P4C800-E Deluxe/SATA RAID 0/Major System Crash/Recovering Drives

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul
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Paul

Over 24 hours ago my system came out of Hibernation sluggishly (it was the
1st time I had tried it) and after much pagefile use the system eventually
froze completely, necessitating a manual reset. First I got this BSOD just
as Windows XP launches: -

REGISTRY_ERROR
A problem has been detected..................................
The usual splurge then......................
Stop: 0x00000051 (0x00000003, 0x00000003, 0x00000000, 0xE15E2000)

I realised at once this was a serious error but eventually I gave up
diagnosing this and I tried to "restore" my OS and Programs volume using a
Powerquest Drive Image, created last Sunday using version 7 of this
software. The restore went smoothly until right at the end it complained
that there were problems with several sectors on the "Drive". As you can see
from my system details, given below, I have installed two RAID volumes.
Using the PQ boot CD to launch the Drive Image program and executing an F6
Install along the way for the two RAID Controllers, DI had no problem seeing
all my partitions.

Upon reboot the system attempted to boot and it got into windows after what
seemed a lengthy duration but a window constantly popped up saying "Hard
Error" and the desktop kept flickering. The only way out of this was to
manually reset. The system failed to reboot leaving me with a blank screen
after the POST.

However after the above aborted attempt I next rebooted using my Windows XP
Boot CD to see what chkdsk revealed in the Recovery Console. At first it
stated no problems found but activating chkdsk again but using the /p
switch, revealed "Unrecoverable Erros" found but no explanation or help as
to how to repair. Trying to Format the volume, resulted in the system
freezing at 22% despite there being disk activity - I therefore switched
off.

Next after much soul searching I decided my plan would be to "break" the
RAID 0 configuration, try again to format the drives and try again to
restore the image - if that failed, to try and do a low-level format
(writing zeros) to the drives to wipe them clean so to speak. I have
reconfiguredthe settings in the BIOS so the system now sees the S-ATA
channels to function as "standard IDE", in accordance with the manual - this
results in the non-appearance of the Intel POST screen (ctrl-i) but has
retained the RAID pairing on the Promise controller thankfully.

First up when I now switch on I get the following screen: -

"You have not connected the Power Extension Cable to your Radeon 9800 Video
Card - refer to the Getting Started Guide for proper hardware installation".
This message appears in the centre of the Monitor screen in white writing
within a small "red fill" , the remainder of the screen being black/blank.
The message is accompanied by constant "beeping" from the PC's speaker.
Switching off and back on - sometimes removing the power cable to the PC for
a few seconds - can bypass this screen - but it reappears upon the next
reboot.

Windows setup sees the drives but says the "partitions are corrupt" - I then
deleted them but then I got "unusable space" and a lockup. Trying again to
Format results in a further lockup and chkdsk fails to work now.

Finally I downloaded WD's Diagnostic utility - DLGDIAG v 11, created the
bootable floppy from it, but when I ran it, I got an "Error/Status Code
0120", accompanied by the message that no drives can be found.

During the above I get messages stating that I have "unrecoverable errors"
on the drives but how can I get these repaired?

I can't believe that my Raptors are ruined, they are brand new and were
purchased for reliability. Can someone with experience of repairing RAID
drives please help me out - my aim is to repair the drives and try again to
restore my Drive image, which is still intact on my second RAID 0 pair, on
the Promise controller.

I am desparate for some help here - appologies if I've gone on a bit, but I
feel it's important to explain things from start to now in order that
someone can get a feel for the problem and recommend a solution.

System Details: -

Asus P4C800-E Deluxe (version 10 Bios) : Intel P4 3.0 Ghz CPU (800fsb) :
Cooling - Thermaltake Aquarius II Water Cooling System : Case - Thermaltake
Xaser III Series : Kingston Value Ram - 2 x 512Gb PC 3200 working in Dual
DDR 400 Mode - KVR400X64C3A/51 : Gigabyte Radeon 9800 Pro (128Mb) : PSU -
Q-Tec Dual Fan 550Watt : RAID Arrays - OS - 2 x WD Raptors 36Gb 10000rpm
SATA (150) in RAID 0 config (on Intel ICH5R) - Storage - 2 x Seagate
Barracuda 7's 160Gb 7200rpm SATA (150) in RAID 0 config (on Promise) :
Iomega Dual DVD +/- Writer (PM) : Aopen DVD Rom (SM) : SoundBlaster Audigy 2
ZS : OS - Windows XP Pro (SP1a)

