THE Ordeal

[Psilaxs]

This will be a lengthy story, but I think fellow ZP geeks will enjoy it.

This entire ordeal started earlier this afternoon (well yesterday afternoon actually)

I decided to buy some new hardware for my computer that i have been needing (wanting)
I bought myself a Liteon sohw 1633s 16x speed double layer dvd burner and a 200 gig sata hard drive.

Scene 1: The Burner Debacle.

I bought the Liteon around 1 O'clock this afternoon (along with a spindle of blank media, no doubt there will be coasters galore as this is my first dvd burner) I got home around 2 O'clock, unpacked the goods and started unhooking the cables from my tower.

I removed my old CD burner and placed the Liteon in its place, set the jumper to cable select (i have 2 devices hooked up to the IDE cable, the second being set as slave)
so I figured I could get away with having it set to cable select, as 99% of the time this gives no one any problems.

Everything is all hooked up and ready to go, i power the system on and get the dreaded NO POST (the bios will not post) I figure this is no big deal and something I have probably over looked, i check my IDE cable connection, molex connections the whole nine yards, still wont post. I unhook everything again, tear into my tower and remove the suspect dvd burner, I decide to set the jumper to master and see if this does not resolve any conflicts.

No go, the bios still will not post. I remove the dvd burner yet again and place my old CD burner back into the tower using the settings I had before installing the Liteon. I cross my fingers, power up the system, and get nothing, still will not post.

I remove my old cd burner and attempt to boot with no cd rom at all, nothing.

Fearing I may have shorted out the motherboard (perhaps maybe forgetting to ground myself to the chassis first) I reset my cmos jumper and clear out ALL settings. place the jumper back to default position, hook everything back up and pray to the digi gods this works. I power on again, BAM black screen, and bios is still not posting.

It is now 4:30 pm and I still have a computer that will not post. Still not giving up hope, I take out my two ram sticks from the duel channel slots, and place 1 stick into the previously unoccupied slot: I hook everything back up again (for pragmatic reasons I always disconnect all external devices from my computer even though it is not necessary in all scenarios) and power on the system, it would not post the first few times (windows start up was caught in a loop), but after shutting it down and waiting a few second it finally posted (at this point I almost wanted to high five myself, but I remained composed and calculated, concentrating on the task at hand at) I re-configured my entire bios, remember a few hours back I had to wipe it out.

Ok, so now I have a system that is partially functional (to my standards) and with half the ram I normally run, and no burner hooked into it, but at least I know I did not toast the mother board. I set my external cpu frequency multiplier and fsb (Front side Bus) and ram timings to something semi workable for the time being. I take a break and decide to go buy my hard drive since dvd's and VOB files take up an enormous amount of space.

Scenario 2: The illusion of progress

I get back home set down my goods, pet the dog, and glare at the infernal machine giving me so much frustration. The time is now somewhere around 7:30 pm

Ok back to getting the Liteon working before I install the hard drive, I am hesitant to put the Liteon back into the computer fearing what may happen. I hook it up, turn it on and guess what, the fucker wont post. This time I know what I need to do so, repeat steps of taking out ram and resetting the cmos, I keep the dvd burner attached this time. After everything is reset and cleared, I allowed the system to boot to windows, good so far, I have the device installed. I play around in windows for a short while to make sure it will not crash, runs 'fine' which is as well as it can be with the default cmos setting.

I restart, go back into the bios and set everything back to normal settings, reboot and hold the computer at gun point. It finally posts (and boots i may add) with the correct settings.

The time is now 10:20 pm, I take a break, and take a nap. I wake up around 11:00 pm and get back to it, no rest for the digerati.

