HD causes PS to shut down

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gm1234
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Gm1234

I have an ASUS motherboard with Athlon 1.4 processor. This had a 40Gig WD
drive which I removed. I installed XP on a new 60Gig drive (as a test) and
it seems to work fine. I then cloned the drives of an older Win 98 machine
to the 40Gig drive using the older machine - no problem doing that and used
Partition Magic to resize the partitions after cloning - about equal size
~16Gig each of two partitions.

But, when I tried to re-install the 40Gig drive, the computer will not start
up. The CPU fan starts up but in a second or two it shuts down - presumably
the PS is being shut down. If I use the 60Gig drive or no drive, the machine
starts normally.

It seems that this one drive causes the shutdown. There is not much else in
the machine - Just the CPU, video card, CDROM (but I disconnected this) and
1 512Mb DDR. But, when I put the drive back in the old AT machine it works
fine.

Not sure where the problem is - Why would one WD drive cause a problem while
the other does not when installed in the ATX case.? And yet the problem
drive will work in an old AT with minimal PS wattage. I have tried the
jumpers in different positions - CS, Master and single.

Is there anything else about the drive that could cause a power down like
this?

Graham
 
Previously Gm1234 said:
I have an ASUS motherboard with Athlon 1.4 processor. This had a 40Gig WD
drive which I removed. I installed XP on a new 60Gig drive (as a test) and
it seems to work fine. I then cloned the drives of an older Win 98 machine
to the 40Gig drive using the older machine - no problem doing that and used
Partition Magic to resize the partitions after cloning - about equal size
~16Gig each of two partitions.
Click to expand...
But, when I tried to re-install the 40Gig drive, the computer will not start
up. The CPU fan starts up but in a second or two it shuts down - presumably
the PS is being shut down. If I use the 60Gig drive or no drive, the machine
starts normally.
Click to expand...
It seems that this one drive causes the shutdown. There is not much else in
the machine - Just the CPU, video card, CDROM (but I disconnected this) and
1 512Mb DDR. But, when I put the drive back in the old AT machine it works
fine.
Click to expand...
Not sure where the problem is - Why would one WD drive cause a problem while
the other does not when installed in the ATX case.? And yet the problem
drive will work in an old AT with minimal PS wattage. I have tried the
jumpers in different positions - CS, Master and single.
Click to expand...
Is there anything else about the drive that could cause a power down like
this?
Click to expand...

Maybe it just draws more current on start-up (e.g. because its bearings
are not in too good shape or it suffers from sticktion) and your PSU
is marginal.

Arno
 
Gm1234 said:
I have an ASUS motherboard with Athlon 1.4 processor. This had a
40Gig WD drive which I removed. I installed XP on a new 60Gig drive
(as a test) and it seems to work fine. I then cloned the drives of an
older Win 98 machine to the 40Gig drive using the older machine - no
problem doing that and used Partition Magic to resize the partitions
after cloning - about equal size ~16Gig each of two partitions.

But, when I tried to re-install the 40Gig drive, the computer will
not start up. The CPU fan starts up but in a second or two it shuts
down - presumably the PS is being shut down. If I use the 60Gig drive
or no drive, the machine starts normally.

It seems that this one drive causes the shutdown. There is not much
else in the machine - Just the CPU, video card, CDROM (but I
disconnected this) and 1 512Mb DDR. But, when I put the drive back in
the old AT machine it works fine.

Not sure where the problem is - Why would one WD drive cause a
problem while the other does not when installed in the ATX case.? And
yet the problem drive will work in an old AT with minimal PS wattage.
I have tried the jumpers in different positions - CS, Master and
single.

Is there anything else about the drive that could cause a power down
like this?
Click to expand...

The power supply may be rather marginal and the 40G
drive is enough to push it over the edge current wise.
 
The power supply may be rather marginal and the 40G
drive is enough to push it over the edge current wise.
Click to expand...

Well, I seem to have solved the problem, but not sure why!

What I did, was first reconfirm the problem. I tried jumpers in 1-2/5-6 as
they had been on the AT machine, I also tried them in the proper position
for an only drive or a master drive as well as CS - same problem in all
cases - PS (or at least CPU fan) shuts down after a few seconds.

I then decided to start up without a drive and change the BIOS setting for
the primary drive to "USER". I then plugged in the drive and the computer
started up normally!! - Went to BIOS set up and it had found drive.

Only other thing that may or may not be related, is that in BIOS setup for
CPU speed, a message came up saying that there had been a speed problem on
previous boot. I set speed to "manual" instead of 1400 and message has not
re-appeared.

Currently updating OS and after many restarts, no further problem. WD drive
does click on startup, but I have heard that before on other WD drives.

Thanks for replies
 
Gm1234 said:
Well, I seem to have solved the problem, but not sure why!
Click to expand...

Computers, they never cease to amaze you.
What I did, was first reconfirm the problem. I tried jumpers in 1-2/5-6 as
they had been on the AT machine, I also tried them in the proper position
for an only drive or a master drive as well as CS - same problem in all
cases - PS (or at least CPU fan) shuts down after a few seconds.

I then decided to start up without a drive and change the BIOS setting for
the primary drive to "USER". I then plugged in the drive and the computer
started up normally!! - Went to BIOS set up and it had found drive.

Only other thing that may or may not be related, is that in BIOS setup for
CPU speed, a message came up saying that there had been a speed problem on
previous boot. I set speed to "manual" instead of 1400 and message has not
re-appeared.

Currently updating OS and after many restarts, no further problem. WD drive
does click on startup, but I have heard that before on other WD drives.
Click to expand...

Release of the head lock.
 
Well, I seem to have solved the problem, but not sure why!
Click to expand...
What I did, was first reconfirm the problem. I tried jumpers in 1-2/5-6 as
they had been on the AT machine, I also tried them in the proper position
for an only drive or a master drive as well as CS - same problem in all
cases - PS (or at least CPU fan) shuts down after a few seconds.
Click to expand...
I then decided to start up without a drive and change the BIOS setting for
the primary drive to "USER". I then plugged in the drive and the computer
started up normally!! - Went to BIOS set up and it had found drive.
Click to expand...
Only other thing that may or may not be related, is that in BIOS setup for
CPU speed, a message came up saying that there had been a speed problem on
previous boot. I set speed to "manual" instead of 1400 and message has not
re-appeared.
Click to expand...

Does the CPU now run slower? If so, you could still have that
marginal PSU that now has more power reserves, since the
load from the CPU is lower. Might then fail again in a
few weeks/months.

Arno
 
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