TIA

PAUL

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System Details: -

Asus P4C800-E Deluxe (version 10 Bios) : Intel P4 3.0 Ghz CPU (800fsb) :
Cooling - Thermaltake Aquarius II Water Cooling System : Case - Thermaltake
Xaser III Series : Kingston Value Ram - 2 x 512Gb PC 3200 working in Dual
DDR 400 Mode - KVR400X64C3A/51 : Gigabyte Radeon 9800 Pro (128Mb) : PSU -
Q-Tec Dual Fan 550Watt : RAID Arrays - OS - 2 x WD Raptors 36Gb 10000rpm
SATA (150) in RAID 0 config (on Intel ICH5R) - Storage - 2 x Seagate
Barracuda 7's 160Gb 7200rpm SATA (150) in RAID 0 config (on Promise) :
Iomega Dual DVD +/- Writer (PM) : Aopen DVD Rom (SM) : SoundBlaster Audigy 2
ZS : OS - Windows XP Pro (SP1a)
Click to expand...

Nice rig, but what are you OC'ing it to? Nobody needs watercooling running
at spec, and
why would you apparently buy the latest and greatest, and yet get PC3200 RAM
sticks,
regardless of what you run them at, I would have gone PC3500.
 
Thanks for taking an interest Philip - you're right of course - but I'm not
overclocking at the moment and the RAM sticks were an endeavour to keep the
costs down - once I have this thing running properly I do intend of course
to OC, but not sure whether the Aquarius II will take the load - it is a
relatively cheap W/C system. Yes I will be replacing the RAM in due course.

However back to the main issue and request for help. I have just had an
extremely helpful chat with a technician from Western Digital, who thinks it
might all be down to the Graphics Card and it's possible that the drives are
dead and might need replacing. There is apparently no software capable of
doing a low-level format on these SATA drives right now! This may help
others - the software I downloaded can only be used for EIDE drives. He did
suggest using SFC in XP's Recovery Console first to see what gives.

Last night I noticed that colour clocks started to appear on the screen,
confirming these suspicions re the G/C - following the technicians advice
however, I first checked the power cable going to the card this morning -
this is of course what's referred to in the white and red message but when I
next rebooted the screen was a mass of colour blotches indicating the card
has failed !!! and this it seems is the root cause of my problem.

WD will ship me replacement drives within 3 days but first I will go back to
my supplier re both the Graphics card and the 2 drives.

Thoughts/comments anyone?

Paul



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"Paul" said:
Thanks for taking an interest Philip - you're right of course - but I'm not
overclocking at the moment and the RAM sticks were an endeavour to keep the
costs down - once I have this thing running properly I do intend of course
to OC, but not sure whether the Aquarius II will take the load - it is a
relatively cheap W/C system. Yes I will be replacing the RAM in due course.

However back to the main issue and request for help. I have just had an
extremely helpful chat with a technician from Western Digital, who thinks it
might all be down to the Graphics Card and it's possible that the drives are
dead and might need replacing. There is apparently no software capable of
doing a low-level format on these SATA drives right now! This may help
others - the software I downloaded can only be used for EIDE drives. He did
suggest using SFC in XP's Recovery Console first to see what gives.

Last night I noticed that colour clocks started to appear on the screen,
confirming these suspicions re the G/C - following the technicians advice
however, I first checked the power cable going to the card this morning -
this is of course what's referred to in the white and red message but when I
next rebooted the screen was a mass of colour blotches indicating the card
has failed !!! and this it seems is the root cause of my problem.

WD will ship me replacement drives within 3 days but first I will go back to
my supplier re both the Graphics card and the 2 drives.

Thoughts/comments anyone?

Paul
Click to expand...

Have you checked the power monitor in the BIOS ? Maybe your power supply
is having problems with +12V, which is upsetting the disk drives and
the video card. Even though it is a 550W, it is a common element to the
two problems you are having.

