Another Click-of-Death...

  • Thread starter Thread starter biscayneSix
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biscayneSix

Thats it, another brand new hard drive does the click-of-death.
This time it was a Maxtor, purchased not more than four months ago.
Luckily, I bought it from a local store, and hopefully they will honor
an exchange.

I have lost more than 280 gigs in qualtiy brand-new storage drives in
the last few years to this same problem, as well as a stack of about 20
used/salvaged ones. Not a SINGLE hard drive has survived my reign thus
far!!

I read somewhere that in older buildings, sometimes the air
conditioning can cause power surges when they kick on, causing this
problem to frequent. I know the lights in my house have always dimmed
when the A/C turns on.

I am purchasing a new power supply, and will eventually relocate my
computer to another room. - I am not sure what else to do.
 
biscayneSix said:
Thats it, another brand new hard drive does the click-of-death.
This time it was a Maxtor, purchased not more than four months ago.
Luckily, I bought it from a local store, and hopefully they will honor
an exchange.

I have lost more than 280 gigs in qualtiy brand-new storage drives in
the last few years to this same problem, as well as a stack of about 20
used/salvaged ones. Not a SINGLE hard drive has survived my reign thus
far!!

I read somewhere that in older buildings, sometimes the air
conditioning can cause power surges when they kick on, causing this
problem to frequent. I know the lights in my house have always dimmed
when the A/C turns on.

I am purchasing a new power supply, and will eventually relocate my
computer to another room. - I am not sure what else to do.
Click to expand...

Have you considered a Line Regulator?
http://shopper.cnet.com/APC_Line_R_...regulator_600_VA/4014-3055_9-30677332.html?q=
 
That looks like a good idea. They look nice and cheap, too.
How does this work?
What differs this from a normal surge protector?
 
biscayneSix said:
That looks like a good idea. They look nice and cheap, too.
How does this work?
What differs this from a normal surge protector?
Click to expand...

They're similar in ways but they have different missions. A surge protector
is protection against an instantaneous and massive power wave (lightning for
example). A line regulator is continuous protection against more modest up
and down power fluctuations. Here's a site that probably tells you more than
you ever wanted to know:

http://www.dromeydesign.com/articles/regulator_and_capacitor_voltage_control.htm#line_regulators
 
I read somewhere that in older buildings, sometimes the air
conditioning can cause power surges when they kick on, causing this
problem to frequent. I know the lights in my house have always dimmed
when the A/C turns on.

I am purchasing a new power supply, and will eventually relocate my
computer to another room. - I am not sure what else to do.
Click to expand...

It is more likely to be a temperature problem than the power supply.
Lights dimming shows a drop in power due to the increase in load when
the A/C comes on. Worry more if they get much brighter when the load
drops.


Steve
 
My newer drives do tend to get kinda hot, although nothing too extreme.

But, the older/salvaged drives did not seem to generate much heat, and
still ended up dying.

The air temperature in the room is normal. It has to be tolerable, as I
do have to live in it.

Case is a Xaxer III; decent airflow. CPU temp is usually around 60c.
The drive-death curse has been around prior to purchase of this case
though.

I guess I could get a hard drive cooler as well? The fans in my old one
collected wayy too much dust and completely stopped working. Hah
 
The PSU may be the problem, but it should also cause system lockups and reboots
if it is that bad.

Any name brand UPS will do line regulation, but check the specifications.

Is the drive fastened with four screws to a metal carrier?
 
No. The Xaxer III case has plastic, screwless drive rails. There are
plastic pegs that fit into the screw holes in the drive. They are
extremely convenient btw.

I have a UPS, but it does not seem to work. It does not keep providing
current when the power goes out. It even started cutting out and
beeping when there was still power. I disconnected it and obviously
don't use it anymore.
 
biscayneSix said:
No. The Xaxer III case has plastic, screwless drive rails. There are
plastic pegs that fit into the screw holes in the drive. They are
extremely convenient btw.

I have a UPS, but it does not seem to work. It does not keep providing
current when the power goes out. It even started cutting out and
beeping when there was still power. I disconnected it and obviously
don't use it anymore.


specifications.
Click to expand...

A minor nit with Eric's post--any name brand UPS will provide a limited form
of undervoltage or overvoltage protection by going on battery when an
under- or over-voltage condition is detected. Most however do not
continually run on the inverter or provide a constant-voltage transformer.
That kind of hardware is not cheap.
 
No. The Xaxer III case has plastic, screwless drive rails.
There are plastic pegs that fit into the screw holes in the
drive. They are extremely convenient btw.
Click to expand...

Likely that is the problem, combined with a
higher than normal air temp within the case.

Try checking the actual drive temp with something like SpeedFan or MBM.
You'll likely find that its well on the high side with the modern drives.

With the older drives in the previous case, likely it was something else.

Eric Gisin wrote:
Click to expand...

Maybe you need to be exorcised.
 
J. Clarke said:
A minor nit with Eric's post--any name brand UPS will provide a limited form
of undervoltage or overvoltage protection by going on battery when an
under- or over-voltage condition is detected. Most however do not
continually run on the inverter or provide a constant-voltage transformer.
That kind of hardware is not cheap.
Click to expand...
There are standby/offline and line-interactive UPSes. The latter provide
continuous voltage correction. There is also onlline.

I was under the impression that line-interactive was replacing standby. Not
yet.

Here is how the three types work:
http://www.liebert.com/support/whitepapers/documents/bsc_ups.asp

Here are some prices:
http://www.powersystemsdirect.com/UPS_Systems_Uninterruptible_Power_Supplies_c8
1.php

Only online is very expensive.
 
Not cheap? The APC Line-R 600 Line Regulator looks very cheap. Would
this unit be sufficient then, for what I need?
 
Why would plastic hard drive rails cause the drive failures? This does
not make sense to me other than grounding, and the problem has existed
long before I was using this case. However, I have been using the same
power supply.
 
Why would plastic hard drive rails cause the drive failures?
Click to expand...

Basically quite a bit of heat from the drive gets away by conduction
to the metal drive bay stack and plastic rails prevent that.

Its a particular problem if you have the drives mounted adjacent
to each other, without an empty bay between them, so you dont
get a lot of airflow over the drives to cool them that way.
This does not make sense to me other than grounding, and
the problem has existed long before I was using this case.
Click to expand...

Its not clear if the previous problem was the same
effect. Modern 7200 rpm drives do tend to run hotter
than the older 5400 rpm drives seen before them.

Thats why I suggested actually measuring the
internal drive temp with something like SpeedFan
to see what temperature the drive is actually
getting to. You might well be surprised.
However, I have been using the same power supply.
Click to expand...

Certainly worth changing that if the drive
temps are reasonable, and even if they arent.
 
Rod said:
Likely that is the problem, combined with a
higher than normal air temp within the case.

Try checking the actual drive temp with something like SpeedFan or MBM.
You'll likely find that its well on the high side with the modern drives.

With the older drives in the previous case, likely it was something else.


Maybe you need to be exorcised.
Click to expand...


Hello, Rod:

You were long gone, here in <even though you're one of this group's most prolific posters (7006
articles, which is 2nd all-time, behind Ron Reagh's 14051).

Where've ya been, since last July?


Cordially,
John Turco <[email protected]>
 
You were long gone, here in <even though you're one of this group's most prolific posters (7006
articles, which is 2nd all-time, behind Ron Reagh's 14051).
Click to expand...
Where've ya been, since last July?
Click to expand...

Basically just in other newsgroups.

Got a bit bored with the repetition in here, basically
just zooming thru reading what looks like it might be
more interesting instead of not reading it at all.
 
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