DarqFlare Posted November 25, 2003 Posted November 25, 2003 Alright, I'm going to explain a process of events, and I'd like input on the potential problem... I upgraded my computer a month and a half ago. Everything was alright, except that my RAM wasn't compatible with my board, so I went and got new RAM. Voila, it works. Upon installing the new board, my CDRW didn't want to work anymore. The cd tray didn't want to eject, and when I did get it open, it wouldn't read CDs. I thought the burner died... Well, recently I had an 80G drive die on me, so I had to get its replacement. I installed it and everything was fine, until my computer locked up (Coicidentally, while I was headed to these very forums). I restarted my computer and my BIOS didn't detect the new 80G drive. I turned off the computer and went inside to see if something got knocked, and make sure all the connections were alright. They were, and while I had it open I disconnected the CDRW since it hadn't been working. The CDRW is on the same IDE cable as a DVDROM I have. Well, I turned it back on and it saw the 80G fine. I booted it up and played with it, but then thought to try a test with my CDRW... See, my power supply is 500W, but one of the two fans on it hasn't been working, so I thought maybe it was going out. So, I went in and reconnected the CDRW and disconnected the DVDROM. Booted up, the tray opened fine, and I put in a CD. It read it for the first time since my upgrade. Awesome! I booted down, reconnected the DVDROM, booted up, and the CDRW stopped reading disks again. So I booted down, removed the DVDROM again, booted up, and tested the CDRW again to see if it was a fluke. It wasn't. The tray worked multiple times and it read different CDs. I figured my power supply was dying, so I just reconnected the DVDROM and disconnected the CDRW until I could get a better power supply. Well, this morning when I was doing Windows Updates, my computer locked again. I restarted it and the 80G was missing again. So I shut it down and took a shower. Came back, turned it on, and the 80G was detected. That was the last thing that happened. I should mention that the DVDROM and CDRW both worked on an older motherboard on the same IDE cable, and that before this upgrade, my computer wasn't using as much power as it is now. What gets me is that right after locking up, it will NOT detect the 80G drive. I have to let it sit for at least 5 minutes before it does, which also makes me wonder about the heat factor... And since the fan on the power supply isn't working, it isn't staying as cooled... At this point, I am trying to figure out if it is the motherboard or the power supply. It could potentially be the motherboard, I mean... Not detecting the hard drive, under other circumstances, would make me think that it was the board since the HD is not bad. But the fact that the CDRW can't recognize CDs, its tray doesn't work sometimes... I'm not sure. Any help on this? Any ideas? Sure is appreciated... Later today I'm gonna plunk down money that I don't have on a new 500W supply, and if that doesn't fix my problems, I'll have to ship the damn board back to the manufacturer for warranty... I am so sick of computer problems... Quote
TCH-Dick Posted November 25, 2003 Posted November 25, 2003 My first thought would be its a BIOS problem, , check your mother board manufacturers website for a BIOS update Quote
DarqFlare Posted November 25, 2003 Author Posted November 25, 2003 Aaargh.... I s'pose I'll update my BIOS tonight... I'm having the power supply tested today at CompUSA (And I'll run a quick test on my home computer: Leaving the DVDROM powered, but not hooked to hte motherboard). If the PS is fine and the BIOS update doesn't work, I'm stuck trying to collect warranty on the damn board... Quote
Guest schussat Posted November 25, 2003 Posted November 25, 2003 It does sound like some kind of BIOS problem, especially from the description of the CD and DVD behavior. Also, what happens if you put drives on different IDE cables, or switch their order on the single cable? It really sounds like those two devices are having some kind of conflict. Quote
youneverknow Posted November 26, 2003 Posted November 26, 2003 Just a thought...are you making sure the Master/Slave jumpers are in the correct position? Quote
TCH-Dick Posted November 26, 2003 Posted November 26, 2003 For starters stop running it with a power supply thats not properly cooled. All of the problems that you are having can be caused by a bad power supply. It can cause system crashes, corruption of data, or hardware failure. Since it is not cooling properly it is just adding heat to the whole system. Once the power supply becomes too hot the power can start to fluciate. This might even be the reason you lost your hard drive. So forget about the BIOS and change out the power supply first, the rest are just small problems(unless you keep using that power supply). As far as everthing working when you remove the DVD, you will probaly get the same results by removing any peice of hardware. The less of aload that a power supply has the less work it has to do, and the less heat it produces. Good Luck and let us know how it goes Quote