The following thread suggests your power supply doesn't have enough
current on +12V for the load you have on it. 12V@14A is a joke, and
is presumably why http://www.qtec.info has no specs posted for the
supply. Check the label on the supply, to see if the following
thread has this right (or better yet, post the specs, so other
people can see what they are).

http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread/t-4621.html

HTH,
Paul
 
Have you checked the power monitor in the BIOS ? Maybe your power supply
is having problems with +12V, which is upsetting the disk drives and
the video card. Even though it is a 550W, it is a common element to the
two problems you are having.

The following thread suggests your power supply doesn't have enough
current on +12V for the load you have on it. 12V@14A is a joke, and
is presumably why http://www.qtec.info has no specs posted for the
supply. Check the label on the supply, to see if the following
thread has this right (or better yet, post the specs, so other
people can see what they are).

http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread/t-4621.html

HTH,
Paul
Click to expand...

If you want to see some good power supply numbers, here is a table
from the Antec Truepower specifications -

VOLTAGE +5V +12V +3.3V -5V -12V +5VSB
MAX. LOAD
TRUE330 30A 17A 28A 0.5A 1.0A 2.0A
TRUE380 35A 18A 28A 0.5A 1.0A 2.0A
TRUE430 36A 20A 28A 0.5A 1.0A 2.0A
TRUE480 38A 22A 30A 1.5A 1.0A 2.0A
TRUE550 40A 24A 32A 0.5A 1.0A 2.0A

Their 550W supply can give a max of 24 amps. Notice how even
the Antec 330W does a better job than the Q-Tec.

Paul
 
Thanks Paul. The links seemed very interesting albeit a little over my head
right now. Could you please help me some more and kindly elaborate a little
in respect of the following, as far as you are able, given my basic
understanding: -

1. Are you familiar with my Q-Tec PSU?
2. Do you think that the PSU has blown the Video Card?
3. Do you think that the PSU was the direct cause or indirect cause of the
drive errors?
4. In lay-mans language, what do you think has happened in my case?
5. Is the PSU now in need of replacing? - ie; do you think it has been
damaged and/or needs upgrading?
6. Given that I am building a "power" system, with many devices running
from it including (eventually) both unpowered and powered USB devices and
probably 5/6 HDD's, can you recommend a top of the range PSU available in
the UK?
7. What ampage should I be looking for on the 12v?
8. What ampage should I be looking for on the 5v?
9. What exactly should I be looking for in the BIOS. I tend not to
overclock because of my limited abilities and at the commencement of the
problems it was a totally unclocked system.

I am reluctant to recommence my build until I have these questions answered
as I think you are right in what you are suggesting. I am unfamiliar with
PSU's, so I bought the highest ampage PSU I could find, but now maybe as you
say, watts aint everything! However I have heard several people suggest
these PSU's are reliable - mine is the "PFC" model, whatever that means - I
am unable to read the label right now as it's getting dark. I will tomorrow
though.

I'm sorry to ask you all these questions Paul, but if you could spare a
little more time and answer these questions, I would be extremely grateful.

TAIA

Paul (Rozel)

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"Paul" said:
Thanks Paul. The links seemed very interesting albeit a little over my head
right now. Could you please help me some more and kindly elaborate a little
in respect of the following, as far as you are able, given my basic
understanding: -

1. Are you familiar with my Q-Tec PSU?
Click to expand...

I only know what I read :-) The qtec.info site doesn't have any info,
so what is printed on the label of your supply is all we have to go on.
I was lucky to find that thread, where someone mentioned the 14A, as
otherwise I wouldn't have posted my answer.
2. Do you think that the PSU has blown the Video Card?
Click to expand...

No. Not time to panic yet.
3. Do you think that the PSU was the direct cause or indirect cause
of the drive errors?
Click to expand...

That is my suspicion. You see, it is highly unlikely that two pieces
of hardware will fail in a system at the same time. You are having
video problems and disk problems at the same time, and the video
and disks share the power supply as a common element.
4. In lay-mans language, what do you think has happened in my case?
Click to expand...

As I stated previously, the +12V from the power supply is dropping out.
The voltage is now too low to operate the video card and the disk
drive properly. If you check the monitoring page in the BIOS, it will
list the voltage values. The +12V shouldn't be off by more than 5% or
so. If it only reads 10 or 11 volts, some of your hardware isn't going
to like it.
5. Is the PSU now in need of replacing? - ie; do you think it has been
damaged and/or needs upgrading?
Click to expand...

