Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

[dood]

I'm trying to figure out what's going on with a PC that I built some years ago. I've had to reload or repair Windows XP on this PC no less than 7 times since I built it. Each time, it had either gone through a power outage, or was just shut down, and then would no longer boot up, citing missing system files. We put it on a UPS and even replaced the hard drive. Yesterday, I get another call with the same problem from them.

Power went out, UPS kept it up, but was starting to go into hibernate. User woke up to the UPS beeping, and went over to shut the computer down. In the meantime, it also tried to start hibernating. Computer shut itself off, but the next morning would not boot back up.

I've yet to be able to figure this out, obviously. I've never had a computer so sensitive to not being shut down properly. I'm starting to suspect the write caching setting, so once I get it rebuilt or repaired, I'm going to change that setting.

Again, power outages are the most trouble for this computer, but it also has done an orderly normal shutdown, and then not booted up the next day. The client is getting frustrated, I'm getting frustrated, and my reputation as a system builder is getting tarnished. I've built dozens of computers, and never had one be this troublesome.

Any thoughts?

[Wizard]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

This relates to the quality of PSU hold up times and mainboard's design to handle noise. This also cause output to be more noisier as well. Ditto input filters as well.

Second, generic boards is very noisy and ill-tempered to this kind of thing and I no longer allow this.

Can you remember what kind of PSU and mainboard in particular?

Cheers, Wizard

[MixMasta]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

You are claiming that the hard drive has missing or corrupted files because the psu is noisy?

[ratdude747]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

no, the mainboard is making the hd do screwy things.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

Check the small caps around drive controller chip.
- Around the chipset if it's integrated.
In fact just check around the chipset anyway.

Is the drive one of those early PMR [Perpendicular Recording] drives?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpendicular_recording
I've seen complaints about those [particularly Seagate] about the data just going *poof* after a short with no obvious reason - BUT the drives always pass all tests.
- Speculation was that the smaller 'spot' for data bits wasn't large enough to prevent the charge from bleeding off to nearby 'spots' over time.
- As in: a "1" next to a "0" will neutralize each other because the charges are packed too close together.
- I've mentioned this before and people cried bullshit, but you know what, I keep seeing problems that suggest it's the case show up. [Not just here.]

PMR would also need tighter tolerances in the mechanicals to accurately hit those smaller 'spots'. Moderately worn bearings may be enough to fubar a drive.
.

[Wizard]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

Correct. Cause and effect.

Cheers, Wizard

[MixMasta]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

Well he already swapped the hard drive with a different one and has the same issue. Hopefully it wasn't an identical model. Please tell me you've done the basics such as running memtest86+ and have swapped the hard drive cable for a new one. As far as you know it never locks or BSOD?

[Wizard]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

Correct. Cause and effect. Noise and quality of components, quality of design.

Seagate issues was only particularly to one or two series (I think xxxx.8 or .9 even .10. Does matter how well designed the mainboard is and type of chipset used, (VIA and nForce are voted out by mine opinion only). Second, *all* hard drives *does not* like noise. Same with low quality mainboard as well.

Power supply have to have enough hold up time to carry through dips and surges. I had been through number of these once in awhile and my PCs all kinds do not go bad even they did fall out and had to turn back on.

For a time, I had DX540 and diamondmax 8 series (mostly thin ones) that worked fine regardless but I was uneasy with them. Eventually I traced to a bad caps in one of PSUs after I took all the Maxtors out of usage on all machines just for safety sake also.

Cheers, Wizard

[dood]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

Motherboard is a Biostar NF4U AM2G, all caps of known good brand and intact. Again, it's been doing it since new. PSU is a FSP400-60THN, Hard drive has been replaced... was originally a Seagate, is now a WD 500gb drive. Drive cables have been replaced. I just ordered replacement memory and will be trying that next.

All hardware tests good under multiple day tests. Issues seem completely random. I'm about to give them $150 for the PC and tell them to order a Dell. I'm so sick of troubleshooting this PC.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

If you've tried a different drive and have the same problem look at those small caps.
They could be corrupting signals to the drive.

[dood]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

BTW - Current memory is OCZ. (2) 512mb chips in dual channel.

New memory ordered is Crucial (2) x 1gb.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

You tried swapping the PSU?

[gdement]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

I agree with above that it must be either the PSU and/or motherboard/drive controller.
Those are apparently behaving badly when the line voltage goes low as power is failing.
Can you adjust the voltage thresholds on the UPS? Giving it a stricter tolerance might solve it.

Or maybe the PSU isn't happy with the UPS' output, so when the UPS engages it leads to corruption. Might be worth checking if the board voltages appear to be in spec while running from the UPS.

[dood]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

I found the original invoice in my Newegg account. The PC was built in March of 2007. The PSU is original. I'll be pulling it out and open to see how the caps are. The Motherboard does have OST for all the small caps on the board. The main VRM are UCC. The original drive was a 7200.10 200gb perpendicular. That was replaced not long ago (not sure when), after we'd been having all these issues. I thought the drive might be corrupting the data.

Again, it's not always a power outage that causes this, it just happens more frequently as a result of a power outage. It also has happened in the past when the system was simply shut down properly. Also, the system has not always been protected by a UPS. After a few of these occasions being at outages, I recommended they invest in a UPS.

This was the first outage with the UPS, and I think the problem may have been caused by the customer attempting to "shut down" the computer while it was attempting to hibernate. However, even if this was the cause, the customer is sick of their computer doing this and wants me to do something about it.

[Wizard]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

nForce4 series chipset is known to eat data even capacitors were replaced. Dump it out for Intel or AMD.

When I got wind of this issue long ago when I was running nForce2 (good chip) I did not upgrade to any nForce series till price got affordable for Intel stuff which was couple years later.

Cheers, Wizard

[370forlife]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

Is this psu APFC? If so, is the UPS a true sine wave ups?

I remember reading somewhere that some of the cheaper and smaller units, even from good manufacturers, are not true sine waves and that can mess with APFC units, even to the point of blowing them up.

[dood]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

PSU has no APFC. It's all teapo caps from start to finish, btw.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

Is XP set up to use Microsoft's drivers, or have Nvidia's drivers been installed? I've heard of problems with the latter and hard drives. Also the Nvidia drivers won't uninstall unless the files are removed from the Nvidia folder.

I also read something about a memory loader prefetch problem causing trouble during boot, and removing a registry key disables the prefetch.

When the system can't boot normally, how far does it get? Can you run CHKDSK from the recovery console or a startup disk or enter Safe Mode and run SFC?

[Junk Parts]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

I'm the novice here but why not just turn off the hibernation function? Check the bios settings. I think there are settings to make the PC dump the ram and cpu contents back to the hard drive while the system is going down in a power failure. I know that there is a setting to tell the system to stay off after a power failure. Is the system overclocked? Have you switched out the cpu for a known good one? Can you underclock the system a click? I don't know. I'm still the novice here.

[gdement]

Re: Computer seems hyper-sensitive to power outages

The nForce ATA drivers do have a bad history, if you're using it I'd switch to the generic Microsoft driver.
I remember having some problems with it when I first tried the nVidia ATA driver on an nForce2 board. After reading about the problems I switched to the Microsoft driver and never had any issues since on any nForce2's.

A long time later I downloaded drivers for some nForce2 Gateway board. I noticed that Gateway completely omits the ATA driver from the installer.