No Power to Optical Drives

[lpc300]

Hi all,

I was recently asked to put together a solid gaming computer for the son of a friend. Here are the specs I chose: AMD 64 3700+, ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe, 2 sticks 1 gb RAM, eVga 7800GT, 74 gb WD Raptor, FDD, Lite-On DVDRW, generic DVD-ROM, 480W PSU. Put everything together with few problems. When I initially turned the system on, the fans spun but nothing else...I realized I had forgotten the 4-Pin power connector. Once I plugged this in, I got right into the BIOS to check things. Everthing was recognized except the optical drives. Since the Raptor was on SATA 1, I had put the opticals on IDE1. I tried every different configuration, until I noticed that neither drive would open; it seemed like neither was getting any power. I disconnected things one by one. Finally, I only had one of the opticals connected and still no power. Everthing else, HDD, FDD, vid card, fans get power, but not the opticals, even when they are not connected to either IDE slot.

I am about to try a different PSU, and then try the drives in a different system.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[lpc300]

Update: tried another PSU (Antec 350W) that I know works. Onlty connected to the 20-pin, 4-pin and one of the opticals. No power still.

[lpc300]

OK. One more update. Reconnected everything again and I got power to both drives. If I connect the IDE cable, however, that's when I get no power.

Any thoughts?

[BigRed CC Dually]

Originally Posted by lpc300 OK. One more update. Reconnected everything again and I got power to both drives. If I connect the IDE cable, however, that's when I get no power. Any thoughts?

Are both drives in cable select mode? If so you will need to use an 80 conductor IDE cable. If the one at the end of the cable is set to master and the one at the center of the IDE cable is set to slave, then you can get away with using the 40 conductor cable.

I just went through the same problem on my son's computer yesterday.

[jfk]

Another thing to try in addition to the jumpering/cabling of the drives is connect them to the 2nd IDE channel. When I built my rig, I had them connected to the first channel and only one would work, no matter how I jumpered them. Moved them to channel 2 and no problem. I assumed (hate that word) that the mobo would only recognize 2 hdd's OR 1 hdd and 1 optical on the 1st channel.

[Cricket]

Try the opticals one at a time to see if one of them is defective.

Or try the opticals one at a time in another computer. If one of them don't in another computer, it's broken.

Cricket

[lpc300]

Thanks for all the responses. I have the jumpers set for the DVDROM as the master and the DVDRW as the slave. I have tried a number of IDE cables, and have tried each drive as a single. Have also tried both the primary and secondary channel. Pulled both drives out and tested them (externally) with no problem.

I got the solution. Turned out that one side of the motherboard was too much in contact with the case. I have a tendency to overtighten screws. When I slightly unscrewed all the screws on the IDE side of the board, 'magically' I got power to both drives and the BIOS recognized them. Sometimes it's the simple things...

[BigRed CC Dually]

Great to see you got it figured out.