Long Post, but God help me please!

[ghost_of_war]

OK, here we go. I have built computers before with no problems and it never fails, I always run into jumper setting problems. Nonetheless, I always manage to figure it out and move past the problem. However, today, I have one that stumped a buddy of mine who runs a local computer shop. Put together a simple 1300MHz Duron system for my GF's mother - installed all of my fans, drives, cables, etc. Machine will not detect any of the drives when I boot it up with both the CD and HD connected. When I disconnect the CD IDE cable, it finds my HD with no problem. It is a simple WD 20GB drive. It is set for my primary master in the BIOS and on the jumper setting, it's not set to slave or master, but the other one (I want to say cable-free or something, but I could be wrong). Now, I have the CD on the secondary IDE channel (already tried having it on the same channel as the HD) and I tried all of the jumper settings. With the IDE cable UNPLUGGED from the CD as stated before, my power light blinks on the CD and the system finds the HD with no problem. When I plug the IDE cable back in with the CD jumper set to MASTER, I get nothing (no POST). With it set to (that cable setting again) or SLAVE, it cannot find the HD. I have already switches IDE cables and channels on the motherboard, but they all checke dout fine. Also, when I have my IDE plugged into the back of the CD, my power light on the CD doesn't blink at all. However, I know it has power because when I unplug the IDE cable from the CD, the power light blinks like normal and the system finds the HD and attempts to find an OS (which isn't installed yet, but I still managed to format the HD using FDISK). I am sure this is something simple, stupid and right under my nose, but I would appreciate any help... Thanks!

[Cricket]

Hi ghost_of_war,

Have you tried that CD drive in another computer? If it doesn't work there, it's defective.

Cricket

[ghost_of_war]

Yup, I even tried a different CD drive. I am totally stumped. Like I said, I know both IDE channels and cables are good. Just for some reason when you have both of them plugged in (IDE-0 is HD and CD ROM is CD ROM in BIOS), the computer will not detect anything drive related except the floppy. I also tried changing the 3rd boot device (would be the CD) to say IDE-1 and still nothing. I have to make delivery on this system on February 27th - anyone figures it out, I'll buy you dinner!

[catfishjoe_1]

What kind of m-board? A . . . this is a silly question but do you have the cable backwards? Told you it was silly. Have you tried to set bios to defaults? Auto detect drives? Newest drivers for the board? Bios updates?
HTH
cat

[ghost_of_war]

Haven't ran a BIOS update yet due to it being a brand new ECS K7S5A motherboard. Yup, have it set to Auto detect in the BIOS as well. I can't install the drivers for anything because I cannot get the CD ROM drive to function.

[Kubie]

ghost_of_war,

it being a brand new ECS K7S5A motherboard

ECS hasn't had a real good name for quality. There is the possibility that the mobo needs to be RMA'D.
Carl

[catfishjoe_1]

Ok what have you done. Those are very particular in how you set them up. What kind of cd drive?
cat

[mike breck]

What make and model of Power Supply do you have?

You've got nothing to lose by trying another Power Supply.

[catfishjoe_1]

Which bios are you using? What is the board revision number? Here is a link to a good bios for overclocking. You are probably not interested in overclocking but if you are going to use sdram you will want to use this bios as sdram has a known flaw(compatibility) with the board. This bios is quite stable and will help with a lot of the problems with the ecs board. A good site for more info on this board is here and they have lots of info and fixes for any problems you have.
HTH
cat

[ghost_of_war]

Well, the thing is, everything works fine, all except using the CD and HD in tandem like a normal system. No matter what I change the settings to, I cannot get them both to function at once. It sees all of the RAM with no problem, but I never heard of a RAM issue causing that sort of problem. Yet, you learn something new everyday. Hopefully someone can come up with a simple answer. I know it's right under my nose, I just seem to have run out of ideas.... Please keep in mind also that, all of the parts are brand new. No OEM or used components. Bought everything except the case, CPU and motherboard from Newegg, whom I have had great success with numerous times...

[catfishjoe_1]

what kind of cd-rom? have you installed the agp updates and the dma fix for amd chips?
cat

[ghost_of_war]

Ah, as I have said, I have found my own problem right under my nose. What I did was use the original IDE cable that came with the motherboard (blue tipped) and used the second connector on that to connect to the CD and the primary connector on it to connect to the HD. Set the HD to CABLE and the CD to SLAVE (PRIMARY SLAVE). System recognized both and all work fine. I had tried that earlier, but being in such a 'ticked' off mood, I wasn't thinking and I had those two connectors backwards. Thank you all for your help. I am new to thos forum and I see that I can come here for alot of my tech needs. Have a good weekend.