11:00 PM
Scene 3: SATA = Sometimes All Things Anguish

I unpack my my new sata hard drive take a quick look at the pitiful manual included (i have installed so many HDD's I never reference manuals. Though I did notice in the fold out manual it says something about not hooking up BOTH power supplies. With a bit of vexation I look at the HDD in my hand and see 1 molex connector (I know a lot of sata hard drives require a special power adapter for the unit, but this takes a standard molex)

I hook up the hdd units rather odd looking sata cable and the power supply, turn on the computer and hope for the best. Black screen, bios will not post; short of pulling out enough hair to make myself bald, I check to make sure everything is hooked up correctly, that I did not place any IDE cables back into the wrong devices.

I had to unhook everything in order to squeeze it in: with 4 hdd's a dvd burner and an ATI Radeon x800 pro which takes up not only the agp slot but the pci slot under it (very large card, about 1/3rd the size of the mother board) and also has it's own molex power supply things are a bit cramped, anyway I digress. Everything is hooked up properly as I label my ide cable to which device they go to.

Sata is supposed to be active on the motherboard by default, so I get the manual to my motherboard, and look for any special instructions involving hooking up a new sata drive the the motherboard. There is none, so I am on my own on this one.

I take a look at the quick reference card to my motherboard just to get a general idea of things (at this point i wanted to call tech support, not so much for them being able to help me, but to bitch at asus for making such shit, flaky motherboards)

I notice on the quick reference card that the jumper settings for activating the sata controller is set wrong. HEY GREAT!, something simple I over looked. I set the jumper to the proper setting, reboot, and,,,..................... and,.............. (come on baby, daddy loves you) not a FUCKING thing. It still will not post. Anyone who can guess what I had to do next gets a nickel, thats right, reset the bios yet again, still didn't work, so I had to reset the bios plus remove the ram and place 1 stick into the previous unoccupied slot.

That didn't work, so I had to remove the hard drive, and try to get the bios to post again.
After I removed the HDD, it did post. ok, so now I know I have what appears to be another hardware conflict on my mother board, or a faulty hard drive. I take a look at the 'manual' for the hard drive since the end of the sata cable that goes into the hard drive was quite a bit larger than what i am used to/have seen. I figured it was a proprietary cable for Western Digital hard drives. I was partially correct, it is proprietary, but also a power cable in and of itself. I thought to myself oh shit, this whole time I have had 2 power cables hooked into it, it is probably junk now.


Scene 4: Cause and Effect

I go through the usual routine before getting inside my computer, and un hook the power molex from the WD HDD and use the proprietary sata cable. I boot the computer nothing.

Now I am really concerned that I damaged the drive, I can always take it back but I am extremely impatient and want it done tonight. I do not want to wait for circuit city to open tomorrow (which has become later on today) so I can exchange it. (I am not sure, I think it is a defective unit, mind if i just exchange it? ok thanks)

Since using the sata cable that came with the drive did not work, I went and grabbed an extra cable that came with my mother board. I used a standard sata cable that does NOT power the unit, and hooked up a standard molex to it. I thought hopefully I may have only damaged the cable that came with it, or the power input for the sata cable on the drive, not sure which.

I re-install the drive, re-activate the sata controller jumper, and hope for the best.
It posts, so far good. I get the screen where it asks me if I want to set up my sata raid controller, OH GOODY!, I sure as hell do you un cooperative bitch.

I get into the setup area for the sata controller in the bios and go through the usual motions and proceed to format the drive. WOOHOO it freezes while formatting at 0%.

I figure since it is recognizing that something is indeed there, if perhaps windows will recognize that I have an unformatted drive, it doesn't. I reboot and go back into the bios, it is not showing up as a selectable boot device (not that it is what I am going to use it for)

I am desperate at this point and decide to install the useless hard drive set up utilities that come with the drive that no one actually uses, to see if it will recognize the drive in windows. Nope, no go, doesn't see that it is there.

