Weird problem

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:46 am

I borrow a 30gig Maxtor HDD from a buddy of mine since I'm running out of space, so I connected it to to HDD-0 (my 60gig maxtor is on the ultra ata/133) with its own IDE cable. Now, my previous setup was this:

ultra ata/133: 60gig Maxtor hdd + DVD-RW (on one IDE cable)
ata/100: CD-RW + DVD-Rom (on one IDE cable)

Now I don't have enough power cables, so I only connected the two HDDs, DVD-Rom and DVD-RW.

ultra ata/133: 60gig hdd + 30gig HDD (on one IDE cable)
ata/100: DVD-RW + DVD-Rom (on one IDE cable)

My computer booted but the screen went dark after the "Windows is starting up" screen. It did not respond to any input from keyboard/mouse.

I thought it was an issue caused by changing the IDE cables for my main hard drive, so I connected it this way, like it was before:

ultra ata/133: 60gig HDD + DVD-RW (on one IDE cable)
ata/100: 30gig HDD (on its own IDE cable)

and everything worked fine. Now that night spoke to Amidy and he told me that I shouldn't run both an HDD and an optical off one IDE cable, therefore that night I connected everything with their own separate cables:

ultra ata/133: 60gig HDD
ata/100: 30gig HDD
ata/100: DVD-RW + DVD-rom

and it didn't work, same problem as I described above.

Now this morning with a clear head I had the bright idea that my PSU can't handle everything, and it would be a perfect explanation. So I unplugged the DVD-rom and all my 4 USB devices plus my second screen, but it still didn't work. Same damn problem. So without changing anything with the IDE cables, I just unplugged the 30gig and poof, it worked fine.

So is it the problem that my PSU is too weak, or is there any other issue that might be causing this? Also, I was wondering why would it be the PSU since I connected the 60gig+30gig+DVD-RW (60gig and DVD-RW both on Ultra ata/133). Is it because the Ultra ATA/133 wasn't used to its fullest potential, so it took less power?

By the way, my system specs:

2000+ athlon xp
Gigabyte GA-7VAXP mobo
512mb ddr266
Radeon 9000 Pro 128mb
Ensoniq PCI sound card
300W PSU

EDIT: btw, I think my HDD is finally working at its full performance, my timedemo went from 170 to 176 fps

Post by **AmIdYfReAk** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 12:19 pm

.... did you check the jumpers for master/slave on the harddrive?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 3:30 pm

The 60gig is set to master, 30gig set to slave. Does the setting matter when only one device is hooked to an IDE cable? Should it always be a master if it's alone on its own IDE cable? Btw, does it matter if I plug it into the middle part of the IDE cable or the end part of the IDE cable?

Post by **zolborg** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 4:40 pm

Doesn't matter which plug on the IDE cable.

However, make sure the jumpers are correct. Sounds like a master/slave thing. If both are masters, the computer won;t know what to do, so it will just sit there waiting for instructions. Hmmm, which one do you want me to use.....kind of thing.

Post by **YourGrandpa** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 4:42 pm

If a device is alone on an IDE it must be set to one of two things. Master or Cable Select.

But it doesn't sound like that's your problem.

It "may" be your PSU. Try unplugging all your IDE devices except your boot drive and see if it works.

It really sounds like there might be something wrong with your 30 gig H/D.

Edit: Typically the end plug is for the master drive and the middle plug is for the slave. Also you mentioned you're using ATA133 dirves. Make sure you plug the blue end of the cable into the mother board.

Post by **zolborg** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 5:55 pm

I didn't see in your first post that the screen went dark AFTER it said windows is starting.........if it was a master/slave mixup, it would not have gone that far.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:59 pm

YourGrandpa wrote:If a device is alone on an IDE it must be set to one of two things. Master or Cable Select.

But it doesn't sound like that's your problem.

It "may" be your PSU. Try unplugging all your IDE devices except your boot drive and see if it works.

It really sounds like there might be something wrong with your 30 gig H/D.

Edit: Typically the end plug is for the master drive and the middle plug is for the slave. Also you mentioned you're using ATA133 dirves. Make sure you plug the blue end of the cable into the mother board.

Unplugging the 30gig and only keeping the DVD-RW on ata/100 and 60gig on ata/133 works fine, that's what I'm using at this moment. The 30gig seems to be working, because I did make it work as I've stated in my first post.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 9:01 pm

zolborg wrote:I didn't see in your first post that the screen went dark AFTER it said windows is starting.........if it was a master/slave mixup, it would not have gone that far.

Yeah this is exactly why I'm thinking its a PSU problem, since maybe Windows needs more horsepower from the CPU at the point that its ready to load the GUI and suddenly forces the CPU to work harder, thus requiring more power.

Post by **Oblivi0.on** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:15 pm

i always say go Cable Select for jumper

fuck, let it check what its on and set itself, comes with 0 problems.

Post by **zolborg** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 12:33 am

What size PSU do you have in it?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 1:30 am

300Watts, specified in the first post...

Post by **zolborg** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 3:46 am

If it's in your first post, I need my eyes checked because I can't see it.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 4:18 am

I need to get my head checked, because I was sure I typed it in there. Fixed now, sorry

Post by **FragaGeddon** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:27 am

It's definately a PSU problem. I had the same problem with my server case.
It had a 300 watt PSU.
Might be a problem with the RPM's of the hard drives.
If they were both 5400's then it might run but if they are both 7200's then it probably dosen't have enough juice.
Make sure there's no CD's in the optical drives because this will cause them to spin up when powered on.

Post by **FragaGeddon** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:29 am

And why not connect your cd-rw instead of your dvd-rom?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:45 pm

Thanks frag, my 60gig is 7200rpm, but I'm not sure about the 30gig, its not mine.

As for connecting the DVD-ROM thing is my DVD-RW can write on cd's too, and its a lot faster than my old cd-rw (8/4/32). My cd-rw can't read DVD's, so if I need to copy a DVD without the need to take out the original to put in the dvd-r, I'll just put the original into my dvd-rom, so it actually has a use.

Btw, what I'm wondering is, if its a PSU problem, then why did my computer work when I connected the 30gig on its own and the 60gig+dvd-rw on one cable?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 3:53 am

Oblivi0.on wrote:i always say go Cable Select for jumper

fuck, let it check what its on and set itself, comes with 0 problems.

You were right, but I needed some more convincing since I'm a

Put it on Cable select, worked like a charm

Btw, the 30 gig is ultra ata/133, got it hooked to my second ultra ata/133 port, next to my 60gig, w00t