Power supply hard drive mystery

[Methious]

Check this out, I've worked on puters for 20+ years and I've never seen this.

I was re-casing a machine that was working great no faults, no blue screens, never even so much as a burp from it. I got it cased and every thing connected except the new modular power supply a CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX12V v2.2, 620w modular I got from Newegg. (Thanks Apoptosis your recommendation of this power supply was the deciding factor in getting it, money well spent)

So I connect every thing and go for the first power on, I get nothing not even a blink. So I disconnect every thing and it powers up beautifully (this is after running tests on both this and the old power supply with 2 power supply testers and a voltmeter, the old power supply failed miserably, a Soly Tech 460, which Newegg promptly sent a RMA for 9 months after purchase. The new power supply was amazing, no more than 2% variance on any test)

So I break each component plugged into the power supply down into each having it's own connector and test each component individually. Comes down to a WD 320 gig Sata 3.0G drive. Every time it's plugged into the power supply the power supply refuses to so much as blink. The drive was running like a champ with the faulty Soly Tech, and in a HP machine it was pulled from.

I put it back into the HP, runs like a champ, ran extensive diagnostics on it using the HP diagnostics that came with the machine, SiSoft Sandra 12c and a few others I don't trust as much as those two. Passed every test.

Is the Corsair power supply smart enough to know that the drive is faulting, and the Soly Tech, and HP oem power supply just keep pumping power at it no matter what. (the Soly Tech was faulting on 6v) Got me scratching my head, it was like 1am so I might take another run at it on a bench machine I use later.

Got any thoughts?

BTW Happy Turkey Day!

Edit: My bad that's a seagate 320 3GPS

[Apoptosis]

I'm sure you've tried both power connectors on the WD drive and both don't work? (don't plug both in at the same time as it will ruin the drive)

[Methious]

There's a single power connector on the Seagate, (my bad, up late last night re-casing 2 puters) I tried the Seagate with 2 different modular cables, then a molex with a sata adapter, on 4 connectors on the power supply one at a time and each time the PS faulted. Then I put a Powmax (Horrible brand) in the mix, connected it to a tester, powered the drive from the powmax and it ran. Tried it on a Soly Tech (which it was running on origionally) and it ran, then I put it back to the HP it came out of and it ran. The second I connect it to the Corsair the PSU won't even power on, remove the drive, PSU won't power on, Remove the power cord from the PSU flip it to 230 for a second or two, flip it back to 115 put the cord back to it and it powers like a champ. I only tried it 4 times cause I'd hate to fry the Corsair over a Seagate drive. The Mobo is a 3.0 GPS sata Asus M2N-E and was running the drive previously, when I re-cased I marked all the cables, marked all the drives, and left the Sata cables connected to the Mobo during the transfer to avoid switching cables. (not that that would matter in this case cause the power supply won't power up with just the sata power connector connected to the drive with no data cable)

Before I trust the drive in another machine it's going to have to pass some serous testing, but I was trying to figure out why it balked cause I have my original install of Vista Ultimate on it, no biggie I have it on a Raid array too, and on disk. When I'm playing with a new OP sys I go double redundancy to avoid the reinstall headache.

If you got any ideas it's much appreciated.

[Methious]

I went ahead and downloaded SeaTools for dos and Windows and after turkey I'll hook up to a bench machine and run the drive through the mill, at under 3% variance on the Corsair and it passing 3 power supply testers (went to the shop and got the good tester) a voltmeter, and an oscilloscope I have a hard time believing it has any thing to do with the power supply. (Got a buddy that routinely tests with an oscilloscope, Navy Trained tech)

[kenc51]

Have to changed the jumpper on the HDD?
SATA drives have a jumpper for SATA 150 or 300 setting.

I have dozens of Seagate drives, but I can't remember if Seagate has this jumpper or not

[Nein]

I went ahead and downloaded SeaTools for dos and Windows and after turkey I'll hook up to a bench machine and run the drive through the mill, at under 3% variance on the Corsair and it passing 3 power supply testers (went to the shop and got the good tester) a voltmeter, and an oscilloscope I have a hard time believing it has any thing to do with the power supply. (Got a buddy that routinely tests with an oscilloscope, Navy Trained tech).

