Re: Hardware problems...my own fault, any advice....?

umwhat wrote:
The first foolish thing I will have done is use 2 OEM Windows operating systems on the one computer. This occurred to me after I heard clacking in the computer and for a month I thought the clacking noise was made by a fan. Then I opened the case and saw sparks flashing each time there was a clack in the PCI slot that held a Sata Raid addon card. Oh well I think...I think I will need a new motherboard...but do I ? I had OEM Windows XP Pro 64bit dual booting with OEM Windows XP Home Edition SP2 and clever me thought a little performance boost might help with a few extra high harddrive voltages and so on and maximum bios settings because I play some games online and inhome.
Would anyone care to make any comments about this situation please?
Now I have removed the sata raid addon card and returned to using Windows XP Home Edition by itself and am using as near to the default bios settings as I can. Also I have 4 front case LEDs and 1 now does not go. It died in the last few days. I'm wondering what may happen next.


Translating that, I think you are saying the SATA RAID card
has a short either near the connector or with some component on the SATA
RAID card itself.

Things to do:

1) Remove SATA RAID card. Purchase a replacement, if you want continued
access to the RAID array.

2) Inspect PCI slot for damage. You might well have burned a pin on the
motherboard connector. If connector is damaged, replace motherboard
(or stop using that PCI slot and label the slot as defective).

It takes a strong light source, and a magnifying glass, to get a good
look at the pins.

3) If PCI slot is not visually damaged, purchase a cheap PCI card for testing.
Some big box computer stores have a barrel full of $10 networking cards.
Purchase a $10 networking card and plug it into the PCI slot. Test the
card function. If the card works, chances are the slot is OK.

If you get that far, you might then consider plugging the replacement
SATA RAID card into the system.

Selecting extra high voltages for Vcore and Vdimm in the BIOS, has nothing
to do with the SATA RAID card. The only way "hard drive voltages" could
get raised, is to open the power supply and fiddle with any potentiometers
in there that adjust +5V/+12V voltages. (Since a lot of power supplies do not
have adjustments inside, don't waste your time looking for such :-) Only a few
power supplies had adjustments.)

So the most likely cause, is the SATA RAID card has a manufacturing
defect. Depending on your luck, the PCI slot could be damaged or not.
Simply not using that PCI slot is one solution. But you'll eventually
have to decide what to do about being able to connect your SATA disks.

Paul
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: K8N - Shared PCI (IRQ) Slots?
    ... I do have a Soundblaster Live 5.1 card and it definitely hates to share IRQs on my old system. ... an ICH5 has eight interrupt ... signals PIRQ_A through PIRQ_H. ... Now, if we look in your manual, we see that PCI slot 1 and PCI ...
    (alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus)
  • Re: Hardware problems...my own fault, any advice....?
    ... I will look at the PCI slot tomorrow. ... I may even have an ethernet card ... Configuration...I felt pretty good but I felt even better when I saw Windows ... I think you are saying the SATA RAID card ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: sound card not detected in PCI slot
    ... Sorry if I missed it in the thread, have you tried the card in the other two ... Sometimes PCI slots share resources with system devices. ... the systems can be a little picky when it come to which PCI slot ... > motherboard further away from the back edge of the motherboard than a PCI ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: New system advice
    ... the lower chamber, they seem to come out adjacent to the last PCI slot and even with a short card, it seemed to be a problem, possibly not allowing use of the last PCI slot position. ... I only use the bottom hard drive cage, and mounted the optional 120mm fan on the upper cage to blow over the graphics card. ... I am just using the system for video editing, Photoshop and Illustrator, and for basic excel, internet, etc. ...
    (alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt)
  • Re: New Lightwave Workstation
    ... Id imagine it's better to install a PCI Sata raid ... | controller card rather than run off the motherboard for performance reasons. ... If you're looking to build just a single workstation, ... As for the cooling questions, I have no good information to provide. ...
    (comp.graphics.apps.lightwave)
Loading