Tech input needed please

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  1. Posts : 131
    Win7 64
       #1

    Tech input needed please


    My system should be listed in my profile if there are questions about my hardware.

    This is a 5 year old system that keeps rocking and playing all the latest games which is good since I cannot afford a new build now but I have had some issues lately and want to see if the opinion I have that the motherboard is failing sounds about right to you guys.

    I will describe my issues and what I did and then what ELSE happened lol.

    I have 3 hard drives- 1 system, 1 storage, and 1 for system image backup. My system drive is about 1.5-2 years old and the other two are 5 years old and have been storage related drives for that period of time so not too much heavy use on them.

    About 3 months ago my storage drive kept vanishing when PC wakes from sleep and would reappear if I rebooted. Sometimes when it woke up it would act like it had just been connected like a ram drive and asking me what I wanted to do with the drive (auto play menu). My anti virus also asked it I wanted to scan it. When it did that the drive would be there, if it didn't give me the auto play menu then the drive was either there or not.

    I decided to pop in a spare drive I had to see if the drive was bad causing this issue or something more sinister, even checked cabling, etc, etc. I hooked the spare drive in and rebooted and low and behold I have no video, no BIOS screen, no sound, absolutely nothing! Rechecked all connections and everything was good...I work on PC's so I know what all to check and I covered it all. I was also getting a POST beep that was 1 long 3 short which indicates video error...swapped vid cards and issue remained.

    The PC was like that for 2 days and I finally totally removed the motherboard thinking I might have created or had a grounding issue that appeared with me messing around in there. Put just the basics back in to see if I could get past POST or get a different error. I also did different ram configs until finally I removed 2 sticks from the B banks and only had a vid card in the #2 PCIe slot and no more video error. Also cleared CMOS. Then all the sudden I get the BIOS screen so I set all my settings cut it off then hooked the system drive up and inserted #1 video card (SLI setup).

    This time I had no video again so I removed that card and just used card #2 and got into Windows. It will run with both cards in but slot #1 produces no video and card does have power. I have swapped the cards also and they both work. This where I am now.

    I was looking through the event viewer and seeing multiple HAL, Volsnap, Nvstor64, print spool, and the list goes on and on. The Nvstor64 error I have read about and I have hundreds of entries for that one happening every second for like a minute and I assume this is happening when PC wakes up. This error also was present before the vanishing hard drive problem.

    My printer won't print also so I am sure it has to do with spool error.

    Now my question that I already think I know the answer to is....are these signs of a failing motherboard? I mean the #1 PCIe slot will not work at all so this is an issue and in the last 2 days I have been avoiding playing games too much because I need to back up some data I think. I have my eye on a replacement motherboard identical to mine but just wanted to see if someone else thought these were signs of a mb going bad?
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 21,004
    Desk1 7 Home Prem / Desk2 10 Pro / Main lap Asus ROG 10 Pro 2 laptop Toshiba 7 Pro Asus P2520 7 & 10
       #2

    Hiyya edilee at five years old mate I would be taking a close look at the PSU for starters Plus I would be checking out the caps on the board and any signs of scorch marks - I am assuming you keep the interior reasonably clean too a you work on machines.

    I would also be unplugging everything and reinserting the RAM sticks GPU card etc jst to make sure they are not just dirtied sockets / slots.

    Now although the PSU comes up ok with volts mate doesn't mean it has sufficient current.

    While yo are at it are the temps ok in the CPU and mobo ok check it with Specy and see


    http://www.piriform.com/speccy/download
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 131
    Win7 64
    Thread Starter
       #3

    ICit2lol said:
    Hiyya edilee at five years old mate I would be taking a close look at the PSU for starters Plus I would be checking out the caps on the board and any signs of scorch marks - I am assuming you keep the interior reasonably clean too a you work on machines.

    I would also be unplugging everything and reinserting the RAM sticks GPU card etc jst to make sure they are not just dirtied sockets / slots.

    Now although the PSU comes up ok with volts mate doesn't mean it has sufficient current.

    While yo are at it are the temps ok in the CPU and mobo ok check it with Specy and see


    http://www.piriform.com/speccy/download
    Temps are all dead on and I did check some of the PSU connectors and all tested good but of course that main motherboard connector could be lacking....might see if I have another PSU capable of hooking to this board for testing.

