Windows Freeze When Crank, Crank again windows unfreeze

antimatter · 04-26-2004, 11:35 PM

Okay this is some wierd action...

I Have an Opus 90w

When I start up windows (without the engine running) everything works fine. After windows starts and I am playing MP3's I crank the engine. I hear the sound of the Hard drive (Western Digital 80gig 8mb cache) when it powers up at very first bootup. Windows (medicar) continue to run another 5 seconds or so and then it freezes. No sound, No mouse movement... Nothing, I cant get it to respond for anything.

So I turn the car off and windows continues to run in the frozen state (The opus cant soft shutdown the machine), then I crank the engine again and I hear the same sound of the Hard Drive Powering up at POST and like magic everything resumes, windows unfreezes and Music continues to play.

Now i have 1 question... What in the heck is going on here?
the reson I posted it in the power supply forum is because i think it is power related.

If anyone has any tips on troubleshooting this issue or any one who has experienced this problem please post

Cheers

antimatter · 04-27-2004, 03:26 PM

bump... please

eXentric · 04-27-2004, 04:42 PM

I would agree that it sounds like a power problem. At first I thought it was weird that you can accurately reproduce it every other time, but perhaps not.

If the HDD is running and you crank then perhaps you are drawing the HDD below its power threshold and the disk goes into protect mode. The second time you crank the drive isn't spinning and therefore not drawing as much power so it can spin up.

Now, I don't know what's telling it to spin up the second time you crank... but I'd still say it's power related. But the interesting thing is that you have an Opus and they're pretty good power supplies. What wattage is your Opus and what kind of devices are you running? What CD, what HDD, what USB devices etc?

antimatter · 04-27-2004, 04:53 PM

I thought it was a power problem too and have no Idea what is making it spin up the second time.

My hardware is as follows.

Via M10000
Lilliput Touchscreen
Serial GPS
Zippy Mini Keyboard
Slim CD/DVD with Laptop IDE to USB 2 convertor
80g 3.5 7200 RPM HD
2 50mm fans

I am having battery problems and will need to get one fairly soon (not holding a charge well). I think this could be related but the funny thing is that at first crank it freezes windows completly and at second crank it fixes it.

Any further help/recomendations/troubleshooting comments are welcome

Cheers

eXentric · 04-27-2004, 10:39 PM

Well, the Windows freeze would be explained by the hard disk not being available. If you pull the storage out from under the OS, the OS will just sit there asking the disk controller for data and the controller won't be able to respond. The OS will appear to hang. When the drive resumes opreation and the controller can access data (and therefore pass it on to the OS) everything resumes as normal.

From what your describing with the hard disk, I would actually EXPECT the OS to react in this way.

The Durango Kid · 04-28-2004, 10:33 AM

After looking at your gear and hearing your problem I would have to say the problem is with your 12v rail.. Since your HD is the only thing using it.. I have a feeling the OPUS is turning off your 12v rail when you crank the 1st time and turning it back on when you crack the second time..

Get a volt meter and test your 12v when it's locked..

antimatter · 04-28-2004, 11:21 AM

@excentric
You know that does make cents. If the 12 volt rail was shut off for some reason, I would expect the OS to act the way that it is. I was thinking that 12v power was still be provided.

I will test this with a multimeter at lunch today or after work and post my results. If this is the case How would I go about fixing this? Get a new opus or send this to repair?

zvi · 04-28-2004, 11:23 AM

I would look at 12v rail also, try tu hook up laptop HDD I bet everithing will go ok

antimatter · 04-28-2004, 07:13 PM

Yea but i wonder why power is being cut off. That doesn't sound like normal operation. I do have a laptop drive that i will install as soon as I get the convertor

Although i am still going to test the 12v rail with a multimeter

Tonight or tomorrow

The Durango Kid · 04-29-2004, 09:56 AM

antimatter keep us informed.. Hopefully it's just something small and able to fix fast and cheap..

antimatter · 04-29-2004, 11:14 AM

Thanks for the concern.

I have not had a chance to take a multimeter to the 12/5v rails but intend to sometime today... Perhaps at lunch. Is the Yellow wire the 12v?

thanks

owenjh · 04-29-2004, 02:37 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by The Durango Kid

antimatter keep us informed.. Hopefully it's just something small and able to fix fast and cheap..

Like he said, hopefully it is something that is fast and cheap to fix. Sounds like it could be the 12v rail in my opinion. If that is the case and you have to get a new Opus, my thoughts are that it won't be fast or cheap (because of shipping) to get a replacement.

antimatter · 04-29-2004, 03:22 PM

Well I did test it with a multimeter. I recreated the windows freeze and what i did was stick the positive and negative probes into the respecive holes on the molex connecter (not the molex connector that was going to the Hard Drive but a free one) and i did get +5 and +12 volts.

So i don't think it is the OPUS unless there is a problem with current from the actual molex connector that is plugged into the Hard Drive. I will test the actual molex that goes into hard drive later tonight.

One thing i noticed was that when i disconnect the Molex (after it is frozen) and reconnect it, the hard drive spinns up again and it unfreezes itself.

arkadiyp · 04-29-2004, 03:41 PM

I am not sure, but it could be as simple as a faulty HDD. I had a drive that was acting weird with power in a home PC, also had to be unpluged and pluged back in once in a while. If it is a drive be careful, because when mine finally went it took the PSU, MOBO and Videocard along with it.

Do you have another drive to test it with?

The Durango Kid · 04-29-2004, 04:12 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by antimatter

Well I did test it with a multimeter. I recreated the windows freeze and what i did was stick the positive and negative probes into the respecive holes on the molex connecter (not the molex connector that was going to the Hard Drive but a free one) and i did get +5 and +12 volts.

So i don't think it is the OPUS unless there is a problem with current from the actual molex connector that is plugged into the Hard Drive. I will test the actual molex that goes into hard drive later tonight.

One thing i noticed was that when i disconnect the Molex (after it is frozen) and reconnect it, the hard drive spinns up again and it unfreezes itself.

I'm not sure what you mean here.. You said you tested "a free one" but then say after you "disconnected the Molex"?

If you are in fact removing the Molex from the HD and when you hook it back up the drive is spinning up I'm thin the controller on the HD is bad. I suggest testing another HD if you can.