Backup drive on Promise controller turns off with no warning with 'driver not more or equal to' mess

This is really starting to annoy me now, and I wonder if any of you
guys out there can please help.

I have an MSI neo 875P, 1GB of Corsair XMS 3700 (matched pair), P4 3.2
and a 250GB SATA drive which XP is loaded onto. As well as this I have
two Maxtor ata133 80GB drives in a non-raid formation on the
motherboards ATA133 promise connector, using the supplied red ATA13
connector, which has the yellow connector blocks on it.All this is
part of an upgrade and everything was working well. The setup is
pretty much bios default (the latest version) except for the two
serial ports being disabled. It is not overclocked, and as I say was
working well.

The problems began when I installed a PCI ADSL modem. The computer
boots fine and runs for about 30-60 mins no problem. That is the
inconsistancy of this problem. Then the master drive (which is the
letter I) on the ATA133 controller makes a clunking sound, the sound
you get when you switch off the PC and it actually powers off, meaning
the hard-drive has switched off, and then I get the the error message
on the BSOD saying "driver not more or equal to", you know the one.
Now if I hit the reboot button, the computer starts up, but the I
drive is missing in the bios detect screen. If I switch the power off
at the mains, and then boot up, the drive is there every time.
Thinking I was onto the cause of this, I went back to my trusty USB
ADSL modem, and the system was rock solid.
So then I tried a USB2 card that I have. Same again 30-60
mins......hard drive shuts off. Soundblaster live card (I was using
the onboard sound before this), and it seemed to be ok, but no, it
switched off again after about 30 mins.
Firewire card, same result.
Now it seems to me that as-long as I don't use any PCI slots, the
system runs fine, but as soon as I do, WHACK..the drive switches off.
The system PSU is a 300 watt supply, but I don't think it could be
this as surely the drive wouldn't run at all if there wasn't enough
power. Anyway guys, I hope you can help, and thanks for your time.

 

I surely sounds like you PS is not sufficient. I would upgrade to about
400w PS because you are running a lot of HD's and accessories.

Walt

Mysticpuma said the following on 04/16/04 03:58:

 

Well my experience with that sound is that the hard drive is dieing. I heard
it consistently when my old maxtor died, I would hear that sound and like 2
min later the system would crash. My advice is one by one pull and test the
drives. The PS may also be the problem, 3 drives and a system is a lot to
run off of a 300 watt.