New wrinkle now that we know it doesn't happen with the side cover off. Very likely a heat issue.  That it goes away on a reboot could be in those few seconds when everything is shutting down the temperature drops enough to make the problem go away still means it could be a heat thing. Try leaving the cover on and putting a house fan so that it blows into the case from say the front fan where cool air is sucked in and through. If that's it, you can get one of those dual or triple fan kits that live in a 5.25 inch drive bay.





Peter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I do have a second SATA channel on my motherboard. Unfortunately, the
>failure is so intermittent that it will be difficult to catch. As Toomas
>pointed out, it could be a situation of a marginal power condition. I will
>check that out - I left the cover off the computer, and no failure has so
>far occurred. I have had three failures so far and all happened when the
>cover was on. When I removed the cover to check, the computer started
>working again. Of course, it also started working on a reboot without the
>cover being removed, so the cover off condition is not yet definitive.
>
>Joseph recommended the WD diagnostics, which I had already downloaded and
>tried. Did not run the long test yet, but he short one reported no problems.
>Thank you to all for responding your experiences and suggestions. If I find
>anything of note, I will report back to the list.
>
>Peter
>----------------------------------
>[log in to unmask]
>
>-----Original Message-----
>Peter, don't know about the MB, but does it have more than one SATA plug?
>I'm thinking my MSI board has at least 2 independent channels for the 4
>plugs, kind of like the ide channels, but I'm not sure.  Will have to look
>at the book when I get home. If that is the case, you could switch the plug
>from one area to another.  Another idea would be to use a SATA to IDE
>adapter if you know someone that has one, just to isolate the drive or SATA
>controller.  I use a SATA as my only drive (for about
>a year) but so far no problems.   George
>
>

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