HP Pavillion disk read failure

R

root

Guest
I picked up and HP Pavillion which is just over
one year old. The guy who sold it said it just
needed an new hard disk. Not true. I put a
new drive in it and installed my OS. After an
hour or so the system couldn't read the disk.
I shut it down and what I think is the Southbridge
chip was very hot. It had a small passive heat
sink which I removed, cleaned the surfaces, and
put on fresh conductive paste. I also affixed
a small fan to the heat sink. After this I was
able to run the machine for three or four hours
before the same disk read failures started.

I replaced the power supply with one known
to be good and the problems came back after
three hours or so of operation.


Just now I removed the CPU heat sink/fan and
renewed the heat sink compound. The CPU was
at room temperature, so I don't think this
is the problem.

None of the other components on the motherboard
is even warm to the touch. Even the disk drive
was at room temperature.

I can't think of anything other than heat that
would explain the problem, but then I don't
see how the machine could run for several hours
and without overheating.

Any ideas?
 
On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:11:13 +0000 (UTC), root wrote:

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Get your goddamned money back?
--
Don't FUCK with me. I'm tuff. And stupid but don't dare FUCK with me.
 
root wrote:

root <NoEMail@home.org> wrote:

I picked up and HP Pavillion which is just over
one year old. The guy who sold it said it just
needed an new hard disk. Not true. I put a
new drive in it and installed my OS. After an
hour or so the system couldn't read the disk.
I shut it down and what I think is the Southbridge
chip was very hot. It had a small passive heat
sink which I removed, cleaned the surfaces, and
put on fresh conductive paste. I also affixed
a small fan to the heat sink. After this I was
able to run the machine for three or four hours
before the same disk read failures started.

I replaced the power supply with one known
to be good and the problems came back after
three hours or so of operation.


Just now I removed the CPU heat sink/fan and
renewed the heat sink compound. The CPU was
at room temperature, so I don't think this
is the problem.

None of the other components on the motherboard
is even warm to the touch. Even the disk drive
was at room temperature.

I can't think of anything other than heat that
would explain the problem, but then I don't
see how the machine could run for several hours
and without overheating.

Any ideas?


I forgot to add, this is a model a6720y desktop
Pavillion. It has an AMD x4 @2.2GHz, 6Gb of
memory, and no IDE drives.

you got burned, what Can I say!
Click to expand...

My son had a PC that went south when a high performance
video card was installed over the cheaper one that he
had in the PC. It worked and all how ever, the PC would
some times Reset, black out etc.. to the point where it
wouldn't reboot if you didn't let it rest. It turns out that
a support chip on the MB was running very hot with this card
in it.. Remove the card, and it was fine..
There were no options on the card to config for this problem.
Guess the buss speed the card was attempting to operate at was
killing the chip!

Oh well.
 
root <NoEMail@home.org> wrote:
I picked up and HP Pavillion which is just over
one year old. The guy who sold it said it just
needed an new hard disk. Not true. I put a
new drive in it and installed my OS. After an
hour or so the system couldn't read the disk.
I shut it down and what I think is the Southbridge
chip was very hot. It had a small passive heat
sink which I removed, cleaned the surfaces, and
put on fresh conductive paste. I also affixed
a small fan to the heat sink. After this I was
able to run the machine for three or four hours
before the same disk read failures started.

I replaced the power supply with one known
to be good and the problems came back after
three hours or so of operation.


Just now I removed the CPU heat sink/fan and
renewed the heat sink compound. The CPU was
at room temperature, so I don't think this
is the problem.

None of the other components on the motherboard
is even warm to the touch. Even the disk drive
was at room temperature.

I can't think of anything other than heat that
would explain the problem, but then I don't
see how the machine could run for several hours
and without overheating.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
I forgot to add, this is a model a6720y desktop
Pavillion. It has an AMD x4 @2.2GHz, 6Gb of
memory, and no IDE drives.
 
root Inscribed thus:

I picked up and HP Pavillion which is just over
one year old. The guy who sold it said it just
needed an new hard disk. Not true. I put a
new drive in it and installed my OS. After an
hour or so the system couldn't read the disk.
I shut it down and what I think is the Southbridge
chip was very hot. It had a small passive heat
sink which I removed, cleaned the surfaces, and
put on fresh conductive paste. I also affixed
a small fan to the heat sink. After this I was
able to run the machine for three or four hours
before the same disk read failures started.

