Hi guys! First, here is my hardware profile: case 300w power supply abit kr7a motherboard amd athlon xp 1800+ processor 512mb sdram 60 gb seagate hd 1 asus 52x speed cdromdrive new 1 yamaha crw3200e burner nvidia geforce 3 ti 200 graphics card soundblaster live soundcard 2x nic ( 3com ) operating system windows xp professional Installation: HD on ide2 as master ( secundary ) ASUS on ide 1 as master and yamaha on ide1 as slave ( primary ) ps. tried both ways, so cdroms on ide2 and hd on ide1 My problem: I am not sure what the exact bios settings were when i first bought the computer. I bought it new from a store without operating system. I installed this later on. Everything worked excellent. Then i decided to buy a burner ( yamaha crw 3200e ). I used this burner in my old p3 as well and never had any problems. I installed it in the new computer and tried to burn cd's and i got a focus or tracking error everytime i burned a cd. I tried to reinstall the operating system ( windows xp pro ) without success. Then I figured, why not screw with the bios a little, so i did. I loaded the Optimized Defaults through F7. Then i changed one more setting in the integrated peripherals. I chose VIA onchip IDE Device and on the next screen I set everything on enabled and auto. That's everything i changed. After that i rebooted the computer and i checked under hardware devices on primary and secondary ide controller that both the harddisk and the cdrom and burner are on udma. Then i started to burn and all of a sudden everything burned ok. 20 to 30 cd's without problem. Then the computer locked up. Nothing worked. I pushed the reset button and it starts up normally. I burn again and go to the internet , just normal stuff. After a while i turn my computer off. And i want to start it up again and it doesnt work. Nothing works!! Then i did the cmos reset and from there my windows xp os doesn't start anymore. It comes to the screen where i can choose of several different start up options but when i choose any of them it reboots again. I even tried to do recovery console through the cdrom but then it gives a BSOD. Then i tried to load failsafe defaults of the motherboard but this didn't help either. I want to format the c partitition and start all over again. I will reset the cmos if necessary. MY QUESTION AND PROBABLY SOLUTION ( would like to have an expert on abit motherboards to answer ): 1- what is the best way to connect the harddrive the cdrom and the burner to the motherboard ? 2- I have different color udma cables ( for the harddrive and the cdrom + burner ), both the cables have a blue grey and black connection so i guess both are the correct cables to use? 3- According to my hardware what is the best way to setup the bios? 4- What other things , like updates of the bios or driver updates or other settings in the xp os should i do to make everything work smooth with my abit kr7a? 5- Any other things i should take into consideration... Thank you very much in advance!! Kind regards, Dalma
I'm not too sure, but sounds like your power supply is inadequate. 300W PSU is way underpowered for your system.
Hi, still have those power connectors left in the case so i guess i can add more hardware to it if needed. Read on different websites that 300w should do it..?
Hello Dalma, I'll try answering your questions :- 1. Although every IDE channel can support two IDE devices (Master + Slave), only one IDE device can be active at any one time. Therefore, for optimal performance, it's best to give each IDE device its own IDE channel. In your case, your hard disk should be given its own unshared IDE channel. The CD-ROM and CD-RW should go to the other IDE channel. It doesn't matter which IDE channel you use. 2. The cables you described are the ATA/66 IDE cables you need. But note that the black connector is for the Master IDE device and the gray connector is for the Slave IDE device. The blue connector goes to the IDE connector on the motherboard. 3. Regarding the BIOS, I recommend you read through our BIOS Optimization Guide first. If you have any BIOS options not covered in the guide, please feel free to post it in the BIOS Optimization Guide section of the forums. I'll look into them and try to help you out. Or post the BIOS options (plus descriptions and recommendations) in the next update of the guide. 4. If you are also getting BSODs in the recovery console then it's something wrong with the hardware. Check your BIOS settings. Make sure you did not "inadvertently" overclock your processor or RAM or AGP bus or PCI bus. Hope that helps you some!
It has got nothing to do with how many power connectors you have left. If your devices draw a lot of amperes from the power supply, even if you have 10 connectors left, your power supply will still be choking! A simple way of checking whether your power supply is enough for your system is to monitor your voltage line. Check whether it's fluctuating, and within the 5% tolerance. For +12V line, it should be around +12V, 11.8-12.2V is acceptable.
You might wanna check with anohter more powerful power supply. 300W does not seem like enuf for your setup... Xp1800+ and gf3ti takes quite some electiric juice...
