On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 18:40:38 -0500, "Strontium" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>-
>Brian Groose stood up at show-n-tell, in
>(E-Mail Removed), and said:
>
>> On Tue, 09 Sep 2003 21:53:47 -0400, Brian Groose
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm having a problem trying to get my "old" Western Digital 120GB
>>> (WD1200BB) drive to work in my new system. If the drive is
>>> connected, then the BIOS hangs while trying to detect it. If I
>>> don't power on the drive until after I enter the BIOS setup, then it
>>> is detected just fine, and everything works until the next time I
>>> completely turn off the system.
>>>
>>> - I've tried several power supplies, 250W, 300W, and 380W, and that
>>> didn't matter.
>>> - The drive is jumpered correctly, as a single master, and WDC
>>> diagnostics didn't find anything wrong.
>>> - There are no other drives or cards installed in the system, just
>>> the Motherboard, CPU and 120GB drive.
>>> - The same problem occurs if I use an add-on ATA card.
>>> - This drive still works fine if I put it in my old Athlon 650
>>> system.
>>> - A 40GB 5400RPM Maxtor drive does not exhibit this problem in the
>>> system, it is detected right away.
>>>
>>> Right now, the system consists of:
>>> - Soltek 75MRN-L motherboard
>>> - Athlon XP 2500+ Barton CPU
>>> - Centon 512MB PC2700 RAM
>>> - WD1200BB Western Digital 120GB hard drive
>>>
>>> Has anyone run into a problem like this before? Any other ideas on
>>> what parts to swap? I RMA'd the original motherboard because it did
>>> this, but since the second one does it, I'm guessing it's something
>>> else. The drive is one of the early WD 120GB drives, and not under
>>> warrantly anymore.
>>
>> I hooked up a separate power supply to the hard drive from an external
>> enclosure, and if I power that and the system on at the same time,
>> everything works great! It almost seems like the PSU in the case
>> isn't getting enough power to the drive during the initial startup,
>> and the drive gets in some weird wedged state. Someone else suggested
>> trying a different outlet, so I'm going to try playing with more
>> power-related issues.
>
>It might be that all of the PSU's you've tried, up to this point are crap
>and cannot handle the full load of everything in your case. I think the
>fact that a separate PSU solves the issue, points to that. You never
>mentioned what brand of PSU's you've used. There are a lot of crap ones,
>out there.
>

I'm using Antecs, and I'm pretty sure they got decent reviews.
The 250W was an older sparkle, which was approved for my Athlon 650 at
the time.
The 300W is an Antec SmartPower.
The 380W is an Antec TruePower

-
Brian Groose stood up at show-n-tell, in
(E-Mail Removed), and said:

> On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 18:40:38 -0500, "Strontium" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>> -
>> Brian Groose stood up at show-n-tell, in
>> (E-Mail Removed), and said:
>>
<snip>

>>> I hooked up a separate power supply to the hard drive from an
>>> external enclosure, and if I power that and the system on at the
>>> same time, everything works great! It almost seems like the PSU in
>>> the case isn't getting enough power to the drive during the initial
>>> startup, and the drive gets in some weird wedged state. Someone
>>> else suggested trying a different outlet, so I'm going to try
>>> playing with more power-related issues.
>>
>> It might be that all of the PSU's you've tried, up to this point are
>> crap and cannot handle the full load of everything in your case. I
>> think the fact that a separate PSU solves the issue, points to that.
>> You never mentioned what brand of PSU's you've used. There are a
>> lot of crap ones, out there.
>>
>
> I'm using Antecs, and I'm pretty sure they got decent reviews.
> The 250W was an older sparkle, which was approved for my Athlon 650 at
> the time.
> The 300W is an Antec SmartPower.
> The 380W is an Antec TruePower

Ahh, well, then that stinks. Antec is very prestigious, for sure. Only
thing I would guess, then, is some sort of voltage regulation deficiency of
the motherboard. Either that, or a defective HDD.


