PC just starts for a few seconds then just shuts off.

[Guest]

My main rig died as I was loading Windows 10. It got stuck on a black screen and had to do a power off. It kinda booted up a big for a while but now when I turn it on, I see the CPU fan spin for a few seconds then it loops doing the same thing. I have a Core Duo that I was fixing a while back for a relative .It would blue screen and when I went to see if I could get it going again, the same thing is happening as my main rig. Just turns on, fan comes on and then fan goes off. I was like this cant be. The same exact problem!!!!??? ARGH!

 

Anyways, I thought it was the motherboard that died and just received and exact replacement and the same thing is happening so I must have misdiagnosed.

 

The system is an Intel Sandy Bridge i5-2300 @2.8 GHZ with 4 gigs of ram and a Gigabyte GA-H67MA-UD2H-B3 motherboard. 

 

I notice that the fan was a bit loose and playing around with it, I guess I was not gentle enough and some of the plastic pins that expand when the black pin pushes through them broke off.

 

See silly cheap a$$ design (not my image)...

 

 

I've now got it rigged with one original push pin and a nut, washer and bolt. It's making excellent contact so I don't think that it the CPU is getting hot. And after just 2 seconds?.

 

Has anyone seen this symptom before? Just starting and stopping continually after a few seconds. No video is displayed?

 

I'm going to borrow a power supply to test it hopefully by tomorrow.

Edited December 31, 2014 by -X-

[Guest]

I got it going but found out that I fried 2 identical 1 TB hard drives with my whole life on them. I'm fanatical about backing up so I always transferred everything from drive 1 to drive 2. They were both internals and when I was trying to install Windows 10, it stopped at the same black screen I had been getting when installing in a VM. I shut the dam thing down and it must have fried both hard drive boards. Windows 10 will leave a bad taste in my mouth because of this, It was already teeing me off and now I may have lost stuff I have been accumulating over 2 decades. Hopefully, I can find the boards and just replace them to bring them back to life.

 

Funny thing is I decided to remove a ram stick and it stopped the loop. I then hooked up another SATA drive and it started booting and got to install XP. I then put the memory stick back and it's working fine with it so I'm at a loss to explain it.

 

This should be a lesson to everyone. If you have a second internal backing up the first internal, don't leave it plugged it!! A surge can fry them both at the same time! Only plug it in during your daily backup!

Edited December 9, 2014 by -X-

[dencorso]

Wow! Sorry about that!

Then again, are you sure both are fried? Sometimes one fried HDD is enough to prevent booting. Did you test each individually?

[Guest]

Yes both are dead the PCB boards fried. One has a popped capacitor or something. It's a short height round thing and the a piece of the plastic broke off and you can see the copper wires forming loops inside. 

 

I priced some replacement boards on eBay that are in the $30 range but now I am seeing I may have to transfer the ROM chip or something. I need to do some research on how I can fix them. 

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HDS721075CLA332-0A72947-BA3321B-0F13655-JPT3GH-Hitachi-SATA-3-5-PCB-Servic/181583592660?_trksid=p2054897.c100204.m3164&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140407115239%26meid%3D3afae70e24b14b399b2cbf71ab2e6fe3%26pid%3D100204%26prg%3D20140407115239%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D30%26sd%3D261527930192

 

If anyone has experience replacing hard drive boards, I'm all ears.

 

I thought I had it all covered except in cases of fire or theft but I learned a valuable lesson.

Edited December 9, 2014 by -X-

[jaclaz]

Check if, by any chance, it is not a TVS diode.

Some (most) hard disks have one, or in some cases 2, one for the 5 V and one on the 12 V one.

They are there to protect disks from "queer" things happenings to the power supply (and thus sending wrong voltage  and the like to the power line of the device).

If thisis the case, it  is just a matter of removing the component (by design when it is triggered it shortens the V+ to ground).

 

BUT while you are shopping, do invest a few bucks and buy a PSU tester, a hard disk PCB may fry for *whatever* reasons, but two in a row seem to me like too much a coincidence to have no connection with the Power Supply Unit.

 

Which EXACT make/model are those hard disks?

 

jaclaz

[Guest]

They are Hitachis Deskstar HDS721010CLA332 1TB drives.

 

Do you have any quick tips on how to check diode? I've worked in fixing electrical stuff for 24 years (copiers, bikes, atvs, personal watercraft, etc) but we never fixed boards. Just diagnosed that they were bad and swapped in a new one. Must of the stuff on these boards are too tiny to start soldering it appears.

