[Trivial Psychic]

So here I was, yesterday evening, watching the tail end of SW6:ROTJ (that's "Return of the Jedi" for those of you who have more of a life than some) on TV, running a P2P program in the background of my PC, and contemplating engaging in some... eh, extra-curricular web browsing, when I looked back from the TV to my PC screen to see a message that I hadn't seen before.  It was the P2P program telling me that it couldn't access the directory it was writing to because it couldn't read the drive.  I also noticed that somehow my XP's control panel had been opened.  I tried to click on the message but it wasn't responding.  In fact, the mouse was the ONLY thing that was responding to my input... KB totally dormant.  I decided to do the old standby, and punch the Rest button.  During the boot-up sequence, I find that the BIOS can't find the S-ATA controller.

To provide a bit of background, my PC was last upgraded about 5 years ago.  At that time, I replaced the Motherboard, RAM, CPU, and Video Card all at once.  The motherboard uses a VIA chipset but pre-dates the inclusion of S-ATA in the chipset itself, though it was given a secondary controller.  I hadn't used that secondary one until about 3 years ago, when I purchased a second Western Digital hard drive to complement my existing one.  My older one was a 160GB, split into 3 partitions... C as the system drive, D (the largest) as the data drive, and E which held a legacy Win98SE, which could be accessed with a dual boot system.  The D drive was becoming full, so I added a 500GB S-ATA drive, which my brother-in-law assisted me in setting up, by providing the proper data cable and showing me which power cable to use.  Listed as H, I've been using this as my primary data drive, taking over in that role from the D partition.  Anyway, back to the main story.

When the BIOS gave me the error message, it gave the option to continue the bootup sequence, but it appeared to hang during the Windows XP loading screen, so I hit the reset again.  I tried looking through the BIOS, I tried loading in safe mode, I even tried going to a command prompt, but it kept hanging.  Visions of a completely dead PC were descending upon me so I decided to just do the bootup and let it sit, hoping that I had been too impatient with loadup.  To pass the time and calm my nerves, I played "Rogue Squadron:II Rogue Leader" for GameCube, on my Wii... something I had been planning on doing anyway.  After a couple missions, I checked on the computer and found that it had gotten past the loading screen and was working normally... or so it seemed.  After entering Windows, I checked My Computer and confirmed my fears... the H drive wasn't listed.  I then checked the hardware profiles and not only wasn't it being detected, the S-ATA controller was reported to be inoperative.  I attempted the suggested fix of removing the controller from the list and rebooting.  After waiting (and playing Wii) through another bootup, and then Windows re detecting the controller and prompting another reboot, I was lesft with the same result.  I then thought to my self "well, at least you have a computer that works... you can pop the case tomorrow and see if there's anything visually wrong, and possibly bypassing the S-ATA controller by switching to the last remaining port on the UDMA-ATA cable."  Just to fill you in, I have a DVD-/+RW drive, and an older CDRW drive, plus the WDC-160GB HDD, which makes 3 devices using the older ribbon type data cables.

Fast forward to this evening, I powered down and disconnected my tower... something that hasn't been done since I moved into this apartment a little over 2 years ago.  After bringing the tower into the center of the living room carpet and removing the case cover (in 3 pieces), I was initially faced with something that I completely expected, but have always tried to forget about... dust, and LOTS of it.  I spent about 10 minutes pulling dust bunnies out of my tower, with just lung power and my own fingers.  After that, I grabbed a Q-Tip from the bathroom and continued pulling dust out from tighter spaces... like from the CPU heat sink, and even the GPU heat-sink.   After unsuccessfully attempting to pull the front cover off the tower so I could pull dust out from there, and after finding that the Q-Tips just weren't long enough to reach into the front space from a hole in the underside, I grabbed an old toothbrush and managed to pull about 90% of the dust from that space.

Once I was satisfied that I'd pulled out as much dust as I could without removing or disconnecting any major components, or risking snapping off the retainer clips for the front panel, and once I'd realized that it'd be more of a job to switch back to a UDMA-ATA cable than I had hoped... I gave several good puffs into the case to knock out any loose dust, and replaced the cover.  Then, just as a last ditch attempt to avoid doing some more serious and potentially more expensive work on my PC, I decided to reconnect it all without any hardware changes and see what would happen.  I felt that if there was a chance that I could avoid another costly major upgrade, then I should investigate it... a chance which I guessed at about 10 to 1 against.  Imagine my complete amazement when the BIOS was able to detect the S-ATA controller and the drive attached, no problem.  I waited and watched, until Windows had completely loaded, then I checked all the settings pertaining to the controller and drive, and they were both working perfectly.