--
Strontium

"It's no surprise, to me. I am my own worst enemy. `Cause every
now, and then, I kick the livin' **** `outta me." - Lit

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 19:54:45 -0500, "Strontium" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>-
>Brian Groose stood up at show-n-tell, in
>(E-Mail Removed), and said:
>
>> On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 18:40:38 -0500, "Strontium" <(E-Mail Removed)>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> -
>>> Brian Groose stood up at show-n-tell, in
>>> (E-Mail Removed), and said:
>>>
><snip>
>
>>>> I hooked up a separate power supply to the hard drive from an
>>>> external enclosure, and if I power that and the system on at the
>>>> same time, everything works great! It almost seems like the PSU in
>>>> the case isn't getting enough power to the drive during the initial
>>>> startup, and the drive gets in some weird wedged state. Someone
>>>> else suggested trying a different outlet, so I'm going to try
>>>> playing with more power-related issues.
>>>
>>> It might be that all of the PSU's you've tried, up to this point are
>>> crap and cannot handle the full load of everything in your case. I
>>> think the fact that a separate PSU solves the issue, points to that.
>>> You never mentioned what brand of PSU's you've used. There are a
>>> lot of crap ones, out there.
>>>
>>
>> I'm using Antecs, and I'm pretty sure they got decent reviews.
>> The 250W was an older sparkle, which was approved for my Athlon 650 at
>> the time.
>> The 300W is an Antec SmartPower.
>> The 380W is an Antec TruePower
>
>Ahh, well, then that stinks. Antec is very prestigious, for sure. Only
>thing I would guess, then, is some sort of voltage regulation deficiency of
>the motherboard. Either that, or a defective HDD.

I just went and picked up a 120GB Maxtor, and that seems to work fine.
Seems like some sort of weird incompatibility or something. I'll just
DriveImage the disk over, and my Tivo will be getting a huge
disk-space upgrade.
Thanks for everyone's suggestions!

Brian

Brian Groose <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed)>...

> I don't have a Fast Boot option in this particular BIOS (that I could
> find, at least). But when I power the system on, and it hangs trying
> to detect the drive, then I reboot it, it still hangs after that, even
> though the drive is clearly powered up at that point.
> If I power the system on with auto detect disabled, I can go into the
> BIOS and try to auto detect the drive manually. It still hangs in
> this case, and the drive has had plenty of time to power up by then.

Try the WD drive without the 40-pin/80-wire cable ribbon cable plugged
into it because if the motherboard then boots normally from another
device, the problem is definitely not inadequate power but a BIOS
incompatibility, either the drive's BIOS or the motherboard's. WD has
issued a few BIOS upgrades for problems, but in one case they had to
replace the drives because a chipset manufacturer didn't meet official
ATA specs. But I have a feeling that your motherboard BIOS just
doesn't handle fast CPUs correctly in all instances, and this is
definitely the case if slowing the CPU bus in the setup (FSB speed)
helps. By the way, I'm fairly sure your BIOS has a fast/slow boot
selection in its Advanced Options menu, probably under fast/slow
power-on test. Another thing to try is a plug-in IDE controller
because that will bypass the motherboard's IDE controller, but in one
case even that didn't help me because the problem turned out to be
slightly low voltage.

I hope you're not using a round IDE cable because most make the
signals worse, and it's possible that some drives don't handle bad
signals as well as others do. If you insist on a round cable, be sure
it contains twisted pairs of wires, not straight wires.

On 11 Sep 2003 12:54:20 -0700, (E-Mail Removed)
(do_not_spam_me) wrote:

