New GFX - HDD problem

[Vinny3]

I recently purchased a new GFX card. One of the top of range new Nvidia cards.

About 2 months ago I also replaced my PSU, which was becoming sluggish and was only an old 300watt. I replaced it with a brand new 600watt PSU, which I thought to be of high quality.

On my old system this ran perfectly fine, however when I installed my new GFX card I found that the system simply would not power on. Turning the power on the psu would turn on the green light on my motherboard to signal there was power but when I pushed the power button nothing happens except for sometimes a half-second spin of the fans.

I then discovered however that when I disconnect the Sata Hard drive from the PSU the PC will boot perfectly (although ofc it wont have anything to boot)

I can only think that the problem must either be an overloaded PSU or a damaged HDD. The problem is both of these are brand new and have never shown any sign of fault before.

I read in my PSU manual that the PSU would automatically shut down if a short circuit was found, which would surely indicate a HDD problem. My other problem is I have no other SATA drives to test this with. Also, If my HDD is damaged I struggle to think when that could have happened during my GFX installation

Any help would be awesome

cheers

Bob

 

[Freestone]

Do you have the replaced graphics card still on hand? If so, does the system power on if you use that card (and SATA drive) instead of the new one?

 

[Vinny3]

Mucked around with it a bit more

seems that no matter what I change, old GFX card, new one, no card, CD drives, no CD drives / peripherals. Nothing I change makes any difference now. If the HDD is plugged in it wont power on, if its unplugged, it will.

Looks like a good old-fashioned HDD failure. Unless anyone has any other thoughts.

 

[Freestone]

You seem to have isolated the problem to the HDD. My only other thoughts would be to ask if you have tried a different SATA power connector from the power supply and SATA data cable? That's stretching it, I know. I suppose the new power supply could have a defect in the circuitry supplying power to the hard drive. Any possibly of trying another power supply with a less power-hungry video card?

 

[wahnula]

Is there another power plug available on the PSU to try connecting to the hard drive? Does it matter if the data cable is plugged/unplugged?

Do you have a choice (older HDDs did) of Molex or SATA power connectors? If so try one or the other.

Remove the HDD and look at the power connections. Is there any visual damage? Without a spare it's a hard problem to troubleshoot. For the record, I've never had a hard drive prevent the machine from POSTing...booting yes but not posting. It's either there or not, unless there's a dead short, which is why I recommend removal & inspection. Maybe there's a tiny bit of schmutz or something visible causing the short.

Try booting it out of the case to see if the short is to case ground.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[Vinny3]

Swapped the new PSU for the old 300watt one.

Without the hard drive plugged in the PC will power on fine. Try it with the HDD connected and theres no power to the CPU, GFX or fans.

Seems that whatever PSU its plugged into the HDD just wont allow any power to the PC. Obviously some sort of short.

I checked for visual damage and have used 3 different sata power cables and no change.

Unless I can find some sort of obviously repairable damage with the HDD it looks like its just failed.

Thanks for all the help guys

 

[BadBigBen]

With the new PSU and the HDD attached... unplug the power cable from the wall or the back of the PSU, then hold the POWER BUTTON of the PC for a minute or so... then reapply the power, and see if it will POST...

also change the SATA cable, just to eliminate it out of the question...

if this does nothing, then take out the HDD, put it in the anti-static bag that the new GFX card came in, take it to a local PC shop and have them test it...

my thoughts are the same that the drive is probably toast...

I've seen this happen before, but that was IDE and there it was the cable shorting out...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[paparazi]

This is typical Hard drive damage caused by a power supply spike. The Hard Drive is effectively putting it's live feed straight to ground and effectively tripping the PSU's fail safe circuitry.
How this has happened and at what point in the upgrade is hard to tell.
Did you at any point try to run the system with the new graphics card installed but running on the old 300watt PSU?
If you did then I would say that PSU has popped and caused the spike that has damaged the hard drive.
The consequence is the hard drive is almost definately foobar I'm afraid and you will have to be very careful about other components as this spike may well result in other failures over the coming days/weeks even after the known issues are resolved.
Martin


On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep