Here are my computer specs MotherBoard : P5QL PRO Processor : Intel Q6700 Ram : 4 * 1 gig PC5300 PSU : Antec 650 w Hard drive 320 gig + 3* 500 gig (SATA, all WD) Graphic card : gforece 9800x2 Case : Antec p193 (love it) I also have 2 dvd burners (IDE) And a wireless network card WRT54G OS : xp sp 3 pro 32 bits and Win 7 ultimate 64 bits Problem : The first problem I seem to have if that one of my drive F: would sometime disappear for no apparent reason. When I boot the pc and check the BIOS, the 4 hard drives are detected and when I load windows, they are all there. When the drive is listed, I can access it and use the data on it. But after some time, it just seems to get disconnected for no reason. Once it is gone, I checked the Disk manager and it is completely gone (the next time it happens I will also check the device manager). If I reboot the pc, the drive will be back. I checked the power cable and it is working fine, I switched it just in case. I changed the sata cable with no luck and I also used another connector on the motherboard without any success. The event viewer shows those errors : Source : Disk Event ID : 11 Description : The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D. The time on those error seems to be related to time where windows takes a really long time to load and hangs at the Windows XP loading screen. Source : Ntfs Event ID : 50 Description : {Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file . The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere. Source : PlugPlayManager Event ID : 12 Description : The device 'WDC WD5000AAKS-00YGA0' (IDE\DiskWDC_WD5000AAKS-00YGA0___________________12.01C02\5&2afb53d3&0&0.0.0) disappeared from the system without first being prepared for removal. Those 2 seem to be related to the fact that the HD goes missing. I tried to run a CHKDSK F: /F /R It ran for 7 hours and was at 20% of step 4 out of 5. I needed the pc so I had to cancel it I am virus free. No I would normally believe this is a hard drive issue and not bother with it at all. I would unplug the hd and not even replace it as I no longer need 1.5TB of space. However I started to have other problems and I am not quite sure that to make of the situation anymore. Ssometimes, when I start the pc. It will not go through the motherboard screen, I will have the screen that says the port model and brand and nothing else. After I reboot the pc 3 or 4 times, the computer came back to live. (This make me believe I have mother board problems, but the board is not even 6 months old) When I log on to windows, it will sometime look as if explorer.exe is having problem. Icons will not be displayed properly and I will not be able to access my computer. I tried to kill explorer.exe and the process would still be there on the task manager. In cases like that, if I try to log off my account or shut down the pc, it will not work. Windows will simply not shut down and I need to manually turn off the pc (this made me believe I have windows issue) When the pc is on, it would sometime freeze everything except the mouse for about 10 seconds then unfreeze for a minute and then freeze again for 10 seconds. This could go on forever (until reboot) or last only 2 or 3 minutes. It does happen while I am playing games, but it also happens when I am browsing the net with nothing else open (this made me believe I had windows issue). Lastly, my wireless network adapter seems to lose its signal quite often for no reason. It never happened in 6 months and now it is happening everyday. Sometime it would lose connection and reconnect itself, sometime it would not reconnect at all until reboot and sometime it would see the network, connect to it but I would be unable to access the net and would need to reconnect to the network. I reinstalled the drivers and did not notice any changes. (This made me believe I had an hardware problem but I do not know what it would be, NIC or motherboard). So right now, I am sort of baffled. What could be causing those problem?. I would tend to believe it is a motherboard problem but the only way I have to verify that would be to actually buy a new one (as far as I know) and I would like to avoid that if possible. Now, I am moving in 2 weeks and will finally be able to get rid of the wireless network card so that’s not the most important problem. I was also planning of getting a 10k hd for my OS and 2 * TB hard drive to only have 3 HD and not 4. I was also planning of removing one of the DVD burner as I no longer need it anymore. Sorry for my poor English, I did my best to make it readable and understandable. If I am in the wrong section, please let me know I and I will correct the issue
right now it sounds like your onboard sata controller is causing the problem as i have a customer who went thru somewhat same thing. i replaced his sata hd with an ide drive after replacing the psu, ram & done a fresh install of windows. the reason of changing the hd was i finally got an error about not reading c:drive, changed to ide hd & no problem since. try disconnecting some of your hd's & 1 dvd drive to see what happens? maybe your 650w psu is not capable of running all that stuff.
I removed the hard drive and the dvd burner, I no longer need it. So far everything seems fine but it has only been a few hours and cant say for sure yet. This gear has been running flawlessly for the last 6 months. If the power supply was not powerful enough, wouldn't I have seen this sooner?
Well so far, everything else seems to be alright, thank you for the help. if I have other issue I will send the motherboard to asus.