[Cricket]

Originally posted by ghost_of_war What I did was use the original IDE cable that came with the motherboard (blue tipped) and used the second connector on that to connect to the CD and the primary connector on it to connect to the HD. Set the HD to CABLE and the CD to SLAVE (PRIMARY SLAVE). System recognized both and all work fine.

If you're using a 80 wire ATA66/100/133 IDE cable, both drives should be jumpered to CS (cable select) with the blue connector on the motherboard, black connector to hard drive and grey connector to CD.

Actually, I'd put the two drives on separate IDE channels and use a 40 wire ATA33 IDE cable with the CD-ROM drive.

Cricket

[ghost_of_war]

Excellent, thanks for the tip, Cricket. What is the actual difference between the two IDE cable types you just mentioned?

[Cricket]

Originally posted by ghost_of_war Excellent, thanks for the tip, Cricket. What is the actual difference between the two IDE cable types you just mentioned?

Check out this thread.

Cricket

[ghost_of_war]

Excellent, thank you. In all of my years, I never knew the true difference until now (or my most recent headache - LOL)....

[glc]

catfishjoe: This is a minor point but I have to mention it - drivers and patches do not come into play until an operating system is installed on the hard drive and you are actually in Windows - let's not confuse hardware issues with software issues. A scenario like this is either a hardware problem (which this was) or possibly a BIOS issue, there really isn't anything else it can be.

ghost: I would advise you (and all other owners of the K7S5A) to keep the bios updated - normally it's a "if it aint broke don't fix it" thing with a bios, but this board in particular has so many issues it can only help as ECS works out the bugs.

[ghost_of_war]

Thanks, GLC - I normally do not buy these boards for myself, but it is for a client of mine who is a little short on cash and pretty much took what she could afford. It's a nice motherboard and I hope that ECS can work out their kinks...

[Ashton]

hmmmm, im starting to really wonder about these ECS K7S5A motherboards as i have had problems with mine as you know, oh well, shame im on such a low budget with my parts, i know how your client feels..

[Computer Hobbyist]

Iwouidn't use Ghost's problem as a reason not to buy ECS motherboards. His was purely a cabling problem that could have happened with any advanced mobo. I am not saying that ECS mobo's are great, just that ghost's problem was not evidence of a bad mobo.

CH

[Ashton]

oh dont get me wrong, i wasnt putting down ECS motherboards, i suppose they are all such fragile things, no matter which brand you buy, sorry if you think i was saying that they are bad boards

[ghost_of_war]

Yes, my problem was a cabling problem which I am still kicking myself over because I should have known better. LOL...

[mike breck]

Anyone with the M830LR (K7S5A) should get acquainted with Mr. Athlon's troubleshooting guide.

http://www.geocities.com/mrathlon2000/

The most famous problem for some unfortunate users is the lost BIOS settings. It's a great board if it works perfectly first time, but if it doesn't, you can have a major headache.

[Cricket]

Originally posted by mike breck Anyone with the M830LR (K7S5A) should get acquainted with Mr. Athlon's troubleshooting guide. http://www.geocities.com/mrathlon2000/ The most famous problem for some unfortunate users is the lost BIOS settings. It's a great board if it works perfectly first time, but if it doesn't, you can have a major headache.

Nice link mike breck!

Cricket

[GUNIT]

well..

you "had" the same problem as I am having right now..

purchased the mobo at newegg as well..

(gigabyte board)

but I wasn't able to solve my problems..

RMA'ed it..hopefully it will work this time.....coming in tomorrow!

can't wait..and if I'm still having problems..

i'll go ballistic..

[catfishjoe_1]

glc:thanks for the info. The reason I asked about the AGP driver and the fix for the dma with the amd chips is because of it being an ECS board. I have one and from what I read at another forum those fixes can help with the ide side of the board for some reason. If I recall, I did do those fixes immediately after the os install on my system. It works really good for me by the way.

I agree on the bios problems with the board and try to keep up to speed with this issue and the board.
Thanks
cat

PcChips M830LR (using an overclock bios for ECS K7S5A by honeyX - it is the same board) 138/138
Athlon XP1800+(shows in bios as 1900+)
2*256 pc133sdram
msi gf2 mx400 64ddr tvout
onboard sound
agere chipset lucent winmodem
wd300 - 30gb harddrive
lg gce8080b cdrw
liteon 16x dvd
mitsumi floppy
win 98se
MBM5 ave cpu temp 45c