[Alan]

This is the second HDD I've put in this computer. Both were a Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM. There is a constant "chirping" sound which I attribute to the drive turning on and off repeatedly. I also can't detect the drive when trying to install an OS (Windows, Linux, doesn't matter). Is this a PSU problem or what?

[TerminX]

Yeah, it's likely a problem with the PSU's wiring. One thing you can do is try a different molex connector, or get some needle nose pliers and try to make the metal contacts in the molex connector smaller so it makes better contact, but in my experience this is usually a break in the wire itself and not easily fixed without replacing the PSU or wiring itself. I had this problem for years with one of my systems and it was a huge pain in the ass.

[Person of Color]

Buy a real power supply. And then buy a real hard drive.

Seagate. Not even once.

My laptop came with a Seagate hard drive. Shittiest hard drive ever. The free fall sensor has never worked right, so you can be sitting on your desk, just jackin' it, and then next thing you know it's all like "CHIRP!--bbzzztt CLICK," the system freezes for a second then the porno plays really fast for a second or two.

I'm not replacing it until it's dead because it's a fucking laptop.

[Alan]

Don't have money to get new parts. I have a replacement PSU but if this doesn't work, either, I'm SOL, probably for another 5 years again.

[Person of Color]

For five years? Hard drives aren't that expensive.

[Alan]

They are when you don't earn enough money to save for anything. The last time I had money to invest in computer hardware the 6000 series nVidia cards peaked.

Edit: Plugged a different power connector into the HDD, no chirping. Installing W7 x64 now..

[Person of Color]

Alan, on 20 August 2013 - 08:44 AM, said:

They are when you don't earn enough money to save for anything. The last time I had money to invest in computer hardware the 6000 series nVidia cards peaked.

Welcome to The Baby Boomers' America!

[Person of Color]

Don't downvote me Kathy, you dirty, filthy, sexy commie.

[Alan]

So far so good. With the first hard drive I managed to get a couple days out of it before it started fucking up. So if I make it a week without reinstalling Windows 7 or something I might be in the clear.

Also while I was in the middle of typing this post the GPU drivers apparently gave out for a moment. Fucking Radeon.

[Kathy]

Why can't you run it through actual tests?

[Alan]

I did before and everything said things were OK. Then it kept crashing.

[Mr.Deviance]

TerminX, on 20 August 2013 - 06:37 AM, said:

Yeah, it's likely a problem with the PSU's wiring. One thing you can do is try a different molex connector, or get some needle nose pliers and try to make the metal contacts in the molex connector smaller so it makes better contact, but in my experience this is usually a break in the wire itself and not easily fixed without replacing the PSU or wiring itself. I had this problem for years with one of my systems and it was a huge pain in the ass.

That hdd doesn't have a molex connector from what I've seen in it's specs online. It's only sata power cable which I've never seen to cause problems ever.
One problem that I've seen with this shit is that sometimes if you use the same power cables from the same psu rail on both the video card and the HDD, in some instances for some reason the videocard could drain more power from that side of the PSU than the PSU has to properly kick in the HDD too.
Hdds are very sensitive to power fluctuations and a power hungry GPU could cause the HDD to die on you if you share the power connection with it.
I always place the hdds and the GPU on separate power cables.

[TerminX]

Oh, you're right... I just assumed it was regular old IDE because I know Alan never has money for new hardware. I'm old, so SATA is still "new" to me.