Edited December 9, 2014 by -X-

[dencorso]

No. They are not too tiny, but to transfer sucessfully one BIOS chip from one board to another you'll need someone who's very proficient at doing it. Ususally it's done at a soldering station, but there are some people who can do it by hand, but they are really hard to find. Unless one knows what he's doing, the chance of a successful transferral are really nil, so select carefully whom you'll trust to do it.

BTW, can you post any good resolution pics from both fried boards? If you don't have a good enough camera on hand, a scanner can do real miracles for things like those boards... If so, we may be able to identify which components are toast.

[Guest]

I'm probably going this route: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hitachi-HDS721010CLA332-0A72947-BA3786-0F10383-JPT3MA-SATA-3-5-PCB-Servic-/160881776110?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25754d15ee

 

Watch his video. Seems to know what he is doing and he is very picky about getting the exact same board. There's a lot of different numbers that identify the same model number drive. Only 1 will match perfectly.

[dencorso]

Seems good. Best choice would be to send one toast board, recieve the replacement and see whether it works.

In any case you'd have the 2nd HDD as backup. But do post the photos. If it turns out to be just a TVS diode,

all you'll need to do is remove it (which you can do yourself) and it'll spring back to life... well, at least it should...

Later addition: attached you'll find a sample of what I mean by "good quality" pic...

[jaclaz]

Bascially measure the continuity (resistance) between the +5V and the 0 and from +12V and 0 with *any* multimeter, if you have a direct short (0 Ohms) it is likely that the TVS was triggered.

A TVS is more like a switch that can only be flipped once, it is normally "open" and when triggered becomes "closed", shorting the power line.

 

If this is the case it is only needed to desolder it/them, the disk won't be anymore "protected" of course.

 

If you can take a picture of the board, usually it is easy to identify components.

 

For a PCB transplant there are two possible cases, there is a separate chip with the "adaptive data" (which is relatively easy to "transplant" as usually it is an 8 pin chip) or there is the need to transplant the whole processor (and that may be really tricky).

 

IF the first case, it can be done even DIY, if the second there are no or little chances without a professional lab.

Some of the people that can provide replacement boards will also make the ROM (actually NVRAM) swap or  transfer the firmware.

 

I don't want to seem like I am "sponsoring" a given firm, but I know one that can provide the PCB and do the firmware swap, and they are nice, competent guys in my experience, in case of need PM me.

 

 

jaclaz

[Guest]

Toast board? I gotta send the whole drive. Is that what you are saying? Also not sure why keep one of the drives behind. Though they are mirrors of each other, I'm going to need it to continue backing up so I need them both fixed.
 
I think I saw when I was researching them that you don't pay until its fixed. If they cant fix it's no charge. I had to go through a signup and now its waiting for me to ship the drive and I haven't paid anything but I'm calling or emailing them in the morning to get the exact details. 
 
I was trying to take a picture of it but my stupid camera takes like 10 pictures total and then the batteries are dead. It's the same exact board in the ebay listing. It's added below.
 

 
I just noticed that it's 3 of those circular black pieces at the bottom of the picture popped.

Edited December 9, 2014 by -X-

[jaclaz]

Wait a minute.

 

The idea is that you send just the board and they will provide a replacement board, taking the firmware from the "old" board and transferring it to the "new" one.

 

This makes sense only to attempt recovering the data.

 

There is no way to know if the *whatever* fried the board affected other parts of the disk drive, so it makes no sense whatever to attempt "repairing" a disk drive, once you hopefully get the data, you buy a new disk drive (or two).

 

jaclaz

[Guest]

Bascially measure the continuity (resistance) between the +5V and the 0 and from +12V and 0 with *any* multimeter, if you have a direct short (0 Ohms) it is likely that the TVS was triggered.

 

Not sure where those are. Are you talking about the power pins? If so which pin is the 5V and which is the 12V and what do you mean by 0? Is that another power pin? And can you look at the picture above and tell me which is the diode we are talking about?

 

Thanks. You guys are being great with the help. I really appreciate it.

 

I'll PM you now.

[jaclaz]

Dencorso posted a picture on how a TVS diode looks like,  unfortunately it is not a "circular black piece".

 

SATA power connection:

http://pinouts.ru/Power/sata-power_pinout.shtml

0V=Ground

 

jaclaz

[Guest]

**** we keep posting at the same time. Wanna make sure you get this.

 

I'm pretty sure they want the whole drive. Otherwise how would they know they are fixed and that the data is still there.

 

I'm kinda in a hard spot financially so I'm hoping that with 2 fixed drives I'm still safe. I will stay unhooked from now on. I also have a bunch of IDE drives that has some of my data that I will backup to those also until I absolutely have to get more drives. I've already thrown 60 bucks down the drain thinking I had a bad mobo and this is going to be another $120. I gotta have money left over to pay the bills.