System freezes, hard drives freak

[Jon Davis]

I have an Asus A7N8X (not the deluxe) with an Athlon 2400+ and 7xx MB RAM. I
also have a number of hard drives. I've had problems with this thing since I
put it together. I started out with a WD Caviar WD1200. The computer would
freeze every hour or so, with the HD light solid on, and whenever I rebooted
I'd find partitions corrupted as a result of the freeze-up.Happened every
time. I've sinced switched to two old, different model, 5600RPM hard drives
and for the most part things have been fairly stable.

I recently re-added the WD1200 again after the WD1200 proved to work fine as
a backup storage drive in another machine. I was able to install Windows
Server 2003 and several services installed, but then it started freezing up
again. And now, before I had the chance to think it might be a Windoze
problem, it sometimes freezes the BIOS during the POST check, during the
"Detecting IDE drives". Sometimes today it would give the error, "Secondary
IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed", which I never saw before until
today.

Surely it's the WD1200, I decided today, because at one point this
afternoon, when I disconnected only the WD1200 the computer booted. And when
I connected only the WD1200, it froze, first ten minutes into my Windoze
session, then later right during the POST check.

But after having taken the WD1200 out, while browsing these very newsgroups
to post about the WD1200, the computer froze with the HD light solid on
again, and I again got the error, "Secondary IDE channel no 80 conductor
cable installed". Again, I never saw that error before today, and I've had
this machine and have been using 40-pin IDE cables and these drives for over
a year now.

I'm so confused! What on earth is going on?? Could it be a bad power supply?

Thanks for any help,

Jon

 

[Jon Davis]

Removed the old drives, took everything off the Secondary IDE channel, put
the WD1200 drive back in on the primary IDE channel alongside the DVD.

PREVIOUS:
Primary: Drive 0: DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Primary: Drive 1: old HD 1
Secondary: Drive 0: WD1200
Secondary: Drive 1: old HD 2

CURRENTLY:
Primary: Drive 0: DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Primary: Drive 1: WD1200
Secondary: Drive 0: -
Secondary Drive 1: -

No errors yet, still no freeze yet, posting this within Windows on that
drive right now.

So, could be a bad secondary IDE channel. I never considered this before.

Jon

 

[Dave C.]

I have an Asus A7N8X (not the deluxe) with an Athlon 2400+ and 7xx MB RAM.
I
also have a number of hard drives. I've had problems with this thing since
I
put it together. I started out with a WD Caviar WD1200. The computer would
freeze every hour or so, with the HD light solid on, and whenever I
rebooted
I'd find partitions corrupted as a result of the freeze-up.Happened every
time. I've sinced switched to two old, different model, 5600RPM hard
drives
and for the most part things have been fairly stable.

I recently re-added the WD1200 again after the WD1200 proved to work fine
as
a backup storage drive in another machine. I was able to install Windows
Server 2003 and several services installed, but then it started freezing
up
again. And now, before I had the chance to think it might be a Windoze
problem, it sometimes freezes the BIOS during the POST check, during the
"Detecting IDE drives". Sometimes today it would give the error,
"Secondary
IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed", which I never saw before
until
today.

Surely it's the WD1200, I decided today, because at one point this
afternoon, when I disconnected only the WD1200 the computer booted. And
when
I connected only the WD1200, it froze, first ten minutes into my Windoze
session, then later right during the POST check.

But after having taken the WD1200 out, while browsing these very
newsgroups
to post about the WD1200, the computer froze with the HD light solid on
again, and I again got the error, "Secondary IDE channel no 80 conductor
cable installed". Again, I never saw that error before today, and I've had
this machine and have been using 40-pin IDE cables and these drives for
over
a year now.

I'm so confused! What on earth is going on?? Could it be a bad power
supply?

Thanks for any help,

Jon

I think you answered your own question. You can't use a 40-pin IDE cable,
you need an 80-conductor, 40-pin IDE cable. You can use older drives on the
newer cable, but you can't use newer drives on the older cables. -Dave

 

[Jon Davis]

The last "Secondary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed" error I
received was, as I said, after I removed the newer drive; it was with the
older drives that have always been on 40-conductor cables without problems
in the past.

Jon

 

[Jon Davis]

However, the Primary IDE channel has an 80-conductor cable I think (can't
tell, it's one of those round ones for modded PCs).

I moved the old drives to the other computer and one drive failed. But one
was using another 80-conductor cable. I swapped them and it worked ..
apparently one of them required the 80-conductor cable.

I swear I was A+ certified in 1997 and I've been building PCs for a decade,
and I never realized this the 80-conductor cable issue to be a problem. I
guess I lucked out for so long up till now in that my older PCs with these
drives never failed on me with 40-conductor cables till now.

Jon

 

[JAD]

bad ribbon cable

The last "Secondary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed" error I
received was, as I said, after I removed the newer drive; it was with the
older drives that have always been on 40-conductor cables without problems
in the past.

Jon


7xx MB
RAM. thing computer freeze-up.Happened work and I've
had drives on
the

 

[Jon Davis]

No, I tried replacing it with identical results. (Replaced with another
40-conductor cable. See other subthread.)

Jon

 

[JAD]

ok ic well what bios version are we talking here? because its
strange that the size seems to be the problem. bent pin in the MB IDE
connector?

 

[Spajky]

You can't use a 40-pin IDE cable,
you need an 80-conductor, 40-pin IDE cable. You can use older drives on the
newer cable, but you can't use newer drives on the older cables.

not true if both are IDE ones ...
....

 

[Guest]

WD Caviar WD1200. The computer would freeze every hour or
so, with the HD light solid on, and whenever I rebooted
I've sinced switched to two old, different model, 5600RPM hard
drives and for the most part things have been fairly stable.

Surely it's the WD1200, I decided today, because at one point this
afternoon, when I disconnected only the WD1200 the computer booted. And when
I connected only the WD1200, it froze,

the error, "Secondary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed".
Again, I never saw that error before today, and I've had this
machine and have been using 40-pin IDE cables and these drives for
over a year now.

Could it be a bad power supply?

the Primary IDE channel has an 80-conductor cable I think (can't
tell, it's one of those round ones for modded PCs).

I was A+ certified in 1997 and I've been building PCs for a decade,
and I never realized this the 80-conductor cable issue to be a problem.

That says something about the adequacy of A+ certification. All round
IDE cables should have 80 wires, but no serious person uses round
cables, except cables consisting of twisted pairs, because otherwise
signal quality will be worse than with flat 80-wire ribbon cables.
Have you tried one of the latter for the troublesome drive? Changing
cables is one of the first things I'd try if I got that error message
or if the DMA box in the Device Manager became unchecked.

Since you are certified, why didn't you measure voltages at the
motherboard, including all local voltages (CPU core, AGP, memory), and
the voltages at the drive's circuit board? Also did you try
tightening the drive power connector by prying between its socket
tubes and the surrounding plastic?

I doubt that drive heat is relevant because the problem occurs so
quickly after turn-on, but could past heat exposure have done
something to the drive's capacitors? I'm sure an A+ certified person
wouldn't do anything foolish like cause a drive to run hot by
installing it with less than 1/2" of clearance on each side.

Try running WD's own diagnostics or Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test, from
www.hgst.com. The latter has an explicit bus/cable test, but it must
be selected manually.

 

[Jon Davis]

Since you are certified, why didn't you ...

The point of referencing the certification was to point out the
ludicrousness of my claim to knowledge. Don't rub it in, it hurts bad enough
having expressed my humiliation.

Jon