It needs upgrading. It might not be damaged - you didn't mention smoke,
flames, or a bad smell, so see if you can return it to your vendor for
a more "balanced" power supply. When you get a big supply like that,
there should be a minimum of 15 amps on the +12V. That is enough for
a basic system. For the disk drives, most drive vendor sites list
the power requirements, so you can add 0.5 amps per drive, for example,
to account for a drive when it is idle (on a desktop system, most
drives will be idle, and only one or two will be working hard).
6. Given that I am building a "power" system, with many devices running
from it including (eventually) both unpowered and powered USB devices and
probably 5/6 HDD's, can you recommend a top of the range PSU available in
the UK?
Click to expand...

I'm in Canada, where everything is hard to get :-) The Antec Truepower has
good paper specs, and the outputs are supposed to be more independent of
one another. Check some of the power supply review articles on
Tomshardware, to get some idea of what other brands are good. I think
Fortron make an efficient supply, so it will be easier on the electric
bill and itself - Fortron supplies are rebadged by other vendors as
well. Even Antec doesn't make its own supplies - they are made by
Heroichi (supplies from a year ago) and Channelwell (the Truepower
series).

Avoid any of the supplies that Tomshardware managed to smoke or burn :-)
7. What ampage should I be looking for on the 12v?
Click to expand...

You are in luck that you have an Intel chipset on your board. The
trick is, to download the user manual for a motherboard made by Intel,
because they actually list some power numbers.

ftp://download.intel.com/design/motherbd/bz/C3176501.pdf (D875PBZ)

DC Power +3.3V +5V +12V -12V +5VSB
Minimum loading 199.00W 5.00A 10.00A 10.00A 0.03A 0.60A
Maximum loading 284.00W 10.00A 14.00A 13.30A 0.10A 1.40A

Note that the Intel numbers, unfortunately, include some of the
hardware that is plugged into the board. The +12V numbers for example
are large enough to include a P4 processor. But the +3.3V and
+5 numbers should be good enough for estimate purposes.

If you go to processorfinder.intel.com and enter the SSPEC "SL6WG",
you get 82W as the power. This is a 3.2GHz/800 P4. You take that
number and divide by 12V to get amps. To the 6.8 amp number, you
multiply by 1.25, to compensate for the 80% efficiency of the Vcore
power circuit on the motherboard. So, the processor is basically
drawing 8.5 amps. You can do a similar analysis for the video card,
but here the power number is a secret. I use 3 amps as a guesstimate,
just picking that number out of the air. The original FX5900 was
somewhere around 70W I think (I cannot find the reference any more),
but I don't think I'm going to go around suggesting to people that
they budget for 6 amps, because that would be crazy. Include 1 amp
to run the case and CPU fans. Disk drives need 2 amps to start
them spinning, and when they settle down, they need around 0.5 amps.
I think there is an option to stagger the startup of IDE disks, but
I don't know if desktop BIOS know how to do that or not.

Based on those numbers, a basic desktop needs processor_power plus
video_card plus idle_disk plus fans = 8.5 + 3.0 + 0.5 + 1.0 = 13 amps.
That would be the current drawn while running 3DMark. So, you can
see that your 14 amp supply is on the edge, even if used for a basic
desktop. Based on your other drives, budget for another 2.5 amps.
So, you need 15.5 amps on +12V to do 3DMark plus idle the disks.

When a system starts up, you also need to do an analysis. On a
basic desktop, the analysis isn't critical, as the video card
goes from 3 amps to zero amps, and the disk drive needs 2 amps.
So, the basic desktop doesn't change between the POST requirements
and the running requirements. When you add a lot of disks, their
startup currents are more substantial. So, the question you have
to ask yourself, is whether the CPU runs at 100% while in the BIOS,
or is idling. I personally think it isn't drawing a lot of current,
but other people differ on this.
8. What ampage should I be looking for on the 5v?
Click to expand...

As you can see from the Intel estimate, just about any supply can
handle the +3.3 or +5. If you have a video editing system, or
have a bunch of custom audio boards, then you may need to budget
more power - most ordinary PCI boards only draw a few watts each,
which amounts to nothing.
9. What exactly should I be looking for in the BIOS. I tend not to
overclock because of my limited abilities and at the commencement of the
problems it was a totally unclocked system.