DarqFlare Posted November 27, 2003 Author Posted November 27, 2003 Here's my status update... I've switched out the poor supply and got a new one. The "missing 80G" problem has not happened since I did that, so voila, that one's fixed. In addition, my system temperature is about 10 degrees (F) cooler. Me = happy. Now I'm still having CDRW problems. It works when the DVDROM isn't plugged into IDE 1 (Cable #2), 0 (Spot #1). I'm pretty sure the master/slave settings are correct, but I'll be checking them tonight when I do extensive tests of the cable and the connection on the board. They were setup this exact same way, with the same jumper settings if I'm not mistaken, on a different motherboard, and the CDRW worked fine. I should mention that when the DVDROM is not plugged in, I don't move the CDRW to the first spot on the cable; all I do is disconnect the DVDROM. The CDRW works from the second spot and in slave mode without the DVDROM hooked up. Side note: My BIOS is the most up-to-date, and there is no firmware update for the burner. I'll have more for you tonight. I plan on doing the following to figure this out: 1) Checking master/slave jumpers. 2) Switching the CDRW and DVDROM spots on the cable (And their master/slave status). 3) Leaving DVDROM on the first spot and putting a different device than the CDRW on the second spot, preferrably another CDROM-type device. 4) Switching the IDE cables' connections on the board (Hard drives would become secondary from their primary position) - I accidentally did this once about a month ago during my upgrade and it all worked fine anyway, so maybe it has to do with the IDE connection on the board. Also, more information I forgot to mention... After attempting to access the CD in the burner, I dropped by my Event Viewer in Computer Management. To my surprise, there were about 30 entries all at the same time that had the same contents that read "cdrom." I checked their contents and they said (I don't quite remember exactly) "Driver reported a controller error on \Device\CDROM1." More thoughts? I can't get a new driver for the burner because WinXP came with the driver already. I've tried looking online: no go. Quote
Deverill Posted November 27, 2003 Posted November 27, 2003 Just a thought...are you making sure the Master/Slave jumpers are in the correctposition? Just a little off topic comment. It's interesting you refer to the jumpers like that. Here's an article about how LA officials want us to stop calling them that because it's offensive. www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=3894931 Sometimes I think people are just too daggum easily offended. Quote
TCH-Dick Posted November 27, 2003 Posted November 27, 2003 Forget the Master/Slave settings, move the jumpers to CS/CableSelect the BIOS will auto detect where the device is on the cable. Let me know if this helps Quote
DarqFlare Posted November 27, 2003 Author Posted November 27, 2003 Alright. Here's where I stand... Nothing new? Not really. I switched the DVDROM and CDRW on the cable itself and also switched their master/slave status, and the computer wouldn't detect the CDRW correctly at all -- before, it would recognize the CDRW correctly but it couldn't read disks. So I switched them back, and it still didn't recognize CDs. I took out the CDRW and brought in an older 10G hard drive. Windows froze in bootup. I restarted and brought it up in Safe Mode, and it came up correctly and saw the hard drive 100% fine. I restarted back into normal mode, and it froze in bootup again. At this point, I'm going by one of two things... 1) Drivers for board. 2) Board itself. Any new ideas? Quote
DarqFlare Posted November 28, 2003 Author Posted November 28, 2003 Another update: I said that switcing out the power supply corrected the "missing 80G drive" problem... It didn't. The drive disappeared in mid-use again, and I had to shut down and turn off my computer completely to have it be recognized again. This didn't happen with my previous 80G drive that died on me. Quote
DarqFlare Posted December 1, 2003 Author Posted December 1, 2003 Well.. I was just about to replace it when my new 80G drive refused to load up anymore. Then I put in another damn RMA on it and broke out my old 10G hard drive to do a temporary install on (I'm on it right now). Guess what? The CDRW works on this install of Windows on the 10G drive. So, is it possible that that specific model of hard drive is causing these problems? Because the CDRW is working on the same system config as before, except that the 80G drive is swapped for a 10G. I'm still installing stuff onto the 10G, but essentially, everything is the same. Whadya think now? The 80G is the problem or the board?? Quote
DarqFlare Posted December 1, 2003 Author Posted December 1, 2003 Alright, the CDRW isn't working again, underneath the 10G drive this time. I went into computer management to look further into what might be a problem... It gave me a bunch of errors about "cdrom" when I tried to access a CD in the CDRW. It read "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\CdRom1." Is it the board or the board's drivers?? Quote
TCH-Andy Posted December 1, 2003 Posted December 1, 2003 I'd say the motherboard has problems - time to replace it... Quote
DarqFlare Posted December 1, 2003 Author Posted December 1, 2003 Alright. I s'pose I'll go on that, since both HG and Andy said so. Now I just have to figure out a way to get MSI to replace my board, it's only about a month and a half old... Quote
TCH-Andy Posted December 1, 2003 Posted December 1, 2003 only a month and a half old - you should be able to manage to wangle a new one then - good luck Quote
DarqFlare Posted December 2, 2003 Author Posted December 2, 2003 Well, good news... I've put in an RMA request on my board. Yay. Now I have to wait for the new 80G drive to come in as well as my new board, and hopefully everything will work... Quote
DarqFlare Posted December 3, 2003 Author Posted December 3, 2003 If anybody is still keeping up with this thread... I've sent off my motherboard to MSI. They contacted me and said it was likely a controller problem on the motherboard. Western Digital also contacted me about my two dead hard drives, and they think that the board was likely the culprit of the drives' deaths. Now I get to contact WD as to why I received a different model HD this time around than the one I bought. I bought an 8MB cache model, and I think they gave me a 2MB cache model... Augh! Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.