Computer cannot start; hard drive suspected

[DrAsik]

Yesterday, after realizing my ddr400 ram on my ddr400-able ASUS motherboard was actually running at ddr333, I restarted and went into the bios to change it. The option was set on "Auto"; I set it to "400mhz". Then I hit F10 - Save and exit.

Then all input/output devices (monitor, keyboard, mouse) switched off and would not even turn on with the computer. The orange light on the front of the case, indicating hard drive activity, was on and solid. I tried to restart it again but all it did was attempting to boot from cd-rom (I think), but I couldn't see anything or attempt anything since all i/o devices were down. Again, the orange light is always on and solid when the computer is on.

So I layed my computer on its side and opened the side panel. The motherboard's little green light was on. I didn't notice anything abnormal, except for the hard drive being very hot (I couldn't stand touching it for more than 3 seconds) around where the power plug goes. But I don't know if that's normal or not. Anyway, the hard drive seems to be making some weird vibrations when it starts.

So this time the screen switched on, and the computer told me Windows couldn't start because some important file was either damaged or missing, and that I should insert the Windows cd to reinstall or repair. At that very moment it was around 2:15am so I decided to unplug the computer from the wall so that nobody else would start toying with it and go get a few hours of sleep.

That's pretty much it. In the last few days I had installed a new power supply, a Fortron Sparkle 400PN, much better than my old 300W generic-brand one. I also installed 512MB of ddr400 ram. Everything went fine. I hope there's no relation between that and my computer's death.

What do you think is the cause of this, and is it the hard drive or not?

Thanks for your help.

My config:
Fortron Sparkle 400PN
ASUS P4S800
2x512MB ram ddr400
Western Digital 80Gigs HD
2 optical drives
Sapphire Radeon 9600SE (noisy fan - incoming new video card)
Pentium IV 2.8Ghz HT

 

[Freestone]

Since it seems the problems started when you manually set the memory to 400MHz, I would set it back to Auto and see what happens. Memory being accessed incorrectly would account for messages about corrupt files on the hard drive, when in fact it is memory data that is corrupt. If memory corruption is truly the case, one can only hope corrupted data wasn't written back out to the drive.

 

[DrAsik]

I sincerely hope I can fix the problem that way! (I am at work right now so it'll be in a couple hours)

Is there any reason ddr400 ram on a ddr400 motherboard wouldn't want to run at 400mhz?

 

[Freestone]

Perhaps others who have experience with this board can answer your question regarding ddr400, but something is causing or caused the Auto function to see it as ddr333. I only suggest going back to the ddr333 setting to see if that cures the ill. If it does, then you know where to further your troubleshooting efforts, i.e. not the hard drive, but the 333 vs. 400 issue.

 

[DrAsik]

I reverted back to Auto, which is ddr333, and it effectively fixed my problem. (Well, the biggest one) Thanks for the help!

 

[attrofy]

Is there any reason ddr400 ram on a ddr400 motherboard wouldn't want to run at 400mhz?

Check your MOBO documentation and forums closely. As of late it seems some memory requires specific timings to get it to run at the rated speeds when used with certain motherboards. These are often noted in the memory manufacturers web pages, but as they can't account for all possibilities, the motherboard site usually has better documentation. Sometimes the settings seem counter-intuitive to produce proper results...