
win2k sp4
xp1600
asus a7v333 (via kt333 chipset)
512mb pc2100
40gb maxtor (main drive, primary master)
160gb wd (storage drive, primary slave)
been working great since v1.1.0 or 1.2.0 (no seg faults, etc) :D

also got a dell p4 (w/xp pro sp2) grinding away with 2.3.0 as of today with no problems, 2.2.0 was working fine to my knowledge

[scrap]

It looks like a power supply problem. What kind of power supply have you got ? 300W ? 350W ? 400W ?
Running CPU intensive software is consuming more power.

Regards,

scrap

[timmay256]

Originally posted by scrap
It looks like a power supply problem. What kind of power supply have you got ? 300W ? 350W ? 400W ?
Running CPU intensive software is consuming more power.

Regards,

scrap

Antec TruPower 430w (http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=20430)

definitely not the problem, and its not the cpu fan either like was suggested in jesterrace's thread (i have a zalman CNPS5100-Cu (http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx=24&code=005) tuned down a little bit so its quiet enough for me to sleep at night). i have a regular uptime of about ~2weeks at a time (restarts for windows updates, etc), while have sob grind away at primes day and night, im just trying to find out what changed the last 2-3 versions.

[IronBits]

What is the temp of the cpu?
Get something like MBM or Asus Probe and check those voltages...

Hard drive sounds like it's going south on you...

[timmay256]

Originally posted by IronBits
What is the temp of the cpu?
Get something like MBM or Asus Probe and check those voltages...


i have mbm5 on here, asus probe is junk.
cpu temp: ~50° C (on die temp., mobo thermistor says ~30° C, xp's are usually good up into the 60's tho)
cpu speed @ 1402mhz
cpu voltage: 1.83v (default is 1.75v)
+3.3v line: between 3.25 and 3.3 (within the 3% tolerance)
+5v line: between 4.4 and 4.6 (a little lower than the 3% tolerance)
+12v line: between 12.2 and 12.4 (within the 3% tolerance)
-5v line: between -5.3 and -5.4 (just barely outside the 5% tolerance)
-12v line: between -12.75 and -12.95 (hmm, jumping between just barely outside the 5% tolerance to pretty out there)


Hard drive sounds like it's going south on you...

could be, but i doubt it. it works perfectly fine now that sob isnt running. i can copy files to and from it, etc. i didnt install norton disk doctor with my systemworks install, so i cant run that at the moment, but its being defragged right now and behaving perfectly too. im gonna try playing a big movie or something in a bit when its done with the defrag (2/3 done now). its also a pretty new drive (~1year i believe), and if it is going south, the warranty is good till aug 2005 (and wd does "advance rma's" so i can get a new drive first, copy my data to the new drive, and then send the old one back)

i only have 2 hdd's, a cd burner, ti4200 and some nic in here. power should not be a problem. i could probly go pretty extreme and put a filter cap on the 160gb's hard drive power connector just to smooth things out a bit, doubt that will help either tho.

[Alien88]

Originally posted by timmay256
i have mbm5 on here, asus probe is junk.
cpu temp: ~50° C (on die temp., mobo thermistor says ~30° C, xp's are usually good up into the 60's tho)
cpu speed @ 1402mhz
cpu voltage: 1.83v (default is 1.75v)
+3.3v line: between 3.25 and 3.3 (within the 3% tolerance)
+5v line: between 4.4 and 4.6 (a little lower than the 3% tolerance)
+12v line: between 12.2 and 12.4 (within the 3% tolerance)
-5v line: between -5.3 and -5.4 (just barely outside the 5% tolerance)
-12v line: between -12.75 and -12.95 (hmm, jumping between just barely outside the 5% tolerance to pretty out there)



could be, but i doubt it. it works perfectly fine now that sob isnt running. i can copy files to and from it, etc. i didnt install norton disk doctor with my systemworks install, so i cant run that at the moment, but its being defragged right now and behaving perfectly too. im gonna try playing a big movie or something in a bit when its done with the defrag (2/3 done now). its also a pretty new drive (~1year i believe), and if it is going south, the warranty is good till aug 2005 (and wd does "advance rma's" so i can get a new drive first, copy my data to the new drive, and then send the old one back)

i only have 2 hdd's, a cd burner, ti4200 and some nic in here. power should not be a problem. i could probly go pretty extreme and put a filter cap on the 160gb's hard drive power connector just to smooth things out a bit, doubt that will help either tho.

Install http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/ and see if there are any S.M.A.R.T. issues. if not, send me the log it creates.

[Alien88]

Also see if 1.1.5 does it.. http://linux.redbird.com/~alien88/sb125.exe

[timmay256]

Originally posted by Alien88
Install http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/ and see if there are any S.M.A.R.T. issues. if not, send me the log it creates.

i actaully installed that the 1st night things were acting up to see if the drive really was dying. no errors after sob. SiGuardian was being funky and was telling me the drive was going to die the next day (think it was spin-up time that was maxed out when i started up sob in ...safe mode w/networking... i believe, only happened once, and wasnt reproducible). only real concern i have is that the drive runs relatively hotter compared to my maxtor drive (35 C compared to 25 C atm)

im attaching the report for the 160gb as of this min. maybe you can see something im not.

PS: the link to the older client is for version 1.2.5, but you said 1.1.5. just want to clarify you meant 1.2.5 both times. ill try it after the defrag (still going.... takes forever to defrag 160gbs!)

EDIT: just wanted to note i found my systemworks cd earlier and ill do a run through of disk doctor later too.

