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oilyfan · 06-18-2012, 07:21 AM

My mother bought an all in one computer - a Gateway ZX4351 about a year.

She loves it but recently she told me that it was slowing down and freezing up. So I came over and took a look and sure enough tons of freezes. I suspected a virus but the anti virus was clean.

So the next suspect was the HDD, I thought this might be a good chance to upgrade it to an SSD and add more memory. So I bought a 128Gb SSD and 4Gb of ram. It was a pain to open the case but finally figured it out.

The issue I am now having is that despite repeated attempts I cannot get the SSD to be consistently recognized by the computer, I managed to load a fresh copy of Windows 7 on it and the next time I started up the computer it won't be recognized in the bios. I spent about 4 hours yesterday trying a different sata cable, moving ports, trying to reinstall windows, but no joy. I started suspecting the motherboard, which will be a pain to replace.

But then maybe the PSU, might a failing PSU cause the HDD not to be recognized consistently? I don't want to throw the computer away since my mother did spend good money she can I'll afford on it. But before spending another $70 on a PSU I wanted hear some opinions.

06-18-2012, 07:21 AM	#1
oilyfan Powerplay Quarterback Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: SE Calgary Exp:	Failing computer help My mother bought an all in one computer - a Gateway ZX4351 about a year. She loves it but recently she told me that it was slowing down and freezing up. So I came over and took a look and sure enough tons of freezes. I suspected a virus but the anti virus was clean. So the next suspect was the HDD, I thought this might be a good chance to upgrade it to an SSD and add more memory. So I bought a 128Gb SSD and 4Gb of ram. It was a pain to open the case but finally figured it out. The issue I am now having is that despite repeated attempts I cannot get the SSD to be consistently recognized by the computer, I managed to load a fresh copy of Windows 7 on it and the next time I started up the computer it won't be recognized in the bios. I spent about 4 hours yesterday trying a different sata cable, moving ports, trying to reinstall windows, but no joy. I started suspecting the motherboard, which will be a pain to replace. But then maybe the PSU, might a failing PSU cause the HDD not to be recognized consistently? I don't want to throw the computer away since my mother did spend good money she can I'll afford on it. But before spending another $70 on a PSU I wanted hear some opinions.