>Brian Groose <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed)>...
>
>> I don't have a Fast Boot option in this particular BIOS (that I could
>> find, at least). But when I power the system on, and it hangs trying
>> to detect the drive, then I reboot it, it still hangs after that, even
>> though the drive is clearly powered up at that point.
>> If I power the system on with auto detect disabled, I can go into the
>> BIOS and try to auto detect the drive manually. It still hangs in
>> this case, and the drive has had plenty of time to power up by then.
>
>Try the WD drive without the 40-pin/80-wire cable ribbon cable plugged
>into it because if the motherboard then boots normally from another
>device, the problem is definitely not inadequate power but a BIOS
>incompatibility, either the drive's BIOS or the motherboard's. WD has
>issued a few BIOS upgrades for problems, but in one case they had to
>replace the drives because a chipset manufacturer didn't meet official
>ATA specs. But I have a feeling that your motherboard BIOS just
>doesn't handle fast CPUs correctly in all instances, and this is
>definitely the case if slowing the CPU bus in the setup (FSB speed)
>helps. By the way, I'm fairly sure your BIOS has a fast/slow boot
>selection in its Advanced Options menu, probably under fast/slow
>power-on test. Another thing to try is a plug-in IDE controller
>because that will bypass the motherboard's IDE controller, but in one
>case even that didn't help me because the problem turned out to be
>slightly low voltage.
>
>I hope you're not using a round IDE cable because most make the
>signals worse, and it's possible that some drives don't handle bad
>signals as well as others do. If you insist on a round cable, be sure
>it contains twisted pairs of wires, not straight wires.

I just tried powering up the system with the drive power plugged in,
but not the ribbon cable, and it worked fine (well, it didn't detect
the disk obviously, but no hang).

When the CPU was clocked with a 100 or 133MHz FSB (normally 166), it
still had the same problem, so I don't think it has anything to do
with the CPU speed. I had tried it with an add-on card, and it still
wasn't detected, which really made me think it's not the BIOS. I just
went out and bought a Maxtor 120GB drive, and that seems to be working
just fine, so it seems specific to the WD drive.

I'm using a normal, flat 80-wire IDE cable, and I've tried several of
them, just to be sure that wasn't the issue.

I didn't see anything that looked even close to a fast/slow boot, but
I'll take another look around. Though if start-up duration is the
problem, Ctrl-Alt-Del after the hang should cause the drive to be
detected on the next boot, but it just hangs. Thanks for the
suggestions!

Brian

Brian Groose <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed)>...

> If the drive is connected, then the BIOS hangs while trying to
> detect it. If I don't power on the drive until after I enter
> the BIOS setup, then it is detected just fine, and everything
> works until the next time I completely turn off the system.

> - Soltek 75MRN-L motherboard
> - Athlon XP 2500+ Barton CPU
> - Centon 512MB PC2700 RAM
> - WD1200BB Western Digital 120GB hard drive

> I just went and picked up a 120GB Maxtor, and that seems to work
> fine. Seems like some sort of weird incompatibility or something.

You're the second person in a week who's reported a booting problem
with a Soltek mobo and a WD1200xx HD. I found that WD has some files
to flash some of their HDs to solve certain compatibility problems,
and while none of the files seem to be related to a boot problem like
yours, it wouldn't hurt to try upgrading with something like this:

http://support.wdc.com/download/raid/wdc_cfg.zip

Caution: WD has two different files named wdc_cfg.zip, one for HDs
connected to their own RAID controllers and another for those
connected to other RAID controllers.

I flashed my WD1200JB made in 11/2002 with this, and at least it
didn't hurt it.

On 12 Sep 2003 18:56:58 -0700, (E-Mail Removed)
(larrymoencurly) wrote:

>
>You're the second person in a week who's reported a booting problem
>with a Soltek mobo and a WD1200xx HD. I found that WD has some files
>to flash some of their HDs to solve certain compatibility problems,
>and while none of the files seem to be related to a boot problem like
>yours, it wouldn't hurt to try upgrading with something like this:
>
>http://support.wdc.com/download/raid/wdc_cfg.zip
>
>Caution: WD has two different files named wdc_cfg.zip, one for HDs
>connected to their own RAID controllers and another for those
>connected to other RAID controllers.
>
>I flashed my WD1200JB made in 11/2002 with this, and at least it
>didn't hurt it.

I actually tried that one already, in the hopes it would do something.
It didn't make any difference. I think it's just some weird
firmware/bios incompatibility.

Brian