Bad motherboard, or other part?

[nellocin]

Last week I tried my first computer build. I built two identical systems simultaneously, one is working great, the has been a nightmare.

When I first installed Windows 7 on the 'problem machine' everything was great, installed all my drivers and software and everything seemed ok. Then I installed some National Instruments drivers and Windows suddenly started running very slowly. After some reboots, and an attempted recovery Windows stopped loading altogether. I ended up booting from the install disc, reformatting the hard drive, and re-installing Windows. The install went fine, but after installing my graphics card driver Windows would not boot properly. A recovery worked, so I went and started trying to install my drivers again. This time after installing the audio driver Windows would not load. So I tried to boot from the Windows install disc to attempt another format and install, but the setup screen is now taking forever to load, and every time I try to click through to another screen there is a several minute waiting period - seems there is some problem even before I try to boot from the hard drive.

This is really frustrating since I have another computer with identical parts working just fine. I'm guessing it's a hardware problem, but maybe it has to do with the first NI drivers I tried to install? Maybe it's the motherboard since I'm now having problems before I even boot from the hard drive? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Here is the list of parts:

ASUS P8Z68-V LX Intel Z68 Motherboard - ATX, Socket H2 (LGA1155), Intel Z68 Express, 2200MHz-DDR3 (O.C.), SATA 6.0 Gb/s, RAID, 8-CH Audio, Gigabit LAN, SuperSpeed USB 3.0, CrossFireX Ready

Intel Core i5-2500K BX80623I52500 Unlocked Processor - Quad Core, 6MB L3 Cache, 1MB L2 Cache, 3.30 GHz (3.70 GHz Max Turbo), Socket H2 (LGA1155), 95W, Fan, Retail

Corsair CMPSU-430CXV2 Builder Series™ CX430 Power Supply - 430W, 80 Plus, 120mm Fan, Single +12V Rail, Active PFC

Corsair CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 Vengeance 16GB PC12800 DDR3 RAM - 1600MHz, 4x4096MB, Non-ECC, Unbuffered

EVGA 01G-P3-1521-KR GeForce GT 520 Video Card - 1GB, DDR3, PCI-Express 2.0 (x16), Dual-Link DVI, HDMI, VGA, DirectX 11, Single-Slot, Low Profile

Seagate ST3000DM001 Barracuda 7200.12 Hard Drive - 3TB, SATA III (6Gb/s), 3.5", 7200RPM, 64MB

Sony Optiarc AD7280S-OB 24x DVDRW Drive - 24x, SATA, Black, OEM

[glc]

Download memtest86+ and test the ram.

Download SeaTools for DOS and test the hard drive.

[nellocin]

Memory test came back normal.

When I loaded SeaTools it did not recognize that any hard drives were connected. However the BIOS sees that there is a hard drive. I tried using a different power cable, different jumper, and different SATA connector on the motherboard - same result. Looking in the documentation for SeaTools I don't see them reference this error. Do you think this means the hard drive is bad?

[glc]

SeaTools may not have the right SATA drivers - what you could do is install SeaTools for Windows on the other computer, and remove the drive and temporarily install it in the other computer to test it. If you have a USB adapter, that would make it easier.

IDE/SATA to USB 2.0 Cable Adapter - Turn Your 2.5", 3.5" or 2020

[nellocin]

Alright ran SeaTools for Windows on the other computer and it failed the test. This confirm the hard drive is bad, right?

So I guess I'll send it back and get another one, unless there is some way to salvage this drive. (It recommended I try to repair it using SeaTools for DOS, but the DOS version didn't recognize either drive when I tried.)

[glc]

Return it for a warranty replacement. It's defective. You can't "repair" a bad hard drive with software.

This is one reason we don't recommend Seagate drives here. The reliability hasn't been very good.

[larrymoencurly]

Another good hard drive diagnostic is MHDD, a self-booting program available here, although it seems to have trouble with 2TB drives (maybe even 1.5TB). It can not only scan the sectors but also report any that are slow, and it's not abnormal for some HDs to show a couple of sectors that take 10+ retries to be read (Hitachi 2TB but not 1TB, 1TB Seagate 7200.12, Samsung 2TB), but I've never seen that with a WD, except for one my friend knocked over while it was running.