[Alien88]

Originally posted by timmay256
i actaully installed that the 1st night things were acting up to see if the drive really was dying. no errors after sob. SiGuardian was being funky and was telling me the drive was going to die the next day (think it was spin-up time that was maxed out when i started up sob in ...safe mode w/networking... i believe, only happened once, and wasnt reproducible). only real concern i have is that the drive runs relatively hotter compared to my maxtor drive (35 C compared to 25 C atm)

im attaching the report for the 160gb as of this min. maybe you can see something im not.

PS: the link to the older client is for version 1.2.5, but you said 1.1.5. just want to clarify you meant 1.2.5 both times. ill try it after the defrag (still going.... takes forever to defrag 160gbs!)

EDIT: just wanted to note i found my systemworks cd earlier and ill do a run through of disk doctor later too.

Boy am I tired. Yeah, SMART wise your drive seems fine.. and I did mean 1.2.5

[timmay256]

alien88, thx for the 1.2.5 client. seems to stop the spin up, click, spin down problem to only happening once after sob has been grinding away at the first block for a few mins. the "time left" box started out at about 560-720hrs tho, but after the first block, it went done to the normal couple mins (ran thru a couple blocks with no problems too). i didnt specify a size for the log file so i wasnt able to see whats up with anything being logged when that one click happened.

the defrag made everything seem a bit faster. disk doctor is running right now doing a low level check of the drive.

one thing i havent tried yet was reloading the via drivers.... :bonk:

[vjs]

Hold on a second,

A 40gb maxtor that does a click click on spin up!!!

Dude, back up your data asap that drive is failing... seriously.

To prolong the life I'd actually suggest setting your drive to never spin down.

properties --> screen saver --> power --> Turn off hard disks --> never

The hardest thing on a harddrive is actually the spin up, IMHO, draws the most current. Had a computer that would stutter everyonce in a while and click, set the harddrive to never spin down, problem went away... few weeks later harddrive failed.

Drive was the famous deskstar 7200 rpm 60G.

Only had a couple harddrive problems during my (scratch this) days and those hd's ran continously :D at over 1mb/sec at times. The majority of the drives I've fixed/replaced for people/friends are using powerdown settings. IMHO the worst thing for a drive.

[timmay256]

Originally posted by vjs
Hold on a second,

A 40gb maxtor that does a click click on spin up!!!

Dude, back up your data asap that drive is failing... seriously.

holy crap! i thought my 160gb was the only one that spins up, clicks, then spins down. have to check out that 40gb now :rotfl:


To prolong the life I'd actually suggest setting your drive to never spin down.

properties --> screen saver --> power --> Turn off hard disks --> never

yeah i have it set to the "always on" scheme now. since ive had the drive, its been on the "laptop/portable" scheme (turns hdd's off after 30mins) and thought that would be less harmful compared to the 3mins that the "home/desktop" scheme did. i will keep that in mind tho.



The hardest thing on a harddrive is actually the spin up, IMHO, draws the most current. Had a computer that would stutter everyonce in a while and click, set the harddrive to never spin down, problem went away... few weeks later harddrive failed.

if you have a way of proving that (besides a couple "gurus" off some forum), i wouldnt mind reading over that. sucks that the drive died shortly after tho.


Drive was the famous deskstar 7200 rpm 60G.

hey i had one of those too! my first hard drive i ever bought myself. ended up being a lemon. sent it back a few times to get a refurb'd drive with the same exact problems. gave up after i read some watchdog article in maximum pc about there being a class action lawsuit against all the GXP drives.


and an update on the SMART stuff: this morning i checked the drive's SMART info from Active SMART and now "spin up time" has a TEC (threshold exceeded condition) for dec 2004. and with only 1-2days left of dec 2004, im wondering if this is a fluke (like SiGuardian gave me that one time, but it was for....jan 2005, i think...) or if its legit. only 2 days will tell. but in the mean time, im getting an rma going for that drive....

[vjs]

if you have a way of proving that (besides a couple "gurus" off some forum), i wouldnt mind reading over that. sucks that the drive died shortly after tho.


Sure, do a google seach for back emf, generally all electric motors require at least 2x the current demand at startup compared to operating rpm, higher rpm motors take more current at lower rpm than low rpm motors. So as expected most electic motors fail during startup and burn out, hence the starting coil. Although the click click you do hear is the reader of course.

Here is one link,

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/302l/lectures/node77.html

[dmbrubac]

SpinRite (http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm) is the best hard drive maintenance program bar none. Buy it. Everyone. I really really mean it!

This software can actually rescue a nearly dead drive and give it years of life, make it run better and make your grass greener (I made that last part up).

It has been around since the mid 80's so could potentially be more mature than you are! (Just kidding).

[IronBits]

That and he lives about 4 miles down the road from me. ;)
He's been around almost as long as Norton, Vopt and Desqview :)

[timmay256]

jeez.... i dunno if i can justify $90 for that, when active smart is telling me its dying soon, and its only gonna cost me ~$7 to ship my drive back to wd.

$90 prog vs $7 shipping + free prog....just cant beat that deal

it would be nice if there was a trial version available (even a timed trial version), but i couldnt find it if there was one. if it was ~$25, i would definitely consider it tho

if i have a lot of trouble getting my data off (which i shouldnt since i can read/write to it perfectly fine right now) then i might reconsider.


the rma went thru, but wd's site is telling me theres about a 7day backlog....so hopefully the drive will last that long if its only got 2days of life left in it (doubt it)