PCA Forums

Ok we just recently sold 2 PCs so I'm using old, spare parts to piece a computer together. It's a PC100 mobo w/ a K6-2 500 processor. Onboard video, sound, and NIC. We bought a 20GB harddrive to go in there and there's a HP CD Burner (slow 2x) and a 50x CD-ROM. When I first got everything pieced together it would not boot, no video signal at all. Moved the RAM around and turns out only one of the slots would work. Ok that problem fixed, let's install Win2k. Get into Win2k and I get an error about a file not being formatted right or something, it is a known good CD. I even attached my DVD-ROM and got the same error. So i'll try XP (just so I could get an OS up and use the disk for a temp backup so I could break my RAID array). XP begins working but then a nice BSOD shows up talking about memory management. So i'm like screw it, i've got 2 finish the other 2 PCs (had to install 98 on em) and so I left it alone. Went to work on it today and guess what? No power to CD-ROMs and Harddrive. Yet the processor fan (hooked to a PSU molex lead (i.e. same type connector as HDs and CD-ROMs) spins up and stays spinning). Since I'm still needing to break array up, I take the harddrive out and hook it to my open IDE controller. I set the jumpers right and everything and I boot and it isn't detected by BIOS and Windows doesn't see it. I try some more jumper settings and nothing else happens. I just went and tried comp (w/o hd) and the board boots up nicely but no power is givin to CD-ROMs (trays won't open). Is the power supply dead? Something else causing this weird problem? Please help.

Oh yeah forgot to add that a stick of PC100 128MB RAM is in there. The stick does work.

You try different cables? But going by what you said it sounds like mobo troubles. If you have another compatable power supply then I'd try it just to narrow things down some.

See I thought mobo but it did work. Now I can't get power to HD, or CD-ROMs so no OS can be installed.

Have you tried a VOM on the power leads to the drives? I've seen ( really rare ) power problems damage HD's...
Are there power splitters in use? And ( long shot ) is the Power supply set to 115V on the back?

Power going to or not going to the MB shouldn't stop the HD from spinning up. ( is it ATX case or AT? )

The other problems sound like something else, possibley MB problems. If it gets to a certain point of an OS install then bombs out I'd guess Memory, or in your case as one mem slot is already bad probably MB... might have gotten flexed hard at some point, damaging the traces on the board.
In the 'old' days occasionally taking an eraser and cleaning off the memory connectors helped. if you try this made SURE none of it gets into the case/MB

Haven't tried VOM yet, I might try that. It's set to 115V, I checked that. Yeah the weird thing is that the processor fan is hooked up to a power supply lead and not the motherboard and it gets power. The harddrive was hooked up to a power supply lead (the molex connector) that was on the same direct power supply lead. Mobo is prolly messed up, oh well

Well I got home from, school today and everything is working fine now. Weird stuff. The CD burner (being a slave drive) was causing problems. It's an old HP. Anyways all is working now, even Win2k setup. Me thinks it was something weird causing earleier problems.

Might be a flaky IDE data cable.

Well it turns out that the stcik of memory is bad or just won't work with this mobo. I kept getting Memory Management errors, pulled the stick and put in a 256MB stcik of mine and everything worked fine. Put 128MB stick in and Win2k rebooted. Assuming the stick is bad, probably gonna pick another stick up. Thanks for all your help.