I am reluctant to recommence my build until I have these questions answered
as I think you are right in what you are suggesting. I am unfamiliar with
PSU's, so I bought the highest ampage PSU I could find, but now maybe as you
say, watts aint everything! However I have heard several people suggest
these PSU's are reliable - mine is the "PFC" model, whatever that means - I
am unable to read the label right now as it's getting dark. I will tomorrow
though.
Click to expand...

PFC is Power Factor Correction. Home electric power consumers don't
have to worry about power factor, because you are not billed based on
power factor. Your power supply is doing the power company a favor,
but you get no financial benefit. A business or industrial user would
favor a product with PFC.

The PSU watts numbers are purely for marketing. It is the amps that
you budget for, and that is the way to buy a power supply. Note that if
you do go shopping for another 550W supply, that some of them have
different connectors than a desktop supply (because they are meant for
dual processor boards or servers), so check that they have a 20 pin
connector for the main power.
 
Thank you so much Paul - this is exactly what I need and I'm sure it will be
of use to many others attempting to seriously upgrade their kit.

When I made my purchases, I went for what I thought was the best, obviously
not the RAM (as mentioned earlier) and probably not the Aquarius II water
cooling system. Here, I'm going to look for a Zallman cooler and sod the
noise! This will bring the temp down a wee bit and improve the air
circulation within my case, which is now very cluttered given the
pump/radiator etal! Temps currently are MB 25/30C : CPU - Idle 33/36C Load
36/40C Stress (3DMark 2003) 40/50C. My case has 7 fans fitted as standard,
the PSU is a dual fan model, the G/C has a fan too!

Now as well it seems my PSU is not good enough too - oh well! - all the
above together with accessories has probably pushed it too far.

I am intrigued about whether the Graphics Card is dead or not. All I get
are coloured Mosiacs and these were preceded several times with the "Power
Cable Not Connected" Error message, again previously described. I have
tried several monitors, so it is not the monitor. Would a better PSU bring
it back to life? You surmised correctly in that there has been no smoke or
bad smells eminating from within my system but clearly there is something
wrong with my card - any more thoughts?

I will be spending the best part of this week end sourcing suitable
replacements, taking your advice - thanks again.

Paul (Rozel)

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"Paul" said:
Thank you so much Paul - this is exactly what I need and I'm sure it will be
of use to many others attempting to seriously upgrade their kit.

When I made my purchases, I went for what I thought was the best, obviously
not the RAM (as mentioned earlier) and probably not the Aquarius II water
cooling system. Here, I'm going to look for a Zallman cooler and sod the
noise! This will bring the temp down a wee bit and improve the air
circulation within my case, which is now very cluttered given the
pump/radiator etal! Temps currently are MB 25/30C : CPU - Idle 33/36C Load
36/40C Stress (3DMark 2003) 40/50C. My case has 7 fans fitted as standard,
the PSU is a dual fan model, the G/C has a fan too!

Now as well it seems my PSU is not good enough too - oh well! - all the
above together with accessories has probably pushed it too far.

I am intrigued about whether the Graphics Card is dead or not. All I get
are coloured Mosiacs and these were preceded several times with the "Power
Cable Not Connected" Error message, again previously described. I have
tried several monitors, so it is not the monitor. Would a better PSU bring
it back to life? You surmised correctly in that there has been no smoke or
bad smells eminating from within my system but clearly there is something
wrong with my card - any more thoughts?

I will be spending the best part of this week end sourcing suitable
replacements, taking your advice - thanks again.

Paul (Rozel)
Click to expand...

If you want to play around a bit more before replacing some hardware,
you could strip out as much excess hardware as possible, and then
test the video card again. Just have one hard disk to boot from,
with a copy of 3DMark or some other test on it. Maybe by unloading
the power supply, you will get enough power to verify whether the
video card is damaged or not. You could also test the video card
in another computer, if you have a spare.

That is sort of a general recipe for building a computer anyway.
You should start with a simplified system and add hardware and
drivers one at a time. That way, you get immediate feedback as to
which new component is causing problems.

1) Motherboard + PS = Beeping or Voice POST messages tell you it
isn't completely dead.
2) Add processor = Voice POST no longer complains about processor,
but tells you there is no memory.
3) Add one stick of memory = Beeping should be complaining about
no video card rather than no memory.
4) Add video card = POST starts and screen is rendered. PS is
lightly loaded. BIOS finds no disks.
5) Add floppy = This would allow you to run MEMTEST86 or boot a
floppy based OS.
6) Add CDROM = You could boot Knoppix or play a CD to verify the
CDROM isn't dead.
7) Add one hard drive = Let the games begin...

