Jim <Jim@post.replies.please> wrote in message
news:40705f5e.37630559@news.west.cox.net...

This bit is crucial, this shouldnt be seen with a hard drive fault unless
its intermittently shorting one of the rails and shutting the power
supply down. And the detail below doesnt support that proposition.

That cant eliminate shorts, just poor connections, but you cant get
shorts with those molex connectors anyway, just poor connections.

Weird.

Even weirder. Does look like its a flakey power supply thats
shutting down with particular load configs. Basically getting it
wrong on there being too much load on the 5V or 12V rail.

Very unlikely to be the motherboard when the drives click
with just the power connected to them in some configs.

Yeah, certainly looks like a flakey power supply.

Might be an intermittent short to case with the motherboard
mounting and you're disturbing that enough when reconfiguring
to get different results in different configs, because the short
to case with the motherboard mounting is variable.

I'd try moving that power supply to the original case.

See above.

Either a flakey power supply or an intermittent short to
case with the motherboard mounting could do that, tho
its more likely to be the power supply since the configs
that do cause drive clicks are reasonably reproducible.

No reason to, the load variation may well matter to
trigger the power supply shutdown when it decides
that particular configs are loading the supply too much.

Thats quite unlikely given that you still get drive
clicking with just the power connected to the drives.

Gas and cremate the whole system ? Tad radical |-)

I wouldnt use a system with that sort of flakeyness myself.

It bound to bit you further down the track.

Try the configs that clicked with the power supply swapped.

Nope, you should do a scan for bads. Some drives will generate
bads when the power is banging up and down while writing.

Jim <Jim@post.replies.please> wrote in message
news:407268eb.105611621@news.west.cox.net...

I think the most likely explanation is that the overload
circuitry in the power supply is getting fooled in the
situation where there is just that drive plugged in
and is shutting the power supply down temporarily.

That doesnt happen with more drives plugged in.

Yes, but not necessarily with a weird fault with the power supply.

And since you do have a different power supply you can try,
I'd try that other power supply and see if that stops that effect.

I cant see that thats likely to help much, because the same
argument applys, why does it only misbehave when its the
only hard drive plugged in ? And you can hear the WDs
clicking in some configs, which makes it more likely its
a power supply problem than specific to just one drive.

Its more likely that its the load on the power supply thats
seen with just that maxtor drive connected that is fooling
the power supply overload circuitry and causing it to
trigger, producing the audible clicking in the drive. Or
just seeing say the 12V rail voltage nothing like what
it should be in that specific config for some reason,
due to a flakey power supply. Which isnt seen when
you have a different hard drive config, then the rail
voltage is good enough so you dont get the clicking.

There's quite a few around but again, I cant see thats
relevant since the drive scans fine in some configs.

Nope, not thats much use.

I'd try the other power supply, because thats an easy test.