A7N8X-E Mobo wierd problems

[redhades]

I bought myself a new system in March. An Asus A7N8X-E DX, AMD cpu, 256 mb ram, and a Seagate SATA 120gig hard disc. The system ran perfectly.

At the end of summer. I started to have problems with my Sata hard disc. When I started my computer in the morning (when my system was cold), the hard disc made strange spinning sound right after power on and would continue that faulty spinning during windows' loading screen and made my system hang at that moment. But when I rebooted my system, the disc no longer had that spinning problem. But every morning, I had the same hard disc problem. And my hard disc eventually developed bad sectors and corrupted files.

So I went to my retailer with the hard disc. They sent it to Seagate and I received a new one. My retailer tested the new disc and it was fine. But back home with the new disc, I still had the same weird spinning noises in the morning. So I figured the hard disc was not the source of the problem. Also, while my Seagate Sata was out for replacement, I used my old system's hard disc in my new system; the disc is a Maxtor 15gig IDE hard disc. This IDE disc also made spinning and clacking noises on my new system when it was cold. Then it also worked fine after a reboot. I also tested that IDE disc on my old system and it did not produce any sound or any other problems.

So now I'm convinced that my motherboard is the source of my woes since other problems occur in the morning. When I turn on my computer in the morning, the onboard sound card makes screeching noises during boot. And when I spin my USB mouse wheel to scroll like a madman in Internet Explorer, my sound card makes screeching noises, my hard drive locks (both IDE and SATA) and windows freezes. This is crazy.

Right now, my new system is at my retailer for diagnosis. Last news I had is that they replaced the Seagate Sata disc with a Maxtor Sata disc and they say it works better with the Maxtor. But I'm not satisfied with this solution. I'm sure that the motherboard is still going to give me trouble.

What do I do now?

 

[DragonQ0105]

Are you sure it's the cound card making the noises, or a leaking capacitor? My comp squeals when the mouse wheel is used or if under heavy load (most likely due to leaky capacitors) - I 'fix' this the cheapo way (playing music so I can't hear it, lol).

 

[redhades]

Well, I tried plugging my headset into the soundcard output and heard the noises in my headset.

 

[DragonQ0105]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[Budley]

I'd swap out the SATA cables, both power and signal.

 

[redhades]

Swap out? I'm not familiar with that term. (I'm french canadian)

 

[Budley]

Sorry Go to your local computer store and ask for replacement cables for your SATA hard drive. You should get 2 per drive. One for power, the other for the signal. Most PC stores carry a molex power converter cable for SATA drives.

 

[redhades]

Well I actualy tried brand new SATA and power adaptor cables that I picked up at work. Didn't do any difference.

 

[weevilofdoom]

Make sure you update all your drivers (Nvidia soundstorm, usb, etc).
Make sure the motherboard is correctly grounded. Maybe some wire came loose and is touching the mobo in the wrong spot or something.
Other than that, only problems I've heard with this happening is during overclocking tsk tsk tsk

The weevil of doooooooooom
-The eagle may soar, but the weasel never gets sucked up by a jet engine (Anonymous)

 

[Budley]

The only thing I can think of at this point is that your power supply may be going out. I'd try a replacement. Let us know if this helps.

 

[redhades]

Well, my system is back from a week with the techs at the retail store. They changed the Seagate HD for a new Western Digital HD and apparently, the new hard drive is "More compatible" and they said the system worked fine after the swap and passed all of their diagnosis. Since when do hard disks have compatibility issues? That sounded like a load of bull to me.

I also had them test my IDE disk into my system. They did on the spot and told me it worked fine also. But back at home, I reinstalled the IDE disk on my system, right next to my new and more compatible SATA disk. The bios took a whole 5 minutes just to detect my IDE disk and it made the same noises as before. And the whole startup process ran slow like I had a 1MHz processor. I checked the jumpers, the boot sequence in the bios setup and all was OK.

So I removed the IDE from the system. Having two hard disk in it felt like an Utopian dream.

Then with just the SATA in, powered up the whole thing and there it was; The same stupid skipping noise my previous SATA disk made. My system is still not fixed. Ether those techs didn't do their job I payed them for, or their's something mystically evil about my room.

Could an electrical deficiency in my building cause such performance issues on my system?

 

[Budley]

I was just going to say that. You probably have "dirty" power. If the techs are unable to replicate your problems on the bench, then that sounds like your building power is somehow at fault. You can try testing another circuit that's running off of a different breaker or try another building altogether. If your system works fine under these circumstances, have a technician check your building wiring. Faulty power can and will cause problems with a PC.

 

[redhades]

I got my hands on another 350w power supply and tried it in my system. It fixed all my problems and my system is now working like brand new. My discs are spinning smoothly. Even the sound card has stopped buzzing.

So turns out my Antec TRUE380S power supply was the culprit all along. I'll send it for replacement and keep the other one temporarily.

Thanks all for your help.

 

[Budley]

I'd still check out the buildings power on the plug you were using. If it's "dirty" it will eventually cause the same problems with your new PSU. The old one may have been damaged because of this. I'm just making an assumption based on the fact that the techs could run your PC without any problems before you brought it home.

All in all, I'm glad to hear that you've got it going again. Best wishes.