My possible conclusions are as follows:

1 - the on-board controller had overheated and being allowed to cool off for a time allowed it to function again
2 - the buildup of dust bunnies had somehow prevented a contact somewhere and the device could not be read
3 - during my cleaning, I jostled something back into place, be it a cable contact or a transistor within the controller, and the device began to function again.
4 - God answers prayers through one of the above, or something else that I can't fathom.

In any case, my final analysis give me 3 recommendations:

1 - don't leave the computer running 24/7 anymore for fear of another and potentially more severe overheating
2 - pop open and clean out the PC a few times per year from now on
3 - start idly shopping for replacement Motherboard, CPU, RAM and Video Card, so I know exactly which doors I'm gonna start knocking on, should something like this happen again, with more terminal consequences.

I just felt like sharing all this with someone, other than my wife.  She's not too PC savvy and doesn't quite appreciate the blind luck that this kind of self-fix thing represents.  I think I'll call my brother-in-law tomorrow.

Later!

[achtung]

I'm betting on heat issues.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Man when I saw the topic I was thinking the Cyrix 166 problem.  Those processors came with a thermal compound for the heat sync that would break down and melt after a few years.  Solution was to pull the chip, grab a soft toothbrush, little mild dish washing liquid, and some warm water.  Get the gunk off the pins and fixed system.  Must have fixed 50 systems that way. Remember putting the processors on top my monitor to dry. 

[Liberator]

Rule 1 of basic computer care: Never leave your computer on the floor.  Modern computers move significant volumes of air threw they're housings to keep cool so you can play your games or do office work or whatever.  The same principle that lets your vacuum cleaner suck up the dirt clots from the yard also means that your computer is going to suck up stuff light enough for the flow to move and it WILL stick to anything it comes in contact with.

I keep a can of electronics duster($5 at Wal-Mart) on the floor next to the table my computer sits on for just such an emergency.

[Nuke]

i had one of those mystery problems awhile back. one of my backup hard drives was causing the bios to hang during drive detection and the computer would refuse to boot. figuring the drive had self destructed i opened the case and simply unplugged it. after that the computer worked fine and i kinda pretended the problem didnt happen for a couple days. finally i decided to remove the hard drive and take it upstairs for testing. hooked it up to a hard drive enclosure on one of the laptops and surprisingly it worked. everything was intact. so i hit the drive with as many diagnostics as i had available. and couldnt find a damn thing wrong with it. so i put it back in the computer and it worked. i haven't had a problem with it since then. in my case i doubt it was a heat issue since my case is well cooled and nothing is overclocked. there was dust but not enough to block airflow and almost none at all in the heatsinks and on the fans. i eventually blamed the problems on either an accidental capacitor or gnomes.

Rule 1 of basic computer care: Never leave your computer on the floor.  Modern computers move significant volumes of air threw they're housings to keep cool so you can play your games or do office work or whatever.  The same principle that lets your vacuum cleaner suck up the dirt clots from the yard also means that your computer is going to suck up stuff light enough for the flow to move and it WILL stick to anything it comes in contact with.

I keep a can of electronics duster($5 at Wal-Mart) on the floor next to the table my computer sits on for just such an emergency.

i wish that was possible in my case, the case weighs 60 pounds, is huge and very top heavy. back when i lived in juneau i had a much larger desk and had bolted the computer to its surface. i dont think this particle board thift store desk could take the weight. also the 4 foot speakers on the desk have very large magnets which id like to keep away from my hard drives. next time i build a computer i think im gonna use the smallest case possible. canned air is ok but i tend not to use it because its almost impossible to resist the urge to goof off with the stuff.

[Trivial Psychic]

Unfortunately, "on the floor" is the only place in the apartment that I CAN put my PC.  However, I have vowed to my wife, that if we win the lottery, I'm gonna build a computer with a direct feed from the central air and put a HEPA filter in there to gather dust.  I'll also seal up all the joints with some kind of tape... I was thinking Duct Tape, but that just wouldn't fit with the Millionaire's PC image.

[Mongoose]

I've seen people repeatedly cite not keeping computer cases on the floor, but I've yet to have, or really even see, a setup which allows for that to happen.  Maybe if you had some gargantuan room-filling desk, but we don't exactly have the room (or the desire) for that around here.  My own small corner desk is barely big enough to fit my bigass CRT, but even with a flat-screen, I wouldn't be able to get my tower on it.  Even the family's dedicated desk downstairs doesn't have the room for the case to sit anywhere but on the floor underneath it.  There's simply no other option.

And I've found canned air to be all but useless, because as soon as the can starts getting cold after a minute or so of use, the airflow drops dramatically.  I've taken to using an old hair dryer we have lying around (on the cool setting, obviously), which winds up working remarkably well.

[Liberator]

Umm, you are supposed to pulse it.  And also, you aren't supposed to let it get that dusty anyway.  That said I once used one till it had a significant frost buildup.  Thermodynamics can be a ***** sometimes.   Also, if I can clean it up to my satifaction, I'll post a pic of my desk and rig.