    When I removed the board I cleaned everything. I have AIDA64 for monitoring temps and volts but might try Speccy as well.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 131
    Win7 64
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Ran Speccy and it give me the info AIDA does but I did notice both of them show the one PCIe slot that won't read my card as available so motherboard is still reading the slot is there.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 21,004
    Desk1 7 Home Prem / Desk2 10 Pro / Main lap Asus ROG 10 Pro 2 laptop Toshiba 7 Pro Asus P2520 7 & 10
       #5

    Well if you can hookup a spare PSU that should at least eliminate that avenue and I am assuming that you have done all the drivers BIOS updates etc?


    Just another couple of things if you haven't got them as the AV asked you to scan if that was the only scan you ran if so try these


    http://www.superantispyware.com/


    http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

    If it means going the whole hog maybe a memtest and some hard drive scans too

    http://www.memtest.org/ < you probably know but you will need to make a bootable disk for this.

    SeaTools | Seagate




      My Computer

  6.    #6

    I agree with John that the PSU should be looked at to react that way just from plugging in a replacement HD.

    But the problem with the first HD disappearing makes me wonder if you ran a Disk Check on it. I would also test it's surface condition with the maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan. If a HD interferes in any way it may need to have boot code wiped using Diskpart Clean Command after moving data off.

    Other Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 to touch all bases and gather clues.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 131
    Win7 64
    Thread Starter
       #7

    ICit2lol said:
    Well if you can hookup a spare PSU that should at least eliminate that avenue and I am assuming that you have done all the drivers BIOS updates etc?


    Just another couple of things if you haven't got them as the AV asked you to scan if that was the only scan you ran if so try these


    http://www.superantispyware.com/


    http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

    If it means going the whole hog maybe a memtest and some hard drive scans too

    http://www.memtest.org/ < you probably know but you will need to make a bootable disk for this.

    SeaTools | Seagate



    Anytime I hook up any removable drive my AV asks if I want to scan it...this is normal.

    gregrocker said:
    I agree with John that the PSU should be looked at to react that way just from plugging in a replacement HD.

    But the problem with the first HD disappearing makes me wonder if you ran a Disk Check on it. I would also test it's surface condition with the maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan. If a HD interferes in any way it may need to have boot code wiped using Diskpart Clean Command after moving data off.

    Other Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 to touch all bases and gather clues.
    I did use the WD hard drive tool and totally wiped it (wrote zeros to entire drive) and performed quick and extended tests on it and it checked out and passed all the tests. It was then re-introduced to the system and formatted and was sitting there empty and still kept disappearing. Now tonight I did hook up that spare drive and am going to give it a couple days and see if it disappears also.

    I did remember I have a lower watt ATX PSU here and I will hook it up bare as I can and see if the card works in slot #1. All monitoring programs see the slot as active and empty so the slot at least is doing something.

    So many issues the last couple weeks and it is just too many all at same time....some of which just don't make sense. Will run PSU tests tomorrow evening. All my monitoring software shows all voltages are good and in their ranges but PSU's can be finicky.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 21,004
    Desk1 7 Home Prem / Desk2 10 Pro / Main lap Asus ROG 10 Pro 2 laptop Toshiba 7 Pro Asus P2520 7 & 10
       #8

    edilee mate try a surface test on that drive with Partition Wizard it scans for physical defects not just corrupt files etc Did you try the Seatools one mate - horses for courses they say:)

    http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 131
    Win7 64
    Thread Starter
       #9

    ICit2lol said:
    edilee mate try a surface test on that drive with Partition Wizard it scans for physical defects not just corrupt files etc Did you try the Seatools one mate - horses for courses they say:)

    http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
    Will do it. So far the spare drive has showed up everytime after resuming from sleep so maybe that drive was on its way out. Shame cause the spare is 250g and the other was a 500.
      My Computer

  10.    #10

    The preferred method if available is to test the suspect HD using Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (CD) extended CD scan which may have repair capabilities and will let you know its exact condition. Your reply earlier is that you used this to wipe the HD only, which is not thorough. Please follow all steps.

    If pass, then move data off to wipe the HD with Diskpart Clean Command, create a full disk partition to run Disk Check.
      My Computer


 
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