If you are in a hurry, you could start at step 4.

HTH,
Paul
 
Thanks again Paul.

After much research I have decided to buy an Antec TruePower 550W PS - as
you say this seems to be the dogs b******s in PS's and hopefully it's quoted
24A on the +12v rail, will be sufficient for my stuff. Yes I wish I could
"stagger" the startup of the current 4 HDD's (configured in 2 x RAID 0
pairs) - all I can find in the BIOS is something similar for USB mass
storage devices (I don't have any), something called ICH delayed
transaction, whatever that means and a timeout delay for ATA/IDE devices. I
am running with the Asus P4C800-E deluxe using the 1010 bios revision as
people tell me there can be problems with the 1011 updated one.

My Graphics Card was bought on 01.10.2003, so with a bit of luck (my email
was sent 31.10.2003) I should expect full replacement, although I'll go for
either a Sapphire or Hecules model this time. Western Digital have already
agreed to replace my drives if my supplier can't - they were bought on
29.09.2003 so they are just out of the one month automatic returns limit -
we'll see. To control my CPU and case temps better I've also purchased a
Zalman 7000 al/cu Cooler - the Aquarius II lacks control and isn't very
effective - running both a pump and a radiator too, also drains the current
slightly as well!

So this coming week will tell me whether my rather expensive kit can be
replaced or not and how much deaper I must dig into my wallet!

Paul your information has been both informative and excellent - yesterday I
learnt so much regarding power supply units - it seems a travesty that more
is not written on this subject given that Athlons and P4's now use the +12v
rail exclusively for their power requirements whereas in the PIII era CPU's
used the +5v rail. All well and good on the face of it until you then learn
that PSU's have not "caught up" and still are manufactred with +5v in mind
rather than more emphasis being placed on the +12v rail! How many others
have upgraded like me to "RAID" systems and have come across all sorts of
problems with BSOD's and system freezes etal like myself, because scant
regard was placed on the PSU or like me went for a high Wattage PSU, without
looking deeper? After all with more drives you need more air circulating
through your case - mine has 7 fans, not counting the 2 PSU fans and the GPU
fan! All this takes power.

Please continue giving this great advice Paul, my only next worry is whether
24A on the +12v rail will be enough for me - when I increase my setup to 5
HDD's for example, does this mean that there will be a load of 5 x 2A - say
10A - placed on the PSU's +12v rail? If this is correct then it doesn't
leave much left for everything else and shows, as you pointed out, how
pitiful my existing 14A max load was! I do understand that some of the load
for other devices is spread so to speak between pre-POST and afterwards but
I would like a bit of headroom - comments?

TA

Paul (Rozel)

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"Paul" said:
Thanks again Paul.

After much research I have decided to buy an Antec TruePower 550W PS - as
you say this seems to be the dogs b******s in PS's and hopefully it's quoted
24A on the +12v rail, will be sufficient for my stuff. Yes I wish I could
"stagger" the startup of the current 4 HDD's (configured in 2 x RAID 0
pairs) - all I can find in the BIOS is something similar for USB mass
storage devices (I don't have any), something called ICH delayed
transaction, whatever that means and a timeout delay for ATA/IDE devices. I
am running with the Asus P4C800-E deluxe using the 1010 bios revision as
people tell me there can be problems with the 1011 updated one.

My Graphics Card was bought on 01.10.2003, so with a bit of luck (my email
was sent 31.10.2003) I should expect full replacement, although I'll go for
either a Sapphire or Hecules model this time. Western Digital have already
agreed to replace my drives if my supplier can't - they were bought on
29.09.2003 so they are just out of the one month automatic returns limit -
we'll see. To control my CPU and case temps better I've also purchased a
Zalman 7000 al/cu Cooler - the Aquarius II lacks control and isn't very
effective - running both a pump and a radiator too, also drains the current
slightly as well!

So this coming week will tell me whether my rather expensive kit can be
replaced or not and how much deaper I must dig into my wallet!

