Ok guys and gals, my Q6600/DP35DP/Win7,64-bit is going south, bless its very tired soul, and it's time to think about replacing it, but I need some help here as finances are VERY, VERY limited. I will replacing only the necessary components. All items must be Intel compatible. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Existing hardware:

1) Cooler Master HAF32 case -keep
2) Intel Core i7/930 cpu - keep (scenario #1)
3) Corsair H70 liquid cooling -keep
4) 3x WD 250Gb HDD - keep
5) EVGA GTX275/GTS250 - possible keep
6) Dell SE198WFP digital monitor - possible keep
7) Pioneer DVD (RW) - keep
8) Corsair 2x 2Mb memory sticks
9) Ultra x4 1200 watt psu - keep
10) Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series - keep

Replace Scenario 1:

1) Matching i7 1366 compatible board that supports ddr3 memory sticks and has enough room to allow two nVIDIA EVGA GTX 400/500 series cards. Would be nice to be SATA3 compatable.
2) 2x EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti DS Superclocked.
3) Corsair Dominator 6GB PC12800 DDR3 1600MHz 3x2GB.
4) Possible change in monitor

Replace Scenario 2:

1) Intel Core i7/2600 cpu
2) Matching board, excluding ASUS(bad experiences), would be nice if SATA3 compatable
3) 6Gb memory
4) Same video cards as #2 above
5) Possible change in monitor

Depending on what is "going south" you could get away with just a board & CPU if you are going to carry over the memory & everything else. Depending on the speed of your current memory new stuff might be nice. Nothing wrong with using the video card & getting a newer one later.

For the most part I replace my hard drives in my main system every 3-4 years. Then I rotate the older ones down to the next oldest system.

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Should have explained in the original post. I think its's the mb. The only way for the system to recognize all three HDDs is to do a cold start (shut down and wait 3 minutes). If I do a warm cycle then only 2 of them are recognized. The system keeps losing the third drive, which I use for backup and restore. All drives are less than 2 years old and analysis shows that there is nothing wrong with them (bad blocks, etc). At first I thought is was the sata port, but after switching to different ports, including blowing out the dust bunnies, that is not the case. Since I know that both the mb & cpu are past eol, I figured that I might as well bring them up to current models.

[EDIT]

Just had to lost the 3rd drive and am having problems recycling. So it's time to replace.

Hmmm. I recently had a very similar problem with one of my PCs. It took ages to boot, re-boot and shut-down....running programs was, shall we say, a little trying - a de-frag of a partition on one of the drives took all night and was only 10% done by the morning! Drive u/s? SATA controller u/s? I'd have bet a weeks wages on either. Nope. Only after the system was hit with System Restore and finally a re-install of Windoze, which seemed to take forever, was it discovered, purely by chance, that the SATA cable was not 100%. I'm not saying thats what your Hardware problem is, but it might just be worth checking....it might even save you scrapping a good drive. Mr Scott would probably say that, 'the smaller they make the connections, Mr Spock, the easier it is to break that connection'. lol

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Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!

If the Memory is DDR2 W/5-5-5-15 timings I may be interested. :-))

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I Desire Peace and Justice, Jim Scott (Mod-Ret.)

Should have explained in the original post. I think its's the mb. The only way for the system to recognize all three HDDs is to do a cold start (shut down and wait 3 minutes). If I do a warm cycle then only 2 of them are recognized.

I would try another PSU (Power Supply Unit) first, because what you're describing sound like a dying PSU. When cold, all is good- as it warms up the regulation deteriorates & 3 HDDs would pull a fair load between them. End result- flakey operation.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Iona -

Have already swapped out all sata cables with new ones. At first I thought that they were being crushed when closing that side of the case and left it off for a week after the swap, but it did not help.

Jim_s -

I believe the cm2x1024-6400c4 timings are 5-5-5-18.

Grant(SSSF) -

That had occurred to me also a while back. So during one of my monthly PMs I swapped the psu in this (B_SYS) machine was swapped with the one in the other active (A_SYS) machine, both the same model, and approx the same age. The results wre the same. Have not swapped them back. I have noticed recently that I can shutdown for as little as 5 seconds and all three HDDs are recognized. I don't believe that the psu has had a chance to cool off enough in that time.

I have noticed recently that I can shutdown for as little as 5 seconds and all three HDDs are recognized. I don't believe that the psu has had a chance to cool off enough in that time.

Here's something to try first...

Go into your bios and set the hdd start up delay to 5 seconds.
Sounds like drive three just isn't spinning up fast enough.

you might reinstall your sata drivers as well

good luck!

Kevin

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"Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein

My GTX 275 went south last week, I think it even let some smoke out by the looks of things...Everything else is still going, hopefully have time this weekend to take apart and see the damage....

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