---I check my boot device order, check the bios setting to make sure I have not overlooked anything even remotely close to resembling sata options. Nothing is over looked, and everything is as it should be. I get back to windows and it says it found a new device do you wish to install drivers for it now~~. YES!, wait, not so fast, half a second later before it actually stated what the device was I realized it was not recognizing my hdd, it was recognizing my freshly activated sata controller. I go through to process of installing the drivers for it. (something I already did when I first installed my motherboard drivers a couple months back) The sata raid controller is now recognized by windows but the drive isn't, even after several reboots.---

I decide to use the software that came with the hard drive to see if it will recognize it now, and it does. finally. The western Digital hard drive right out of the box is not recognized by windows at all, and you MUST use the software for the drive to even be readable by windows. After the software formats the drive (something I always do myself) it says it is now ready to be used. I am incredulous, this simply cannot be, it is working.

It is now 3:30 am and I have a fully functional Sata drive installed in my machine, and a dvd burner that is still giving me playback issues (slow read speed, and choppy play back)

Earlier in the evening I spent quite a bit of time trying to see why it was doing this, I checked to make sure it was not running in PIO mode and that ultra DMA was activated, it was. I am still up in the air on this one, but I am certain it is nothing that some tweaking/updates will not take care of.

It is now 5:25 am and I am enjoying a well deserved rum and Coke.

Most of these issues were simply caused by my motherboard not getting along very well with new devices being installed, it is very finicky. If at all you decide to by an Asus A7N8X - E Deluxe Motherboard with the Nforce 2 Ultra 400 chipset DON'T. While the chipset is among the best out there, the board it is attached to is not. I miss my Epox 8RDA3+ greatly as it never gave me ANY problems, ran 30% cooler, over clocked much easier and never gave me hardware conflicts.

Hope you enjoyed this story, goodnight, I am going to bed.

[crackerjacker]

I will read this later.
love and peace hope it works out. i read some of it.

[Mels_Smileys45]

Had to take a smoke break half way thru that one. lol Twas a good yarn though.

Don't you hate that pit in your gut feeling when things of this nature happen? Its a bad feeling. Hope you get it rocking tomorrow/today.

[Watchmen]

love reading stories like this! I have no idea what a 'sata cable' is or a 'molex' but it just goes to show you what reading the 'fine' manual can do for ya! :gj:
Can't wait to hear your stories about dvd-burning issues...really looking forward to that. (no I'm not joking. I recently bought a new dvd-burner to and there was a learning curve involved) maybe we can share experiences when you do get around to experimenting with burning dvd-data discs not to mention making 'backups' of your legally purchased dvd's. ;) :p

[moneoa]

See how much your life is easier thanks to the miracle of computers? *lol*

[wingnut2600]

tee hee

I have an A7N8X Deluxe (like an old 1.4 version), and the thing is damned nice, but finicky as all hell.

I feel your pain. I am occasionally tempted to add a SATA drive, but I wonder about how it will work in the real world.

[Afn]

I had to unhook everything in order to squeeze it in: with 4 hdd's a dvd burner and an ATI Radeon x800 pro which takes up not only the agp slot but the pci slot under it (very large card, about 1/3rd the size of the mother board) and also has it's own molex power supply things are a bit cramped, anyway I digress. Everything is hooked up properly as I label my ide cable to which device they go to.

Sata is supposed to be active on the motherboard by default, so I get the manual to my motherboard, and look for any special instructions involving hooking up a new sata drive the the motherboard. There is none, so I am on my own on this one.

I take a look at the quick reference card to my motherboard just to get a general idea of things (at this point i wanted to call tech support, not so much for them being able to help me, but to bitch at asus for making such shit, flaky motherboards)

I notice on the quick reference card that the jumper settings for activating the sata controller is set wrong. HEY GREAT!, something simple I over looked. I set the jumper to the proper setting, reboot, and,,,..................... and,.............. (come on baby, daddy loves you) not a FUCKING thing. It still will not post. Anyone who can guess what I had to do next gets a nickel, thats right, reset the bios yet again, still didn't work, so I had to reset the bios plus remove the ram and place 1 stick into the previous unoccupied slot.