Paul your information has been both informative and excellent - yesterday I
learnt so much regarding power supply units - it seems a travesty that more
is not written on this subject given that Athlons and P4's now use the +12v
rail exclusively for their power requirements whereas in the PIII era CPU's
used the +5v rail. All well and good on the face of it until you then learn
that PSU's have not "caught up" and still are manufactred with +5v in mind
rather than more emphasis being placed on the +12v rail! How many others
have upgraded like me to "RAID" systems and have come across all sorts of
problems with BSOD's and system freezes etal like myself, because scant
regard was placed on the PSU or like me went for a high Wattage PSU, without
looking deeper? After all with more drives you need more air circulating
through your case - mine has 7 fans, not counting the 2 PSU fans and the GPU
fan! All this takes power.

Please continue giving this great advice Paul, my only next worry is whether
24A on the +12v rail will be enough for me - when I increase my setup to 5
HDD's for example, does this mean that there will be a load of 5 x 2A - say
10A - placed on the PSU's +12v rail? If this is correct then it doesn't
leave much left for everything else and shows, as you pointed out, how
pitiful my existing 14A max load was! I do understand that some of the load
for other devices is spread so to speak between pre-POST and afterwards but
I would like a bit of headroom - comments?

TA

Paul (Rozel)
Click to expand...
<<snip>>

I think that supply should work just fine, even with 5 hard drives.

Don't replace any hardware until you've installed the new power supply.
You won't know what is busted until you can test with stable power.

The "scientific" way to figure this stuff out, is with a "clamp-on"
ammeter. This is a device used by electricians and service people,
and it is a meter with curved jaws on the front. The device clamps
around a wire, and can measure the current flowing in it. Using a
device like this, you can measure the actual current flowing, without
disturbing the setup. I have one of these, but it cost $400 CDN.
It is not something needed for casual usage. It will even measure
the AC current consumption on the power cord of the computer, but
to do that you need a "cheater" cord, where the wires in the cord
are separated from one another, as the meter has to put its jaws
around one wire of the cord at a time to measure the current. The
device works via the magnetic field created by the current flowing
in the wire.

The only power saving option support I could find, is for the
IBM (Hitachi) drives. There is no mention of staggered spin as
an option, so I guess it is just something in the standards.
In any case, you now have enough power not to have to worry
about it.

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm (Feature Tool)
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/ftool.pdf (pg.16 description)

The Zalman is a step in the right direction. The only downsides
are the weight and the size. You might want to read the Zalman
website, to make sure there will be enough clearance. The Zalman
will only draw a fraction of an amp of current, whereas the water
pump must draw a lot more than that. In terms of weight, if you
ever ship the computer anywhere (i.e. use a courier or a house
mover, like anyone who doesn't care about your computer...),
remove the Zalman before shipping and reinstall at the
destination. The Zalman is heavy enough, that it might break
free of the motherboard if it receives a mechanical shock from
being bumped.

HTH,
Paul
 
Again very helpful indeed. By way of an update, my Supplier has agreed to
refund the Graphics Card and WD Raptors - the new ones will hopefully arrive
tomorrow:) I got the new PSU and Cooler today.

I did my research on the Cooler, it will fit my setup clearance-wise and if
I ever wanted to fit one, it would clear the new Swiftech Northbridge Cooler
too. The AL/CU model of the Zalman is designed to keep there or there
abouts with the weight limit recommended by Intel for a P4 and judging from
reviews, it's efficiency is about the same as the CU model, which is double
the weight!

I have a couple of ameters one analogue and one digital with small
tweezer-like clamps on each end of the two wire probes, but I've never
figured how to use these in domestic situations, only in motor cars! Not
sure though, if these would do the job you suggest, even if I knew how to
undertake it in the 1st place!!

I've done nothing about reinstalling/switching anything on again yet - I
will obviously have to drain my cooling system and (ugh!!!!!!!!) remove the
M/B, in order that the Intel black frame for the standard Cooler can be
refitted, the Zalman uses this as well unfortunately - I had to remove it
when fitting the W/C system. It will give me the time to tidy things up a
wee bit though, in order to improve the case air circulation - at the moment
I have wires everywhere!

So thanks again Paul everything you say is helpful. Could I suggest you
email me in order that I may keep in touch, should the worst happen as my
server will soon lose this thread.

Thanks again

Paul (rozel)


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Paul (Rozel)

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