New hardware: Help!!??!!

[Ribbit]

This might seem like a stupid idea and it probably is, but try removing the modem. Some internal modems have been known to do really stupid/nasty things (I've heard tales of motherboard chipsets being fried).

[GNEP]

The problems existed before I put the modem in . It's a bog standard Intel PCI jobbie.

[Taz]

Originally posted by GNEP
...is "cable select" better?

Cable select requires a suitable cable i.e. one which has a break in one of the wires between the two device connectors.

[GNEP]

Any way of telling if my cables can do that (without my multimeter, which is 200 miles away!)

[Taz]

The only cables like that I've seen have been in Compaq PC's. The ones supplied with the motherboard will be standard ones. Have you tried different IDE cables by the way?

[LvR]

Taz

I may be wrong but as far as I know, any mobo maker with one or more UDMA4+ IDE ports supply a 80 core cable and one standard 40 core IDE cable (more expensive mobos supply 2 80 core cables) - both of wich will be able to run Cable Select out the box in my experience.

"Better" ??????
If it makes things work then yes. ITO performance I doubt any change.

[GNEP]

I've got other cables. I will try them all, and see with various jumper settings on the drives...

Anyone see anything they recognise on the vid card side of things?

[Taz]

Originally posted by LvR
I may be wrong but as far as I know, any mobo maker with one or more UDMA4+ IDE ports supply a 80 core cable and one standard 40 core IDE cable (more expensive mobos supply 2 80 core cables) - both of wich will be able to run Cable Select out the box in my experience.

For cable select to work i.e. the position on the cable determines which device is master and which is slave, there has to be something on the cable to determine this. Compaq PC's come with there drives set to cable select and if you look at the cable you'll notice that a small hole has been punched through one of the wires between the first and second connectors. I assume this is what determines the master and slave. The device connected to the last connector only has 39 or 79, (could be 78?) pins connected whereas the one in the middle has 40 or 80. The cables I've seen with motherboards have never had this hole.

Maybe there's another way to determine the master and slave and Compaq mod their cables for some other purpose

I'm sure someone will come along to confirm/deny this

[LvR]

Tas

Had a quick look at the 80 core cables (Gigabyte+Intel mobos) I have lying around here in the lab. All have a "punch hole" below the end connector on one of the conductors - so yes I guess you may have a point there. These cables all have "master" designated on the ends.

[GNEP]

Hmm... thanks guys. Know what to look out for now on the cables.

Will report back tomorrow/later today on progress swapping things in/out.

Gnep

[GNEP]

Right. Update time!

1) Swapping cables/jumpers on the drives made no difference - conclude that I don't have a problem with cables or jumper settings. Could still only get it to boot up with no CD drives attached, and the G450 was still not being recognised.

2) Noticed that actually the floppy drive wasn't working at all. Tried different cables/turning cables around/all sorts. Still no luck. So perhaps I have a dead floppy? The drive light stays on all the time.

3) Therefore, with no access to CD drives or floppy drives, I couldn't boot into DOS and flash the BIOS.

4) Took out the new motherboard, put back in the old one, reconnected the minimum possible, but got absolutely NOTHING. wouldn't even power up, let alone POST.

5) So put old PSU back in. Basically back to old configuration, which was v. unstable but at least would boot up sometimes. Still no luck though. Not even powering up. Like in (4), would get a little movement on the fans when the power switch was pressed, but this quickly stopped.

6) Tried arsing around with all the case leads - LED cables, power switch cables etc. (Just in case I had got them the wrong way around) Still no luck.

7) Got annoyed and went for a beer.

So in conclusion, I have one completely dead machine. Either I have been really stupid, and am getting my cables connected all wrong, or I have been really stupid and have fried everything (and I mean everything) with static (although I am generally pretty careful with earthing myself and the case), or something else (there was a bit of lightning the other day).

Can a dodgy floppy drive stop a whole system from booting?

Tonight I plan to put the new mobo back in once more, try again, and if still no luck send it back for replacement.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Gnep

[Ribbit]

The floppy drive light staying on normally indicates the cable is connected upside-down. It won't have any effect on the rest of the system though (at least, it never has for me).

Sounds like your problems are far more serious than that. You don't have any thing in the case that could be shorting the motherboards, do you? As a last resort, you might try putting a minimal system together outside the case.

[GNEP]

I was thinking of that Ribbit... would make pulling bits in and out a lot easier! Only worry was that this might cause yet more danger of me frying things.

Tried the floppy cable upside down as well. No luck - same result.

Will continue fiddling, and see...

[SitFlyer]

Have you tried leaving the floppy disconnected and connecting the CD drive and modifing the boot sequence as such?

Or, to help narrow down the problem, you could copy the Win2k cd to the boot drive, from another machine, and see if it finds it ok.

This surely is a very perplexing problem.

[Taz]

Another thing to try is unplugging all IDE cables and see if it will boot from a floppy. Might even be worth unplugging the mouse as I've seen that cause a PC not to boot before.