[Rodo]

Happens, I tend to do some maintenance on the hardware of the company I work for and have come across this kind of ****ty problem (or others equally puzzling) before, in fact this happens more often than you would know, specially in old or overused equipment.

It's not a good idea to try looking for the source of the problem, I'll just say this to you:
If you had that problem... you might have it again, so start looking for a replacement and back up your stuff before loosing it.

If you want a possible responsible, my instinct says your disc drives or motherboard have like.... 10 months of life or a power cut, whatever happens first (being the disc probably the most likely to be the source of the problem, those things just like to fry themselves up)

[Nuke]

why i never throw away old hardware unless im moving and cant take it all. in fact i collect it for all kinds of experimental purposes and spare parts. old computer is better than no computer. those kinda glitches are a good reminder to back stuff up.

[Trivial Psychic]

If you want a possible responsible, my instinct says your disc drives or motherboard have like.... 10 months of life or a power cut, whatever happens first (being the disc probably the most likely to be the source of the problem, those things just like to fry themselves up)

I'm inclined to think that the problem is with the controller rather than the disk itself, since the BIOS was unable to detect the controller itself.  Furthermore, the P2P software that I was using when it kicked-out gave me no error messages when I used it again afterwords.  No corrupt data or anything.  What that comes down to, is if the controller fails permanently, as long as it doesn't generate any kind of power spike, the HDD should be transferable to any replacement Motherboard and other components, so no backup is likely to be needed.

[Nuke]

the hdd most likely has its own voltage regulators to prevent small spikes. of course regulators only work to a point before they fail. but unless your power supply is failing it is very unlikely youd get more voltage than the regulators should be able to handle.

[jr2]

I wouldn't say leaving a computer on 24/7 is necessarily a bad thing.  Just make sure the fans and air flow are adequate. - i.e., clean it out once in a while.

[Rodo]

Just make sure to back up everything you really need somewhere else, I've seen a hole lot of disc's going kaput and they all start with this kind of weird behaviour.

[Liberator]

Exactly Rodo.  Better safe than sorry.  But to be fair it sounds like his compy had more dust bunnies than exist under my bed.

[redsniper]

Backups are always a good idea.

[pecenipicek]

Trivial, there is also the other option, that is the failure of the sata cable itself (not as in the cable failed but the design of most cables). Most sata cables that come these days, come without any kind of clips, and the connection itself isnt as mechanically secure as some of us would like.


I've had a very similar problem like that not too long ago, it turned out that the sata data cable wiggled itself a bit free, so it wasnt engaging properly all the pins on the MBO.

Got myself 4 sata cables with clips and one end straight, one end L-profile. never had those pop out.





also, as for cleaning PC's and dust bunnies, its an ongoing battle that you will inevitably lose, period, no discussion, its just a matter for how long you can last without cleaning it

[Nuke]

i wrote a paper back when i was in school about how dustbunnies would breed until their numbers were sufficient to take over the world, at which point people would be doomed. needless to say it was very popular. i also think i spent some time in the insane asylum back round the time i put it out.

[Trivial Psychic]

Trivial, there is also the other option, that is the failure of the sata cable itself (not as in the cable failed but the design of most cables). Most sata cables that come these days, come without any kind of clips, and the connection itself isnt as mechanically secure as some of us would like.

I've had a very similar problem like that not too long ago, it turned out that the sata data cable wiggled itself a bit free, so it wasnt engaging properly all the pins on the MBO.

Got myself 4 sata cables with clips and one end straight, one end L-profile. never had those pop out.

It's not that it wasn't detecting the drive, it wasn't detecting the controller.  Before I got the new(ish) S-ATA drive, I still had the controller on the board but nothing was plugged into it.  During bootup it would detect the controller and tell me that nothing was plugged into it.  This time, it couldn't detect the controller itself.  The system knew that it should be there, be cause the BIOS told it so, but it couldn't detect it.

[pecenipicek]

Trivial, there is also the other option, that is the failure of the sata cable itself (not as in the cable failed but the design of most cables). Most sata cables that come these days, come without any kind of clips, and the connection itself isnt as mechanically secure as some of us would like.

I've had a very similar problem like that not too long ago, it turned out that the sata data cable wiggled itself a bit free, so it wasnt engaging properly all the pins on the MBO.

Got myself 4 sata cables with clips and one end straight, one end L-profile. never had those pop out.

It's not that it wasn't detecting the drive, it wasn't detecting the controller.  Before I got the new(ish) S-ATA drive, I still had the controller on the board but nothing was plugged into it.  During bootup it would detect the controller and tell me that nothing was plugged into it.  This time, it couldn't detect the controller itself.  The system knew that it should be there, be cause the BIOS told it so, but it couldn't detect it.

it can cause said effects sometimes. i've seen more bizzare things happen than that...