Bluescreen... PSU or HDD?

[Cardy13]

Hey guys. About a couple weeks ago I started getting random bluescreens. It started when I was playing World In Conflict. I cant exactly recall if this ornly started after I got a second video card or not, but I think it might have. Anyways what happens is usually world in conflict start hangs, then the sound gets screwed up, then a bluescreen pops up. Now after a few of those one time after POST my second 500gb HDD sata wouldn't load. I got an error reading disk message after POST or soemthing like that. I just got back from vacation so I don't remember the exact error message or anything. Now when I tryed to reboot multiple times it would either hang trying to find the sata drive or it would tell me error reading disk. Now to fix the problem I had to switch out the POWER sata cable going to the HDD with a different Power sata cable. After I did that it would work, but If I switch back to the old cable it won't work again. I've done this about three times now and am running out of sata power cables to keep the drive going. I'm wondering if it is a faulty HDD or if my PSU can 't pump out enough juice. This sometimes randomly happens when my computer is idle as well. It happens on Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit and Windows XP Pro 32 bit. I have my q6600 Overclocked about 300mhz but it does it when it is not overclocked as well.

My specs:

eVGA nForce 680i SLI LT
Intell Core 2 Quad q6600 OC'd to 2.7ghz
2x eVGA nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS SSC Edition in SLi
4x Adata 1gb DDR2 800mhz Ram
OCZ GameXStream 600w PSU

Any advice would be great. Thanks :)

If you need any more info to help troubleshoot my problem just post here and I'll give you it. So far while I was gone my brother said there has been no problems and I haven't gotten a BSOD yet. It is very random. Thanks.

[sbohdan]

most of the BSOD's (blue screen) happen because of the memory, then because of the improper shutdown, windows might screw up some drivers resulting in not recognizing the SATA or unable to boot. your SATA cable might still be part of the problem and anything else but I suggest you download memtest and test your RAM first. a faulty RAM stick might be responsible...

[Cardy13]

Yea I'll do that tonight. I just find it weird that after the BSOD when my computer won't recognize the sata hard drive, swapping the power sata cable fixes the problem. >.<

[sbohdan]

actually I had this problem a while ago and it was due to a loose SATA connection, so yes check the connections and change the cable or the SATA input but I would still run memtest just to out rule the possibility of a faulty memory...

[Cardy13]

Alright, Ran memtest for about 6 hours while I slept. Said Pass complete no errors, so that rules out the ram. You could be right about the Sata connection, I'll make sure they're tight, and if it happens again then we can rule that out as well. So far though no problems.

[Cardy13]

Oh and the HDD's I'm using are:
Western Digital 160gb IDE (Just files that I keep from each time I build a new rig.. pics, drivers, movies, all that)
Seagate Barracuda 500gb SATA

The model names respectively:
WDC WD 1600JB-00REA0 ATA Device
ST350063 0AS SCSI Disk Device

[screwballl]

usually the first step I suggest removing the overclock back down to stock speed and see if it continues... if not then that is your problem... many times an overclock may seem stable until you use a game or program that strains the system and can cause the instability

[Cardy13]

Well so far here's what I've done. I downloaded seatools from seagates website and did a long drive self test on the hard drive, and it passed. So I'm almost sure the power supply is the problem. I also tried removing the overclock, the problem still existed. Another reason I'm sure it's the PSU is because when I started the long drive self test, 10 seconds in the computer rebooted... So I removed the second 8800 GTS and the SLi bridge and low and behold, seatools finished the test no problem, and I havent had a crash or BSOD yet. Also last night I was playing world in Conflict and it BSOD on me, so I turned off SLi and it was fine. The guys at the little local computer shop I go to also said 600w is cutting it very close for what My system has in it, because rule of thumb they said is 300w per 8800, then I need extra wattage for all my fans, overclocked CPU, mobo, usb devices, sound, 20' LCD screen, etc. Some more proof for others having this problem is I went to SLI Zone - Gaming PC, Gaming Computer, Build a PC and looked at power requirements. My rig fell under the extreme performance category, which is the second top category, only being bested by the triple sli category. Anyways I looked up recommended powersupplys for the extreme category and they were all 700w+, and I figure I'm gonna need more since my CPU is OC'd and I got a 20' LCD screen and a bunch of extra fans.

Anyways, I'm going tommorow to order a new PSU. Once I get it in I'll let you guy know how it works out :).