Actually, if you get an el-cheapo 300W Power Supply, you might just run into some troubles but if you get a branded one, such as an Enermax, I guess, 300W are ok. I know because I have almost a similar system running with an Enermax 300W PS. Differences are only in the vidcard, different brands of product but essentially the same specs but with two harddrives.
uhh.. interesting....... i'm running 3 hard disk & a burner + celeron 433 + gf4 mx... + isa radio card + 3com etherlink NIC + firewire card + sound card + 2 80mm fans.. 2 60mm fan . all on a 235W power supply... <-- should be ok with me right?
not safe ar?.. how ar?..at least how much watts i need?.. so far no prob wor.,.. .. oh ya.. my psu fan waz havin some prob once.. makin quite loud noise... open up the psu & took out the fan to clean it.. dangerous.. if using a p4 + gf4 + 2 7200rpm hard disk + burner ... whats power supply should i get?.. i mean how much Watts of coz.....
Hi Adrian, thank you for the reply. Now i know i correctly attached the hardware to the ide controllers. First i would like to clear some things out. I got some replies about the power supply. I think the power supply is ok cause this computer has been running on this power supply for almost a year without problems. There was an older burner attached that only needed pio mode. I replaced that burner by the new yamaha crw3200e. In the bios in the option via on ide driver things were setup as follows: enabled auto auto auto auto enabled auto auto disabled disabled. So the ultradma on the cdroms were disabled. I loaded optimized defaults and this all was changed to auto. Yesterday the computer worked again after clearing the cmos and changing only a few settings in the bios for example set everything to enabled and auto in the via on chip ide driver option. But after some hours i turned my computer on again, and out of the blue i get the following error: disk read error. I guess you are right about that windows xp gets corrupted or something. What i will try this monday is the following: update bios with the latest bios firmware ( can you tell me if i can use the latest on the abit site for kr7a ) recheck the hardware in the case I would change only a few settings in the bios like disable video shadow and turn on everything on enabled and auto on via on ide driver. After that i will try and load fdisk and format partition c. After that i will reinstall windows xp pro. Then i will download the latest via4in1 drivers , install windows xp pro sp1 and hopefully this should do it. Then i will go to the device manager to the secundary ide controller and change device 0 and 1 to ultra dma if available. Are there some other things that are necessary to change in the bios according to my hardware. I have to chips of 256mb of memory. Oh i will change agp to 4x. awaiting your answer and thanks again! Dalma
Hello Dalma, You have to tell us what you set as enabled, auto, auto, auto, auto, enabled, etc... Every motherboard model has a different BIOS setup. Unless I have the same motherboard with the same BIOS version, I won't know what settings you are referring to. Please tell us what options you are referring to. Now... for your questions + comments :- 1. Yes, you can use the latest BIOS update provided by ABIT. 2. You should disable anything that deals with shadowing... i.e. Video BIOS Shadow. 3. There's no real need to FDISK and format the partition. Even if your Windows XP installation has gone bonkers, all you need to do is reinstall it. Even at the very worst, you can just delete the folders and run a fresh installation. 4. Again, please jot down the BIOS options in your motherboard's BIOS setup and run through our BIOS Optimization Guide. I highly advise you to consult the guide before messing with the BIOS. You should never set a BIOS option unless you know what it does! 5. Is your hard disk acting weird? Like giving out abnormal noises? In many cases, loud clicks with the hard disk spinning up right after is generally a sign of impending hard disk failure. You might want to run a surface disk check to see if there are any bad sectors on your hard disk. 6. Regarding the issue of power supply, if something's been running for a while, it doesn't mean it will run forever... Heh... But more seriously, check hard disk's power connection as well as power connections to the other devices. Take them out and reinsert them. Prolonged use can sometimes warp them, causing intermittent contact problems. Hope that helps you some!
Hi Adrian, please load this page http://www.geocities.com/dalmabezma i put my exact hardware and all the bios pages the last time windows started and crashed with the drive read error message.
Hello Dalma, Here are my recommendations :- In Advanced BIOS Features 1. Enable APIC Mode 2. Choose MPS Version Control For OS : 1.4 In DRAM Clock/Drive Control 1. Set Command Drive Strength to Medium / Hi 2. Set Queue Depth to the maximum (8?) In AGP & P2P Bridge Control 1. Enable AGP Fast Write, AGP Read Synchronization, Master 1WS Read and Master 1WS Write. In CPU & PCI Bus Control 1. Enable PCI Delay Transaction In PNP/PCI Configuration 1. Disable PNP OS Installed BTW, your CPU temperature's rather high. What cooler are you using? Try the above and see if they help. Good luck!
52 is high? Hmm it evens reaches 65 degrees celsius when i am playing for example colin mcrae rally 2 i thought every temperatures were between 40 and 65 ?! i am using a alpha 8045 cooler. At that time one of the best according to lots of hardware reviews. One slight problem could be the fan on the alpha 8045. Maybe if i bought a bigger fan it would cool better.. What do you suggest..?
Oops... sorry, my mistake... I mistook the "Temperature Warning" of 70oC for your processor temperature! Your processor temperature's fine. Hehe...