Try to avoid belief and rely on facts instead, the cause of the "Power supply hard drive mystery" is mentioned HERE.

[Methious]

Skipping past Nein (the polite thing to do) and replying to Ken, yes it has a jumper for 1.5 to 3 gig, no jumper is 3, being a HP oem seagate they pull the jumper to prevent people from moving it to 1.5 (on that model HP) so it's set for 3G transfer and wasn't changed. I thought the same thing and checked the MB book and it's a 3G sata controller backward compatible w/1.5.

I figured pulling a part from a HP would make my rig puke lol, it just took a week or so to do the Technicolor yawn. It seems like stuff happens to the computers I fix for other people and it's a no brainer, then mine burps and I get brain death.

I have been re-machining it a part at a time, new X-fi sound card, dolby 5.1 speakers, 3rd, 4th, and 5th HD, new Ultra Case, New Corsair power supply, new Mushkin ram, heading toward a 8800 video card, water cooling, and the new pcie 2.0 standard. With so many changes in the last month or 6 weeks it's harder to pin an error cause any of the new stuff can crud out. But if your addicted to the smell of chips burning in what do you do lol.

Comes to it I'll put the drive back into the HP and leave it, after testing of course. All I was using it for was a backup copy of Vista, and it has the original restore partition for the HP.

I'm looking at 2 water cooling solutions, Corsair Nautilus 500, and Thermaltake CL-W0121 2U Drive Bay Water Cooling System, weighing the pros and cons of an internal 2 drive bay system, against the Corsair which I understand is an external cooler.

[Methious]

Update: Put that Seagate 320 sata 3GPS onto a new bench machine and booted into SeaTools for dos, started the diagnostics on the drive, couldn't even identify the drive. Small puff of smoke from the drives controller board right by the power connector, two of the power pins melted the adapter to the drive, and a small chip up from the two connectors malformed from heat. Another fine product from seagate, the self destructing sata drive, lol just joking I've had a lotta luck with seagate over the years, it did come out of a HP machine though HMMMM.

Those that looked thanks!

[ibleet]

Well, not exactly a story-book ending, but at least solved!

[Methious]

Just a drive, and it was a freebe, out of a HP a customer tossed me in frustration, I had already cloned out the drive onto a 100 Gig Maxtor anyway (and a 20 gig backup drive I keep on the shelf). No data lost, op sys intact, now if I can just get some one to buy it before my other machines develop a rash lol. When it sells I'm gonna treat myself to an 8800gt video card for a change I'd like to have great video that'll run a year or two with out giving me the urge to upgrade.

[doghucat]

I have a system with a like ringing noise when its running have always thought it was the Cooler master hsf on the old board which was a CUV266 with a P-3 Coppermine but I have up graded to a Asus AMD board and have changed or isolated everything except the power supply which is a Thermaltake W0009 silent pure power 420. I have emailed the co to see if this is a warranty problems as it is a 2005 vintage and I have another one of these supplyies running a P-D system with no sound coming fro that one. The out put is within specs the fans are not running any faster than the other system so I am waiting to hear from the Company. Yes I have unplug the case fans one by one to see if the sound goes aways and have also swaped out the cooler fan with a new Zalman still have the whining type tinny ringing sound sort of like your ears ringing but it not my ears. Thanks have a nice Holiday

[Methious]

I had that problem a while back, you might try isolating the frame of the power supply from the case frame, some times the vibration on the power supply in loose contact with the casing can cause a ringing. What I did was take a large black balloon make a cut out the size of the back of the power supply, cut the center of the templit to match the power supply hole in the back of the puter, mounted it between the back of the power supply and the case and the ringing stopped. Later on I got a power supply noise isolation kit to replace the ghetto mod.

To see if it's the problem pull the power supply out of the casing and run it with a tester, if it makes the same noise out of the casing you know it's a power supply fan (the only moving part in a power supply I know about) bearing, or out of round, possibly hitting something in the PSU.

Good luck with it.