Harddrives dying because of overclocking?

[LesPaul]

I had a 40 gig go out on me a couple months ago, and just last night my Raptor shat its self. I have an Abit NF7-S, latest BIOS.. normally run on a 2500+ barton at around 210x10.5. The CPU/FSB divider is set for 6/6.. Just last night I installed my new 2400+ Mobile.

I got to thinking about this because my raptor died shortly after I got my 2400+ mobile and started burning it in and testing it a little bit. When I got to 220 FSB I got a Prime95 error pretty quick (220 seems to be when my board cuts out and loses stability in windows - RAM handles it fine through 20 hrs of memtest. So, I rebooted, backed down to 215 FSB, and started windows.. Oo, error on ntoskrnl... go back to 200 just for safe measure, get into windows, prime95 looks cool for awhile, but my system is acting strange. Apps just close for no reason, I start getting those "x has encountered an error, would you like to send a report to MS". So now i'm like "great.." and backup my data ASAP. Soon as I get finished moving files (working the HDD over), and reboot to boot off windows cd and reformat (i needed to reformat anyways) I get loud clicks from my Raptor, and it shows up as 0 MB on the SATA Controller screen @ POST.

Was this just a coinicidence or do you think overclocking past the 200 mark is causing corruption and ultimatly dead drives? I know i've corrupted my windows installs in the past from OC'ing, but I've never had my boot drive die on me. The one that died on me before was my data storage drive, on the IDE controller.

Thanks

 

[BlueWeasel]

Well, without a PCI lock, overclocking could damage a drive if the PCI bus is running too high. I've never had a system with an OC'ed PCI, but I've heard most IDE hard drives don't like a PCI speed 37-40mhz.

I just don't know much about the SATA drive interface. Does it use the same 33mhz spec as PCI? If yes, it's only at 220*(1/6)= 36.7mhz, but I don't know how sensitive Raptors are to OC'ing.

 

[Zebo]

NO. Sounds like you either have bad luck, too much case heat, or bad PSU feeding your drives.

 

[Tiamat]

What kinda psu do you have?

 

[LesPaul]

I have the 420w OEM one that came with that popular Chieftec case.. the style alienware used to use (forgot the nickname of the case.. dragon or something). I think its Foxxconn, but I'll check when I get home. All my voltage rails are stable and right above what they should be.. Off the top of my head they are +3.31, +5.12, +12.xx. None of the rails ever fluxuate more than .01 or so. I had originally planned on buying a new quality one when i first got this case, but the PSU seemed more than adaquete powering all of my stuff, and I never had any problems until these 2 harddrives dying in a spam of ~3 months.

Case temps are pretty good.. When everything is cleaned out and the temp inside the house is normal its around 21-24C. During the past couple weeks its been hotter than hell outside and warmer than usual in my house (75F - I like to keep it normally around 65) and my case temp has been about 30-32C. Even with the extra ambient temp though, my Barton hasn't gone over 50C under full load (the mobile hasn't broke over 37C yet) and my chipset temps are ok also. The Raptor has an intake fan blowing right over it, and before my raptor died I just cleaned everything out with an air compressor, and the temps had dropped back down a few C's in the case to around 25. so I don't think it was getting too hot.

The NF7-S does have a PCI lock right? I know you can set the AGP bus to your desired frequency, but I've never seen a similar setting for the PCI bus. I always assumed it was locked based off many people's overclocking results on the FSB.

 

[Tiamat]

Yes, that mobo has pci lock. OUCH, that psu ...

Story...
My friend has the same case/psu and presently, she has lost 2 hdds, 2 sticks of ram, and a Radeon 9700pro and hasnt learned her lesson. I told her to buy a enermax or antec, and she was too cheap to. Now she has to replace all of these components ~800$ worth of damage because she didnt pay 50$ for a new psu.
The End

I think its your psu.

 

[LesPaul]

wow.. really? Thank you for that info.. I will invest in a new power supply ASAP!! Man.. I'm glad it hasn't fried my 9800 or BH-5 RAM!!

Any suggestions for a PSU that costs around 50-60 bucks and has more than 18A on the 12v rail? 18A on 12v is the min output you want for an AMD overclocking setup correct?

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: LesPaul
wow.. really? Thank you for that info.. I will invest in a new power supply ASAP!! Man.. I'm glad it hasn't fried my 9800 or BH-5 RAM!!

Any suggestions for a PSU that costs around 50-60 bucks and has more than 18A on the 12v rail? 18A on 12v is the min output you want for an AMD overclocking setup correct?

The top two things you invest in for a computer are your power supply and motherboard. Get a new PSU fast!

