Is there some program to analyse "MoBo's health"??

[franklogus]

Hi all !
I have a "back-up" PC, which has the following spec:

-- Win XP PRO
-- P4 1.6 GHz
-- Asus P4SDX MoBo
-- 512 MB DDR 333 Kingston (2x250)
-- 2 HDDs - ATA 133 Maxtor (120 GB) & ATA-100 Seagate (40 GB)
-- 01 Drive of CDR-W and 01 Drive of DVD

Since last week, I am having some troubles with it (my MoBo, Memory and HDD of 120 GB are "new" - I have updated these components).
Well, the problem is : sometimes, my PC isn't recognizing my HDDs. If I "shake" a bit my case, the system recognizes them... And, another times, the Windows "locks", and I need to restart my PC... I have already runned the CheckDisk, and it didnt find any problem with the HDDs..
Well, I have already, too, lend it to a technical, and he didnt find any problem - the cables were in the right place - no apparent bad contact. So, he said me that it could be a problem with my MoBo. As it is a new hardware, I think that there is no reason for some trouble ...
So, I would like to know if there is some SPECIFIC SOFTWARE (freeware), which can to analyse (in a SAFE WAY - with NO POTENTIAL DAMAGE) my MoBO and find if there is, really, some damage in it ... Is there, please ??
Thanks a lot for any help!

 

[Nodsu]

Thre is no such universal software. Motherboards are very different and it would have to be a manufacturer specific tool. You can look around Asus' website.

First things to check are memory (plenty of memory testers out there), PSU (is is good enough to spin all your drives?) and temperature (maybe run some burn-in thing for a couple of hours).

And don't worry about the damage to your mobo. If it's broken then it's broken. And if it's not then no software can possibly damage it in any way (unless you screw up a BIOS flash).

 

[Bug]

You can get basic motherboard information using the ASUS probe or MoBo Monitor. Search on google for either... I don't know of software that will tell you more than if the processor is too hot, fans are not running, or voltage is not within tolerance...

Bug

 

[franklogus]

Thanks all for your hints ! But I have already a Asus utility, which give me conditions to control the temp and voltages, and it is all right by this side...
I will try to see better if it can be some cable damage, but the technical man who opened my case said that there wasnt any apparent problem... Anyways, perhaps I need to change the cables... I forgot to say that, sometimes, there is a noise, as a "TEC", inside the case (when I am trying to access some of the 02 HDDs, but its a "rare sound"...). I am not sure that the problem is from the HDDs, because, sometimes, the PC dont recognize any of the 02 HDDs, and, another times, it recognizes only the Secondary/Slave)... Very strange ... And (for the time being), it always works after some slight "shake" of the case...
Some guys of another forum said me that it could be PSU... I am not an expert in these matters, but i think unlikely this opinion...
Well, thanks a lot for your answers, guys !!
Any additional information would be appreciated!

 

[Nodsu]

It may be one of your hard drives if they are on the same cable - the bad drive can make the good one unusable. Try putting the HDs on separate channls and see how things go.

 

[John L]

You describe conditions very similar to those experienced on one of my network computers. My kids pc was sometimes slow, the hard drive occasionally made noise. The cpu would lock up. I noticed that the cooling fan for the case did not sound the same every time. Sure enough. The power supply was bad. It only manifested the problem during heavy usage such as a lot of pag swapping causing the hard drice to cycle at the same time that the cdrom was reading. On heavy usage the voltage would drop causing havoc everywhere.

Luckily the processor was not damaged and replacement of the power supply solved all problems.