I replaced the power supply with one known
to be good and the problems came back after
three hours or so of operation.


Just now I removed the CPU heat sink/fan and
renewed the heat sink compound. The CPU was
at room temperature, so I don't think this
is the problem.

None of the other components on the motherboard
is even warm to the touch. Even the disk drive
was at room temperature.

I can't think of anything other than heat that
would explain the problem, but then I don't
see how the machine could run for several hours
and without overheating.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Check for "Bad Caps" around the chip. Not just high ESR, low or non
existent capacitance. Though I must admit I've seen a few with holes
blown through the encapsulation.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.
 
On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:11:13 +0000, root wrote:

I picked up and HP Pavillion which is just over one year old. The guy
who sold it said it just needed an new hard disk. Not true. I put a new
drive in it and installed my OS. After an hour or so the system couldn't
read the disk. I shut it down and what I think is the Southbridge chip
was very hot. It had a small passive heat sink which I removed, cleaned
the surfaces, and put on fresh conductive paste. I also affixed a small
fan to the heat sink. After this I was able to run the machine for three
or four hours before the same disk read failures started.

I replaced the power supply with one known to be good and the problems
came back after three hours or so of operation.


Just now I removed the CPU heat sink/fan and renewed the heat sink
compound. The CPU was at room temperature, so I don't think this is the
problem.

None of the other components on the motherboard is even warm to the
touch. Even the disk drive was at room temperature.

I can't think of anything other than heat that would explain the
problem, but then I don't see how the machine could run for several
hours and without overheating.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Sell it.



--
Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse
 
Jamie <jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1lpa_@charter.net> wrote:
you got burned, what Can I say!
Click to expand...
Not really, the computer cost $7. I got 6Gb of DDR2
memory, a sata DVD writer, case and 300w power supply.
 
On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:11:13 +0000 (UTC), root <NoEMail@home.org>
wrote:

I picked up and HP Pavillion which is just over
one year old. The guy who sold it said it just
needed an new hard disk. Not true. I put a
new drive in it and installed my OS. After an
hour or so the system couldn't read the disk.
Click to expand...
Let me guess(tm). SATA2 drive?

Look into the BIOS CMOS setup and see if it has any setting for the
SATA drive that look like "ATA compatibility mode". If so turn it on.
I'm finding that some drives need this setting, while others work
without it. Same problem on Dell desktops. No experience with the
a6720y so I can't offer my usual proclamation that everything that HP
made in the last 5 years is junk. The lack of replacement boards on
eBay is a good sign. Usually, when there are a mess of defective
motherboards, the dead ones appear on eBay in an effort to recover
some of the expense of replacement.

Also, move the original drive over to another machine and try the hard
disk drive. Internal is best as you can use S.M.A.R.T. to determine
if it's dead or about to die. You'll need the OS recovery partition
from the drive in order to install on a new drive, or just order the
recovery DVD's.



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 13:00:45 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

Let me guess(tm). SATA2 drive?
Click to expand...
Also, make sure you have the SATA data cable shoved into SATA port 0,
that you have that SATA ID enabled in the BIOS CMOS setup, and that
you have it set to boot from that ID.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
root wrote:
I picked up and HP Pavillion which is just over
one year old. The guy who sold it said it just
needed an new hard disk. Not true. I put a
new drive in it and installed my OS. After an
hour or so the system couldn't read the disk.
I shut it down and what I think is the Southbridge
chip was very hot. It had a small passive heat
sink which I removed, cleaned the surfaces, and
put on fresh conductive paste. I also affixed
a small fan to the heat sink. After this I was
able to run the machine for three or four hours
before the same disk read failures started.

I replaced the power supply with one known
to be good and the problems came back after
three hours or so of operation.

Just now I removed the CPU heat sink/fan and
renewed the heat sink compound. The CPU was
at room temperature, so I don't think this
is the problem.

None of the other components on the motherboard
is even warm to the touch. Even the disk drive
was at room temperature.

I can't think of anything other than heat that
would explain the problem, but then I don't
see how the machine could run for several hours
and without overheating.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Any time you see wonky behavior from a PC, check
for bad caps. Around the processor is a prime
area of concern (ripple currents can be tens of
amps, easily, so ESR becomes a big issue).

You can also check *inside* the power supply for
similar problems.

I started a list of (cap and PC) manufacturers that
I have encountered this problem and gave up as it
became too long to track effectively (some I
just recognize instinctively, now).

