Gigabyte Mobos & new builds...

jonifen

pffff...
Joined
17 Feb 2003
Messages
705
This is a bit of a weird question now... so bear with me.

I upgraded my girlfriends PC to an AMD 2000+ & Gigabyte GA-7VA (donated from my m8 when he got his 7NNXP) on Saturday and it worked fine... Installed it, ran it Saturday night and Sunday all day. However, when she turned it on on Monday (around noon), it wouldnt detect the HDD. I thought "ffs, same scenario as mine" (I'll go onto this in a sec) and looked onto PC websites to find a decent replacement... I turned it on in the evening only to find it booted fine with no problems. I ran the Seagate diagnostics CD (downloaded from Seagate website for this model drive) and it came up all-clear. Now I'm really puzzled. How come it did that? (not detected HDD).

Anyway, onto my PC. I upgraded my system to a P4 2.4ghz and Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra mobo a while back. I built and installed it on Saturday, ran it Saturday night and all Sunday. Monday when I got home from work, I turned it on and the HDD wasnt detected. I was a little confused and p*ssed off to say the least, but went to the computer shop in my lunch the following day and got a new HDD. I got home and switched the PC on to see if it was still messing around and it worked fine... I ran scandisk on the drive and it came up all clear.

Has anyone had a similar problem in the past? Why does it do this? Is it common?
 
When you saw the problem occur first time, did you reboot and try again?

I had a similar problem the other day where my system couldn't detect secondary IDE so it wouldn't load Windows. I rebooted the system and everything was fine.
I have no idea why that problem occured and was the very first time I experienced it since I had my board.

I guess the only thing you could do is check and make sure all cables are firmly connected to each IDE device since this is the main area of concern when you are sure your system ran perfectly well previously.
 
I did reboot yeah... it did the same thing.

I think I hardbooted my machine about 5 or 6 times when it happened... but I just rebooted my gf's once cuz I was thinking it may come back later.
 
My system got finicky like that once or twice this summer.

Don't just reboot. Shutdown (not the front panel switch that's just a kind of sleep mode) using the power strip or switch on the back of the power supply. Wait a couple minutes and turn power back on and restart.

Sometimes the internal power up reset signal doesn't quite make it and a component (HD, CPU chipset, whatever) may lock up in an invalid state and it takes total power removal to clear it.

In the early PC days (mid 80's) some crappy taiwanese power supplies would do this all the time. (Yes, I'm an old fart.)
 
I have a Soyo KT400. Bought a new 400wt psu to fix this, I had a 350. Didn't fix it. Smile Anyone need a brand new 350wt psu? Just kidding. I'll throw it in with all the extra good junk I have accumilated building pc's
 
Right... I did a bit of HDD swapping earlier and found some results that are a bit puzzling.

When I booted the PC with the side off the case (so I could hear the HDDs clearer), I could hear one of the drives spinning up, spinning down and spinning up again as it was passing through POST. So I took the 1st HDD out (the one I thought was faulty - wasnt detected by BIOS (Seagate)) and put a spare Quantum 30Gb in with the 2nd HDD (Maxtor) and booted up to install XP again. I heard this spinning up/down/up again sound. I knew it wasnt the Quantum cuz its a really silent drive, so I tried the Seagate again with the Quantum (took the Maxtor out) and I heard no spinning up/down.

Fair enough, the maxtor may just do this, but the PC used to have a faint whistling noise in the background all the time, and since thats been unplugged, the PC is pretty silent bar from CPU fan (which is a fairly big and loud one).

Well, my question is... is it possible for the Primary Slave HDD (if faulty) to affect the detectability of the Primary Master HDD? Because the PC seems to be running fine since I removed the Maxtor and replaced it with the Quantum.
 
It may be a comptability issue with having the Quantum and the Maxtor together...try making sure the HD jumpers are set properly. I have had issues like this before and I just had to double check the jumpers on the HD to fix it.
 
I think I probably confused people with the last post tbh... I'll try an re-word it.

I had a Seagate and a Maxtor (both 40Gb) in the system (Seagate as master, Maxtor as slave). I had this funny spinning up/down/up sound when the PC was booting, but I thought it was the gfx card fan or something at first so just dismissed the problem. I imagine it was all fine in the old PC as they were only running at ATA66/100 rather than 133 (which the maxtor can do). All I can assume is that when I put the HDDs into the new system, they brought out a fault in them (the Maxtor was then running ATA133 - possibly because its running at proper speed, it was bringing the fault to the front more - causing failures).

I originally had the problem with the Seagate & Maxtor, but the Maxtor still made the noise when I had the Quantum in but no Seagate. However, I unplugged both HDDs and heard no noise.

Is it possible for a faulty slave HDD to kick the good primary HDD off and make it look faulty?

The PC has been running with the Seagate and Quantum since yesterday and seems to be running sound *touch wood* so I hope it stays this way, but I'm confused as to how the Seagate was not being detected and the Maxtor was the one making funny noises.

edit: I have heard of compatibility issues with Maxtor & Quantum (being the same models but different model numbers (Quantum == Maxtor)) but I dont think its the issue this time.
 