As for a PSU I would recommend a Forton. They have very stable rails and are much quieter then most competitors.

 

[LesPaul]

this one looks good:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-103-908&DEPA=0

 

[zettler]

This is the one a lot of people recommended a couple of weeks ago and its now $40 with shipping (I got it for $38): http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-153-006&depa=0

Its the Thermaltake Silent PurePower, 420W ATX power supply.UL, CSA, TUV, CE Approved. Intel Pentium 4 Compliant; Model# TT-420AD(DUAL FAN); Item # N82E16817153006

What are your thoughts on that one, as its doing well in a new PC I just built for my son - and is $30 cheaper...

 

[DaNorthface]

Originally posted by: Tiamat
Yes, that mobo has pci lock. OUCH, that psu ...

Story...
My friend has the same case/psu and presently, she has lost 2 hdds, 2 sticks of ram, and a Radeon 9700pro and hasnt learned her lesson. I told her to buy a enermax or antec, and she was too cheap to. Now she has to replace all of these components ~800$ worth of damage because she didnt pay 50$ for a new psu.
The End

I think its your psu.

that psu is made by channel well, same company that makes antec psu. Mine works great

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: DaNorthface

Originally posted by: Tiamat
Yes, that mobo has pci lock. OUCH, that psu ...

Story...
My friend has the same case/psu and presently, she has lost 2 hdds, 2 sticks of ram, and a Radeon 9700pro and hasnt learned her lesson. I told her to buy a enermax or antec, and she was too cheap to. Now she has to replace all of these components ~800$ worth of damage because she didnt pay 50$ for a new psu.
The End

I think its your psu.

that psu is made by channel well, same company that makes antec psu. Mine works great

Chennel well makes which PSU's... I thought sparlke made antec and fortron....

 

[Zebo]

OP, I still leaning twards plain bad luck. Stay away from Vegas. And yes the NF7S has PCI lock...

 

[DaNorthface]

Originally posted by: Zebo
OP, I still leaning twards plain bad luck. Stay away from Vegas.

channel well makes the OEM chieftec 420 watt psu's. I don't think you'll find a negative review about that psu. Channel well also makes most antec psu's like the true 430. OP, so how old are your hard drives? It sounds like you're doing something really wrong. what are you voltages like? And to Tiamat, what happened to your friend's motherboard? Sounds more like a motherboard problem if the video and ram went bad. I don't think the psu will cause the ram and video to fry without frying the motherboard. Are you sure your friend knows how to set up a computer properly - she wasn't giving her components insane voltages was she?

 

[DaNorthface]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Chennel well makes which PSU's... I thought sparlke made antec and fortron....

channel well makes antec. Fortron makes sparkle.

 

[LesPaul]

I have my chipset voltage set @ 1.7v, the highest my board will go.. I doubt that would cause a prob with my harddrives though would it?

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: DaNorthface

Originally posted by: Zebo
Chennel well makes which PSU's... I thought sparlke made antec and fortron....

channel well makes antec. Fortron makes sparkle.

Who makes enermax? My personal fav..

 

[DaNorthface]

Originally posted by: LesPaul
I have my chipset voltage set @ 1.7v, the highest my board will go.. I doubt that would cause a prob with my harddrives though would it?

probably not unless it's overheating.. hard drives last about 10,000 hrs though, so just a little over a yr of continuous running - so how old are your hard drives?

 

[DaNorthface]

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: DaNorthface

Originally posted by: Zebo
Chennel well makes which PSU's... I thought sparlke made antec and fortron....

channel well makes antec. Fortron makes sparkle.

Who makes enermax? My personal fav..

i think they are mostly Fortron, but i've seen them use a few channel wells in a few models.

 

[LesPaul]

The raptor is a year max.. I think it was more like 6-8 months old. The 40 gig was fairly old.. about 2-3 years old when it died. My old 10 gig'er is still going strong after about 6 years though.. that thing is a beast. Its going in my Linux box, I don't think it will ever die. I know I'm not getting rid of it until it does. Come to think of it.. it was in my current machine with that same PSU and it never had any problems.. I dont' think my PSU caused this. I just have crappy luck apparently. I will probably buy a new PSU anyways, because my dad's friend is in need of a new one, so i'll just sell my current one to him for cheap.

The southbridge is hot to the touch, but I haven't even gotten any sound distortion or anything else that would suggest its TOO hot. I slapped a passive heatsink on it last night that i custom cut from an old PII heatsink. Looks pretty good, its a black with a shinny aluminum base (from filing off all the rough edges). So I doubt its too hot.