Note what the machine is doing at the time (idle vs.
working hard, etc.).

Cold spray (whatever form of politically/legally correct
"freon" is en vogue) can help if you suspect a solid
state device.

The components with heat sinks are probably *expected*
to run warm -- don't be surprised if they *do*! :>

Does a quick cycling of power (completely removed before
being restored) give you another "3 hours" of use? Or,
does the problem come back "quickly" (i.e., if it
is thermal, it should come back quickly; if it is a
software problem, it could take 3 more hours for a
memory leak, etc. to manifest)
 
Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote:
Let me guess(tm). SATA2 drive?
Click to expand...
Yes, the drive I used is a Seagate 1Tb Barracuda. I pulled it
from a working system, the drive is known to be good.

Look into the BIOS CMOS setup and see if it has any setting for the
SATA drive that look like "ATA compatibility mode". If so turn it on.
I'm finding that some drives need this setting, while others work
without it. Same problem on Dell desktops. No experience with the
a6720y so I can't offer my usual proclamation that everything that HP
made in the last 5 years is junk. The lack of replacement boards on
eBay is a good sign. Usually, when there are a mess of defective
motherboards, the dead ones appear on eBay in an effort to recover
some of the expense of replacement.
Click to expand...
I have a choice of IDE mode, RAID, or AHCI. I have tried both
RAID and AHCI, with no difference in the time before the
read errors begin. Remember, the damn system will run for
several hours with intense disk activity, then I'll start
getting i/o device errors and the disk is unreadable.
 
root <NoEMail@home.org> wrote:
Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote:

Let me guess(tm). SATA2 drive?


Yes, the drive I used is a Seagate 1Tb Barracuda. I pulled it
from a working system, the drive is known to be good.

Look into the BIOS CMOS setup and see if it has any setting for the
SATA drive that look like "ATA compatibility mode". If so turn it on.
I'm finding that some drives need this setting, while others work
without it. Same problem on Dell desktops. No experience with the
a6720y so I can't offer my usual proclamation that everything that HP
made in the last 5 years is junk. The lack of replacement boards on
eBay is a good sign. Usually, when there are a mess of defective
motherboards, the dead ones appear on eBay in an effort to recover
some of the expense of replacement.

I have a choice of IDE mode, RAID, or AHCI. I have tried both
RAID and AHCI, with no difference in the time before the
read errors begin. Remember, the damn system will run for
several hours with intense disk activity, then I'll start
getting i/o device errors and the disk is unreadable.
Click to expand...
I just switched the mode to IDE. The up-time was less
than an hour. I think it is time to salvage what I
can from the machine.
 
stratus46@yahoo.com wrote:
Does a quick cycling of power (completely removed before
being restored) give you another "3 hours" of use? Or,
does the problem come back "quickly" (i.e., if it
is thermal, it should come back quickly; if it is a
software problem, it could take 3 more hours for a
memory leak, etc. to manifest)

Agreed on caps as I replace lots of them. Thing is, bad caps usually
work better (less bad) when warmed up. I just tossed the Samsung DLP
set because of a thermal problem. Nearly all the caps were new and the
few that remained tested good. It too would run several hours before
quitting.
Click to expand...
Note that I asked for an assessment of what the circumstances
leading up to -- and subsequent to -- the crash. I.e., it may
not be "heat" but, rather, *what* the machine was doing (and had
*been* doing) prior to the crash.

I've had machines that wouldn't handle a "fresh install"
but would run fine if you installed a prebuilt disk in them.
Other machines ran fine until *lots* of memory was needed.
etc.

Blindly chasing heat (or caps or ... ) without a handle
on a *reproducible* crash scenario is just futility...
 
On Dec 12, 2:35 pm, D Yuniskis <not.going.to...@seen.com> wrote:
root wrote:
I picked up and HP Pavillion which is just over
one year old. The guy who sold it said it just
needed an new hard disk. Not true. I put a
new drive in it and installed my OS. After an
hour or so the system couldn't read the disk.
I shut it down and what I think is the Southbridge
chip was very hot. It had a small passive heat
sink which I removed, cleaned the surfaces, and
put on fresh conductive paste. I also affixed
a small fan to the heat sink. After this I was
able to run the machine for three or four hours
before the same disk read failures started.

I replaced the power supply with one known
to be good and the problems came back after
three hours or so of operation.

Just now I removed the CPU heat sink/fan and
renewed the heat sink compound. The CPU was
at room temperature, so I don't think this
is the problem.