You can't set the IDE to 133 if you have a 100 drive on the same channel (IDE0 in this case). You are driving the 100 nuts.

If they were both the same brand they might notice each other and force the lower clock speed. Hazard of mixing HD types. I quit trying to do that in the late 80's after many failures. Things have gotten better compatability wise but I still avoid mix and match on HD.

PS If this straightens it out it's ok to tell your girlfriend you thought of it yourself. ;-)
 
Dont know if any connection... I have a G7VAXP Ultra board very similar to Jonifen, and the hard drive recognition problem involved a SATA 120 GB Maxtor drive.
Has taken 7 reboots everyday for 3/4 months, to be recognised,(although reboots ok from warm) even though the bios settings are all correct.

Then suddenly I overclocked a 2800 Barton to 2133Mhz and next cold boot the bloody thing would not appear at boot up, and has not done since.

This must be down to a flaky(up to date) driver or suspect board chip. the standard ATA h/drive that replaced it accepts the overclock and boots every time !
 
Currently the system has a Seagate ATA100 and a Quantum ATA100 in at the moment (primary and slave). Seems to be running sound. I've always had different makes of HDD on same controller in various PCs and never had any problems with them... only with these gigabyte mobos (It could be a similar problem what happened on my mobo - my 80Gb maxtor is on the ATA133 onboard controller and the 40Gb Seagate (same type as my gf's) is primary master and all is fine now)
 
Jonifen - I almost felt sorry for you - somehow caught this thread 2 or 3 times and have some idea of HD mixing issues (only by hearsay, I am about to mix my own Maxtor with a Seagate - so feel free to laugh/smile/help with any thread I may or may not make!).

However I remain confused by your last post and could not help almost (WHO really DOES LOL?) lol at Mings post!.... So.. like I said - I AM confused!

Is your porblem resolved? If so any conclusions? Always good to wrap up a thread clean.... (I feel we kinda owe it to the forum - an God knows I have threads out there I am about to mop, this is.... err what to they call it displacement thingummy?!)

PS It is also good for PULSE (RAH RAH Project |Dolphin!)

PPS Leejend - I remember that kinda stuff so please do not go on about old farts - it makes me feel like one too, think of yourself as a mature armagnac or something - smells better and FAR more powerful, plus GOOD for digestion!)

Enough distraction - I have threads to mop!
 
I have a gigabye mobo GA-7VA and im wondering why it doesnt recongnize a unlocked amd athlon 1.3 proc. is there anyway to overclock this thing. any help or info on this would be greatly apprieciated.
thanks, 50cal
 
50cal, I'm not sure how to help you with your problem... I would imagine it could be something to do with the fsb jumpers/dipswitches

I'd set it as default 1.3ghz (get it working at least) and then go from there.


My girlfriends PC seems OK now... the Maxtor is out the loop and the Seagate+Quantum are alright. Fingers crossed anyway :)
 
Originally posted by 50cal
I have a gigabye mobo GA-7VA and im wondering why it doesnt recongnize a unlocked amd athlon 1.3 proc. is there anyway to overclock this thing. any help or info on this would be greatly apprieciated.
thanks, 50cal
need some more info. is this a 1.3ghz 200fsb tbird? and by unlocked, you mean you connected the L1 bridges?
 
well im gonna look like an idiot, but i was told that the earlier athlons where already unlocked......:eek: .in my bioes there isnt the option to adjust the multiplyer and there doesnt seem to be any dip swithes on the board to change that either, unless i am totaly overlooking them.
My machine is running i would just like the option to overclock it a bit if i have those options at all......
thanks 50cal
 
Originally posted by 50cal
well im gonna look like an idiot, but i was told that the earlier athlons where already unlocked......:eek: .in my bioes there isnt the option to adjust the multiplyer and there doesnt seem to be any dip swithes on the board to change that either, unless i am totaly overlooking them.
My machine is running i would just like the option to overclock it a bit if i have those options at all......
thanks 50cal
you didn't tell me exactly what kind of chip it is, but if it is a 1.3ghz tbird, it certainly isn't an 'early' athlon. i had a 800mhz tbird that was locked. same with the 1.4ghz i replaced it with.

to unlock, you'd need to go through the process of connecting the L1 bridges. it's a somewhat tricky maneuver. i did it, though and got my 800mhz to 1ghz. :)
 
The straight Athlon aka Tbird just used the pencil across the L1 bridges to unlock the multiplier.

It was the first Athlon XP's (palomino) that required conductive paste, superglue and nerves of steel.

Bad news is that 1.3 gig is about as fast as you can hope for if it's a plain jane tbird. Might get it to 1.4 gig with a hefty cooler. The chip design max'd out thermally and electrically at 1.4 gig.

Either way you still need to be able to set the multiplier (in bios or using DIP switches). Gigabyte is big into dip switches as opposed to bios for multiplier setting.
 
ok ill look around for dip switches on the mobo. does anyone know anything about this specific mobo. gigabyte GA-7VA .
 

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