Asus A7N8X-E problems with two IDE drives working together???

M

MasterC

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Aug 12, 2005
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OK....this one has me stumped.

I recently installed the following components:

Asus a7n8x-e deluxe m/b
Athlon XP-M 2500+
1 gb Samsung memory
Maxtor 160gb, Seagate 200gb hard drives
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
Plextor PX-716A, TDK CDRW401240B optical drives

Here's my problem. Originally I had the Maxtor 160gb setup as my boot drive (master), and the Seagate is the slave drive. I installed a fresh copy of XP Pro on the Maxtor. After that was installed, I proceeded to install all the drivers (nforce, ati, etc.) Everything seemed to be working OK for about 10-15 minutes after startup. Then the system would lock-up entirely (can't even move the mouse, no ctrl-alt-del either). After doing a hard reset, got back into Windows, and after a few minutes the same thing would happen. I noticed that every time this would happen the hard drive access light on the case would be on when the computer locked up. After a few more resets, the computer would POST and then proceed to load Windows and lockup before Windows even started loading. I decided to install XP on the Seagate, make it the boot drive and the Maxtor slave. Windows installed no problem on the Seagate, got into Windows, and bam same problem. Then I tried to just run one HD at a time, both on the Maxtor 160gb and the Seagate, each with a fresh install of Windows. Running just the one drive at a time everything worked fine. I also tried hooking up an old Maxtor 60gb drive as slave with both the Maxtor 160gb and the Seagate as master and the same problems would happen. So I seem to have narrowed it down to the fact that when I run two IDE hard drives, the system locks up consistently. Keep in mind I've tried different IDE cables, both IDE channels on the motherboard, to no avail. Has anyone experienced a problem like this before????? I really need to solve this as running with just one HD sucks...
 
Hey bro, i have the same exact problem, different drives, but same exact problem. I have also tried multiple IDE cables, drive configurations(jumper wise) and what not...with 0 effect.... I attributed it to being a bios/memory/mobo problem but now that im seeing it happen elsewhere, i am beginning to wonder if the IDE controller on the nforce has an issue...
 
You seriously have the same problem??? I thought it was just me....that's great news (the fact you have the same problem that is). I've been through every trick I know of to try and fix this, but no luck. How long have you had this problem? Have you found a way to work around it? Also, what hard drives are you running???

If you are curious, I've posted this problem in some other forums and got some interesting replies, but nothing that fixed the problem...

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?p=3574557#post3574557

and

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1663180&enterthread=y
 
Are you using the Nvidia IDE drivers? I stopped using those and just used the plain Microsoft generic ones and most of my IDE problems went away.
 
No, I am not using the Nvidia IDE drivers....although it didn't seem to make a difference whether I was using them or not as neither way worked.
 
i never had this problem but the way you get rid of it is to run the hdd that has the os on it from the sata port. you can buy and adapter that converts the ide to a sata type plug in.
i am currently useing this config and have no problems at all.

you can find it here
or here
or here

i have never ordered from any of these companys got mine locally.

just do a froogle search for highpoint rockethead 100.
 
Same problem, been happening for months. Mine is more than a driver issue, the bios itself upon bootup will not detect the drives. One thing noticeable, i can re-arrange what drives are on what cable, and it will work for a while, then stop working.... Kindof like the motherboard says "oh yeah, crap, thats not supposed to work! screw you!" I might use a sata->pata converter but i would rather not HAVE to spend money to half ass my rig together... :(
 
SomeFknGuy said:
I might use a sata->pata converter but i would rather not HAVE to spend money to half ass my rig together... :(
Click to expand...

i dont think its half assing it at all. i had a wd 80 gb 8mb cache hdd on the pata port and then switched it over to sata with the convertor and according sisoftsandra my hdd benchmark went up some.
$25 is not that big of a deal especially wheni t will save you alot of headaches.
 
I have the same motherboard, and the same problem. (2x 200GB WD Caviars)
I always thought it was a power issue. My computer won't lock up, but a harddrive will "disappear" from windows. Then, when i restart after that happens, the computer will lock up during post. Now, if I unplug my cd-rw or my dvd-rom (both of which are on the IDE interface too) everything works fine. I also use a s-ata raptor to install windows and programs on and its never given my any problems.
 
where do i end up picking one of these converters? all i can find is daughter boards...
 
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