None of the other components on the motherboard
is even warm to the touch. Even the disk drive
was at room temperature.

I can't think of anything other than heat that
would explain the problem, but then I don't
see how the machine could run for several hours
and without overheating.

Any ideas?

Any time you see wonky behavior from a PC, check
for bad caps.  Around the processor is a prime
area of concern (ripple currents can be tens of
amps, easily, so ESR becomes a big issue).

You can also check *inside* the power supply for
similar problems.

I started a list of (cap and PC) manufacturers that
I have encountered this problem and gave up as it
became too long to track effectively (some I
just recognize instinctively, now).

Note what the machine is doing at the time (idle vs.
working hard, etc.).

Cold spray (whatever form of politically/legally correct
"freon" is en vogue) can help if you suspect a solid
state device.

The components with heat sinks are probably *expected*
to run warm -- don't be surprised if they *do*!  :

Does a quick cycling of power (completely removed before
being restored) give you another "3 hours" of use?  Or,
does the problem come back "quickly" (i.e., if it
is thermal, it should come back quickly; if it is a
software problem, it could take 3 more hours for a
memory leak, etc. to manifest)
Click to expand...
Agreed on caps as I replace lots of them. Thing is, bad caps usually
work better (less bad) when warmed up. I just tossed the Samsung DLP
set because of a thermal problem. Nearly all the caps were new and the
few that remained tested good. It too would run several hours before
quitting.

G˛
 
I'm sorry, I didn't see the stratus post:

D Yuniskis <not.going.to.be@seen.com> wrote:
stratus46@yahoo.com wrote:
Does a quick cycling of power (completely removed before
being restored) give you another "3 hours" of use? Or,
does the problem come back "quickly" (i.e., if it
is thermal, it should come back quickly; if it is a
software problem, it could take 3 more hours for a
memory leak, etc. to manifest)
Click to expand...
No, quick power cycle gives nothing. The system won't
boot up at all. After a few minutes of OFF, the system
will run a few minutes. The first failure followed
a fresh install. I took a nap and came back after
a couple of hours and the system wouldn't read the
disk. Subsequent failures happened during attempts
to copy several tens of Gb of files from a backup
disk to the fresh install. After a couple of hours
(or more) the copies would result in i/o error and
then the system was dead.

Agreed on caps as I replace lots of them. Thing is, bad caps usually
work better (less bad) when warmed up. I just tossed the Samsung DLP
set because of a thermal problem. Nearly all the caps were new and the
few that remained tested good. It too would run several hours before
quitting.

Note that I asked for an assessment of what the circumstances
leading up to -- and subsequent to -- the crash. I.e., it may
not be "heat" but, rather, *what* the machine was doing (and had
*been* doing) prior to the crash.
Click to expand...
I hope I have answered your question.

I've had machines that wouldn't handle a "fresh install"
but would run fine if you installed a prebuilt disk in them.
Other machines ran fine until *lots* of memory was needed.
etc.

Blindly chasing heat (or caps or ... ) without a handle
on a *reproducible* crash scenario is just futility...
Click to expand...

The machine is only one year old. All the caps look
brand new, not a bulge among them. I've run into
a failure of a bridge chip before with almost
identical symptoms, although the older bridge chip
shut down much faster than this one. In the case
of the older bridge chip, the heat sink was held
in place by double sided sticky tape. After a while
the tape degraded and the heat sink wasn't firmly
attached to the chip.
 
root wrote:
I'm sorry, I didn't see the stratus post:

D Yuniskis <not.going.to.be@seen.com> wrote:
stratus46@yahoo.com wrote:
Does a quick cycling of power (completely removed before
being restored) give you another "3 hours" of use? Or,
does the problem come back "quickly" (i.e., if it
is thermal, it should come back quickly; if it is a
software problem, it could take 3 more hours for a
memory leak, etc. to manifest)


No, quick power cycle gives nothing. The system won't
boot up at all. After a few minutes of OFF, the system
will run a few minutes. The first failure followed
a fresh install. I took a nap and came back after
a couple of hours and the system wouldn't read the
disk. Subsequent failures happened during attempts
to copy several tens of Gb of files from a backup
disk to the fresh install. After a couple of hours
(or more) the copies would result in i/o error and
then the system was dead.