That didn't work, so I had to remove the hard drive, and try to get the bios to post again.
After I removed the HDD, it did post. ok, so now I know I have what appears to be another hardware conflict on my mother board, or a faulty hard drive. I take a look at the 'manual' for the hard drive since the end of the sata cable that goes into the hard drive was quite a bit larger than what i am used to/have seen. I figured it was a proprietary cable for Western Digital hard drives. I was partially correct, it is proprietary, but also a power cable in and of itself. I thought to myself oh shit, this whole time I have had 2 power cables hooked into it, it is probably junk now.

I bought a seagate sata drive, and have had 0 problems with it. Not running it as a raid. You may want to have 4 computers, one for dvd authoring, one for audio, one for programming, ect... and distribute out the hardware. I do this and find I have no problems, and with a monitor switch can get better performance than just 1 machine 4 everything.

Pun intended.

[crackerjacker]

hmm wow i feel your pain.
damn man that is something else.

hmm i know someone who had problems before with their mobo and i can relate to you.

hell i had to fix issues i had awhile ago too with my puter, luckily i was able to resolve it.

hmm now go get some sleep.
;)
dayum
just something interesting etc.
peace
i love u and i love me.
hmm

wow you do know your stuff tho
woot

[SanDiegoKid]

Ahhh you've fallen under the curse of Lite On!
Of course it's impossible for me to know what's wrong, but I love blaming Lite On.
Twice that company has screwed me with bad optical drives. Oh sure, I read all the reviews about how they're a great value with great performance, blahbiddy blahbiddy blah blah blah... nope. Don't bother asking for tech support, because you're actually calling India, and they barely understand you. You'll wait a week for a form letter e-mail telling you why it's all your fault, with all of the support info you gave them (OS, product model, the technical issue at hand) completely inaccurate. When you call back they won't have a record of your first call, so you have to start the whole thing over. In the end, you'll be screwed.

So, yeah I hope that helps. Good luck man!

[tackdaddy]

i only love computers when they work.when something goes wrong it always turn out to be a nightmare marathon.my last problem happened when my girl downloaded a wallpaper that had a .exe extension and of course it had a ton of spyware and a couple of viruses.it took me 4 hours to fix and i had to tell her never download wallpaper that are a exe.

[Psilaxs]

I bought a seagate sata drive, and have had 0 problems with it. Not running it as a raid. You may want to have 4 computers, one for dvd authoring, one for audio, one for programming, ect... and distribute out the hardware. I do this and find I have no problems, and with a monitor switch can get better performance than just 1 machine 4 everything.

Pun intended.

yeah uhh thats nice......... and no, your 4 machines will not perform better than my one kick ass uber pc :gj

@Wingnut, yes, i like the A7n8x also, but the epox was much better, don't get me wrong, it is a good board, never had an stability issues with it. it just doesn't like new devices being added. While with my epox i could practically hot swap hdd.

As far as the sata drive itself, it is excellent, extremely fast I love it.

[nukehella]

Ahhh-my signature is clearly such a wise statement.I wish I could remember who I lifted it from.

[Afn]

yeah uhh thats nice......... and no, your 4 machines will not perform better than my one kick ass uber pc :gj

@Wingnut, yes, i like the A7n8x also, but the epox was much better, don't get me wrong, it is a good board, never had an stability issues with it. it just doesn't like new devices being added. While with my epox i could practically hot swap hdd.

As far as the sata drive itself, it is excellent, extremely fast I love it.

4 x 1.80 Ghz = 7.2 ghz. Not bad imoho.If one pc crashes, 3 other do work. A single PC configuration leaves you with the BSOD blues.

ha ha

[MikeHunt]

I feel your pain as well...i hope that writing about it kept you from pulling the Uzi out of the closet and going on a hunting expedition.

[Psilaxs]

4 x 1.80 Ghz = 7.2 ghz. Not bad imoho.If one pc crashes, 3 other do work. A single PC configuration leaves you with the BSOD blues.

ha ha

No I do not get the BSOD, and please, stop the dick measuring contest: this is my thread not one for you to hijack about your 4 computers, ok?