dying mobo? drive? ram?

[dboy]

My WHS (windows home server, v1, not the new 2011 version) box died yesterday. It's been running flawlessly for ages, and now it won't boot.

System is an ECS SLIT-A 570-based system, core2duo, 3gb ram, and a crapton of drives. 4 SATA from the mobo, 2 SATA off a controller card, and 2 external USB drives. Total space is around 10tb.

Anyway, it'd start to boot and freeze either at the windows splash screen or a plain black screen just after that. Safe mode did the same, except it said safe mode in the corners when it froze.

Booted off a ultimatebootcd4win disc. It froze up too while loading.

So then I booted off that again, but picked the memtest86 option. Ran that and IT froze partway through. Now suspecting bad ram, I pulled all but 1 stick and tried memtest again. Passed with no errors. In fact, ALL 4 sticks passed individually.

Next put in just 1 stick and booted. It went all the way into WHS desktop this time, but with an error that a device or service had failed and to check the event log. When I did, there's a TON (50+) entries for disk errors on the OS drive of the system. Some said drive errors, some said controller error.

Told it to run the full chkdsk on the C and D drives [those are partitions of the primary physical disc] and rebooted. That took a while, but said no errors found. Booted up WHS again, and the same error is back. Turns out it's adding another drive error to the log every 10-20 seconds or so.

So, what do you think is dying here? SATA controller on the motherboard? the HD? RAM? I'm sorta suspecting the drive is fine, since memtest and the boot CD both froze up too. Given that, I doubt that a fresh OS drive and fresh install of WHS would help any.

Got anything else I should try? Wife's not happy not being able to access her shows (we use a HTPC for all our tv watching, and the video is stored on the WHS...)

 

[KGB]

Try a different power supply.

 

[dboy]

Well, I thought for a few minutes that the new PS fixed it. Took out the old one (coolmax 500W) and replaced w/ the only spare I've got lying around, an OCZ 600W one. It's older though, I assume, since it's got like 8 4pin plugs and only 3 SATA. Had to use a bunch of adapters, but got it up and running. There were no disk errors through 2 reboots and chkdsk runs. Left it on, came back, and now there's errors. Much fewer though - only 1 every 5-10 min as opposed to 1 every 20 seconds. However, they're now showing up on harddisk0 and 1 (as before) plus one on harddisk3.

So, now I'm wondering if it IS a PUS issue and just didn't put a good enough one in, or if the mobo is bad.

I figure I'll go get a good psu and a 775 mobo this week and try the psu first. If that works, then I can return the mobo.

Unfortunately, I can't find my SLIT-A for sale (at least in a quick look of newegg and microcenter) so it'll require a full reinstall. Would be nice to ahve something with more sata ports though

 

[dboy]

1. I hooked the OS drive from the server up to my desktop and ran chkdsk on it. Passed with no errors, so I don't think there's a disk issue. I guess it's either psu or mobo. Since a new psu made it BETTER but not fixed, think a better new psu would fix it all the way?

Given that I need to buy a PSU and mobo to try to fix it, I'm considering a new tactic. Buy a i5 and mobo, turn that into my desktop, then turn my desktop (core2quad, 4gb ram) into a new server. Hmmm... basically I'd buy a i5 2500k proc, mobo (microcenter has the combo for like $180 I think, plus NOT buying a new board for the server, plus I could ebay the c2d proc out of it)), 8gb ddr3 ($65 or so I've seen it lately), PSU (have to buy one anyway), perhaps case (having another case would make it all much smoother). I'd keep the nvidia 460 video card and dvd burner out of my desktop. And I'm rebuilding my desktop anyway since I just bought a SSD for it... but that's on hold while I work on the server since wife wants her TV back

Pros:
Big boost in my desktop performance
Big boost in server performance
Only a couple hundred extra bucks (over just repairing the server)

Cons:
A couple extra hundred bucks
Delay in getting the server running (since I'd have to build my machine and get it fully functional, THEN build the WHS- and since I run a bunch of software for my business on it, my desktop HAS to be 100% before I go on)
Server doesn't need a boost, it's just a server. Although if I start transcoding video on it.....
Desktop doesn't REALLY need a boost, I just would like it

Thoughts?

 

[denis280]

sounds like a dying mobo to me

 

[dboy]

well, got a brand new antec earthwatts 650W. Still getting the assorted drive errors. I think it's safe to say NOT PSU related - so gotta be mobo I guess. Time to start building a new machine :rolleyesold:

Current plan:
Intel i5 2500K from microcenter ($180 instore)
8gb DDR3 from microcenter ($80 after rebate)
Antec EA650 PSU (just bought at staples - $100 minus $15 coupon minus $80 rewards check)
Intel BOXDH67GDB3 from bestbuy ($105, I've got rewards there to use)
nvidia 460 (keep from current machine)
Thermaltake Dokker case ($40 AR from microcenter)
Crucial M4 128gb SSD (just bought)
500gb data drive (keep from current machine)

I think that's the plan... I like the intel mobo because of the onboard video, since I won't have a vidoe card right away in the new build. Also, it's got everything I need (not planning to overclock or go nuts) and is available at BB where I have some credit to use up, and not a a big premium

So I'll end up spending about $450 instead of just ~80 for a new mobo. Oh well