Agreed on caps as I replace lots of them. Thing is, bad caps usually
work better (less bad) when warmed up. I just tossed the Samsung DLP
set because of a thermal problem. Nearly all the caps were new and the
few that remained tested good. It too would run several hours before
quitting.

Note that I asked for an assessment of what the circumstances
leading up to -- and subsequent to -- the crash. I.e., it may
not be "heat" but, rather, *what* the machine was doing (and had
*been* doing) prior to the crash.


I hope I have answered your question.

I've had machines that wouldn't handle a "fresh install"
but would run fine if you installed a prebuilt disk in them.
Other machines ran fine until *lots* of memory was needed.
etc.

Blindly chasing heat (or caps or ... ) without a handle
on a *reproducible* crash scenario is just futility...

The machine is only one year old. All the caps look
brand new, not a bulge among them. I've run into
a failure of a bridge chip before with almost
identical symptoms, although the older bridge chip
shut down much faster than this one. In the case
of the older bridge chip, the heat sink was held
in place by double sided sticky tape. After a while
the tape degraded and the heat sink wasn't firmly
attached to the chip.
Click to expand...

A lot of things can cause problems, starting with a marginal power
supply.


--
For the last time: I am not a mad scientist, I'm just a very ticked off
scientist!!!
 
On Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:39:10 +0000, root wrote:

The machine is only one year old. All the caps look brand new, not a
bulge among them. I've run into a failure of a bridge chip before with
almost identical symptoms, although the older bridge chip shut down much
faster than this one. In the case of the older bridge chip, the heat
sink was held in place by double sided sticky tape. After a while the
tape degraded and the heat sink wasn't firmly attached to the chip.
Click to expand...

I have two Intel boards with failed IDE. Both SATA and PATA ports out.
It's not an uncommon problem. Buy a PCI card SATA controller and your
troubles are over.



--
Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse
 
In article <ie4iiu$vpg$1@news.albasani.net>, root <NoEMail@home.org> wrote:
I'm sorry, I didn't see the stratus post:

No, quick power cycle gives nothing. The system won't
boot up at all. After a few minutes of OFF, the system
will run a few minutes. The first failure followed
a fresh install. I took a nap and came back after
a couple of hours and the system wouldn't read the
disk. Subsequent failures happened during attempts
to copy several tens of Gb of files from a backup
disk to the fresh install. After a couple of hours
(or more) the copies would result in i/o error and
then the system was dead.
Click to expand...
Do you have more details on specifically what sort of
I/O error is being reported? This might help pinpoint
just what's going wrong.

On some systems (e.g. Linux) the kernel logs would prove
helpful... the disk driver will log the actual values of
the disk's status register, as well as status from the
motherboard's disk controller.

This information could help distinguish actual on-the-disk
faults (which from your previous posts seem like they aren't the
issue), from unexpected disk resets (which could indicate power
supply problems), from DMA CRC errors (which would indicate
communication problems over the cable, or faults in the
onboard disk controller), from timeouts and host-initiated
resets (which once again could point to host-side problems).

Another suggestion: make yourself a boot disk with a
copy of MEMTEST86+, boot it up, and let it run overnight. A
lot of weird system misbehavior can be caused by sporadic
DRAM problems.

--
Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org> AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
 
On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 19:33:07 +0000 (UTC), root <NoEMail@home.org>
wrote:

Jamie <jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1lpa_@charter.net> wrote:

you got burned, what Can I say!


Not really, the computer cost $7. I got 6Gb of DDR2
memory, a sata DVD writer, case and 300w power supply.
Click to expand...
How do you know that one or more of the things you mention are not the
cause of the problem?
 
Justine Thyme <root@localhost.com> wrote:
On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 19:33:07 +0000 (UTC), root <NoEMail@home.org
wrote:

Jamie <jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1lpa_@charter.net> wrote:

you got burned, what Can I say!


Not really, the computer cost $7. I got 6Gb of DDR2
memory, a sata DVD writer, case and 300w power supply.

How do you know that one or more of the things you mention are not the
cause of the problem?
Click to expand...
Well, I have been using 4Gb of the memory in my wife's machine for
several days now, and the Sata dvd drive in my machine. The
power supply was swapped out without success so I can count
on that being good, even though it is only 300W, pretty
small for today.

I screwed around with the machine for a day and a half and
finally decided to harvest the parts. The case isn't
worth much since the control cables are special to the
motherboard.

When the machine was running the data transfer rate was
way slower than my Core 2 machine using the same type
of sata drive. Overall bad design I think.
 
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