Is there such a thing as "too many hard drives"? I have four hard
drives and two cd-roms installed in my computer. On my motherboard I
have one hard drive hooked up to IDE channel 0, and the two cd-roms on
IDE channel 1. The other three hard drives are on an ATX-133 card that
came with one of my hard drives. I do a lot of video work and require
a large amount of gigabytes, but my system has never been very stable
since I installed my last hard drive. I need to know if it is the last
hard drive I installed that is causing me problems, or just the fact
that my hard drives are overworked. Thank you.

---

Clarification of Question by senorguapo-ga on 07 Jan 2004 22:28 PST

Is SCSI an option? And if so, how would I go about doing this?

---

Request for Question Clarification by sparky4ca-ga on 07 Jan 2004 23:24 PST

I have a hunch on this one -- can you please provide me with some
details on your system:

CPU type and speed,
case size and power supply brand and capacity
video card model
motherboard brand and model.
operating system version

thanks, sparky4ca.

PS - that number of hard drives itself shouldn't be an issue, I've run
that many or more no prob.

---

Clarification of Question by senorguapo-ga on 09 Jan 2004 01:10 PST

Yes, my CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ @ 2.15 Ghz
I don't know the exact case size, but it's pretty good size, not a micro tower.
I'm not too sure of my power supply rating, but I will check that in
the morning as I am too tired to open my case right now.
Video card is an nVidia GeForce 4 MX.
Motherboard is an ECS Elitegroup K7S5A.
And I'm running Windows XP Pro.
P.S. I know it's not temp, it does it even when the computer is cold.
My display flickers, computer freezes for a little, the display
flickers again, and when it comes on again, the display is messed up.
Titles are missing, graphics are screwed up, I have NO IDEA WHAT IS
GOING ON!!! PLEASE HELP!!!

Every time you add a hard drive your ata-133 card has to do some irq
tricks so that the motherboard will recognise it, you could try
removing the last drive or two if possible to see if it clears up your
stability problem.
The only solution that I prefer for multiple hard drives is to go
SCSI, you can buy a card just like you have for your ide drives and
outfit your case, depending on the SCSI type, with up to 16 hard
drives per pci-card.

Power might be the problem. Every time you add a component to the
computer, your power supply has to work a little harder. If your PSU
is something like a 300 watt model, you might try swapping it out for
a 350W or even 400W version. Antec is a good, reliable brand. Most
generic cases can have their PSU changed easily.

The other problem might be heat, which will also get worse the more is
added to your computer. This will also cause system instability. Check
the CPU and system temperatures when the computer is doing a lot of
work; there are several programs (such as Motherboard Monitor:
http://mbm.livewiredev.com/download.html) that are compatible with
most modern motherboards.

If your system seems too hot, you might try running with the case off
for a while to see if that improves your stability problem. The long
term fix would be to add more fans or a better cooling system to your
computer.

that really sounds like a heat problem. maybe on eof the hard drives
is over heating, even thought the computer seems OK.

Other then that, it's possible that one of the drives has become
corrupted. You yould run Norton DIsk Doctor and see what it comes up
with.

I would definitly reccomend at 350 watt (400 is preferable) power
supply for what you are doing. I run 7 hard drives, dual cpus, and a
dvd burner off a 450 watt power supply. I doubt my computer would run
for long on less wattage.

Rule of thumb is 25 watts per extra drive.

as sparky mentioned, heat can also be an issue. Make sure there is
space between each drive, when using 3.5" bays, it is preferable to
not put hard drives in adjacent bays. If possible get drive mounting
brackets to put some of those drives into 5.1/4" bays.

I concur with those who are emphasizing the power issue. That is
almost certainly it with this sort of "analog-ish" misbehavior on the
addition of yet another power-hungry device to the case.

Your two areas to look at are:

1.  POWER, POWER, POWER!  (as everyone's noted)  A cheap way to check
this is to dig up (borrow, buy, whatever) an old AT power supply and
plug your drives into that.  AT power supplies have actual push-button
ON switches on them, and do not require a motherboard as do newer ATX
power supplies.  Power on your drives from the auxiliary supply, then
power on your computer.  If your problems cease, it's a power problem,
and you need to upgrade to a beefier or better power supply.

2.  That extra ATA controller.

Chipset-integrated IDE controllers are pretty much perfect, but the
add-in cards vary dramatically in quality, and many fail in
surprisingly interesting (read: frustrating) ways.  The best ones I've
come across are actually RAID cards, though you don't need to use the
RAID functionality, produced by 3Ware.  The cards are avilable in 4 to
12-drive sizes, parallel and serial ATA, and at varying speeds.

Best of luck!

-Haversian