Problem with A7V8X-X IDE - Can someone explain this?

[Ohaya]

Hi,

I replaced the motherboard in my daughter's PC with an A7V8X-X a couple of
weeks ago, and installed Windows XP.

She came home this weekend, saying that everytime she tried to burn a CD,
the burn program (tried both Nero and Realplayer) would hang.

I checked the Secondary IDE settings in Device Manager, and noticed that the
drive was running in PIO mode, even though I had "DMA if possible" set. I
also noted that the BIOS display showed UDMA 2 for both the DVD and CD
burner on the secondary IDE. The DVD was master, and the CD burner was
slave.

I tried downloading and installing the 4in1 drivers from Asus' website, but
that didn't make a difference.

Out of desparation, I removed both the drives, and put only the CD burner on
the secondary IDE as master. When I booted XP, Device Manager now showed
the drive as "UDMA 2".

I then jumpered the DVD to slave, and connected, so both drives were
installed again, but with the master/slave swapped.

When I booted XP, Device Manager now shows both the DVD and CD burner as
UDMA 2.

So I guess I solved the problem, but I'm still really puzzled about why this
was happening.

Can anyone explain this?

Thanks,
Jim

 

[Rob]

Hi,

I replaced the motherboard in my daughter's PC with an A7V8X-X a couple of
weeks ago, and installed Windows XP.

She came home this weekend, saying that everytime she tried to burn a CD,
the burn program (tried both Nero and Realplayer) would hang.

I checked the Secondary IDE settings in Device Manager, and noticed that the
drive was running in PIO mode, even though I had "DMA if possible" set. I
also noted that the BIOS display showed UDMA 2 for both the DVD and CD
burner on the secondary IDE. The DVD was master, and the CD burner was
slave.

I tried downloading and installing the 4in1 drivers from Asus' website, but
that didn't make a difference.

Out of desparation, I removed both the drives, and put only the CD burner on
the secondary IDE as master. When I booted XP, Device Manager now showed
the drive as "UDMA 2".

I then jumpered the DVD to slave, and connected, so both drives were
installed again, but with the master/slave swapped.

When I booted XP, Device Manager now shows both the DVD and CD burner as
UDMA 2.

So I guess I solved the problem, but I'm still really puzzled about why this
was happening.

Can anyone explain this?

Thanks,
Jim

Jim,
If a drive set up as "Auto or DMA if possible" encounters to many errors
it will automatically fallback to a lower setting that is more reliable,
which it seems Nero/Realplayer isn't happy with. You may be picking up
interference through the ribbon cable. If your using a 40 conductor/40
pin cable, switching to a 80 conductor cable might clean it up enough.
When you swapped the drive settings that also reset the drive detection
in Windows, therefore the readings are back to showing UDMA2. Things
may look OK now but with the current setup, if you try to burn a CD it
may again fallback to PIO Mode. There are many things that can causing
this issue but I'd try the cable next as it's often been effective and
it's cheap! Also, if you have the 4 pin audio cables attached you might
try removing them and set the drive's Properties in Device Manager to
"Enable Digital CD Audio for this CD-ROM". That's a better way to go if
the drives support it! HTH

Rob

 

[Ohaya]

Jim,
If a drive set up as "Auto or DMA if possible" encounters to many errors
it will automatically fallback to a lower setting that is more reliable,
which it seems Nero/Realplayer isn't happy with. You may be picking up
interference through the ribbon cable. If your using a 40 conductor/40
pin cable, switching to a 80 conductor cable might clean it up enough.
When you swapped the drive settings that also reset the drive detection
in Windows, therefore the readings are back to showing UDMA2. Things
may look OK now but with the current setup, if you try to burn a CD it
may again fallback to PIO Mode. There are many things that can causing
this issue but I'd try the cable next as it's often been effective and
it's cheap! Also, if you have the 4 pin audio cables attached you might
try removing them and set the drive's Properties in Device Manager to
"Enable Digital CD Audio for this CD-ROM". That's a better way to go if
the drives support it! HTH

Rob

Rob,

Thanks for your response. I'd just never seen this happen before, and
was kind of surprised that swapping the master/slave roles and
connection fixed the problem.

We've burned a couple of CDs since swapping the master/slave, and the
UDMA setting seems to be holding. If it goes back to PIO, I'll try to
swap the cable with a 80-conductor cable (got lots of those ).

Thanks,
Jim