ANOTHER comp prob (this forum is full of em :p)

[DigestiveBiscui]

There i was, playing nc as always, and i went out to j01 to find a pker, when my computer locked.

I thought it was nothing out of the ordinary, nc does that a lot with me (well, it hasnt in the past 2 months, but used to :(), so i went to hard re-bot my comp, when i realised TS was still going

So i looked down to my comp, and saw my CD drive light was on (the one that tells u its reading the CD) so I left it. After a while the CD drive light turned off, and then I could continue as normal and thought nothing of it.

Later on I turned my computer back on, and saw that for about 10 seconds on boot it was stuck on something like ‘Detected sec slave’ or something similar, then it continued to load windows. When it got to the loading screen, the CD light turned on as if it was trying to do something, and the HDD was doing nothing. After a couple of minutes the HD then started and windows loaded normally with everything working.

This then happened again on boot, but neither of my CD drives were detected (main CD DVD rom or the CD RW) so I rebooted again and it worked. On Sunday something similar happened. I was playing NC and the CD light turned on – so I waited for a few secs, but it kept going on and off, lagging nc to shit and back. I finally got out of nc and rebooted the comp expecting to see it hang on the loading screen, but it didn’t. This is the bit that confused me – there was no real pattern to what it was doing.

Finally, yesterday I was surfing the net, and the CD light came on again. I was expecting it to lag like mad and for me to have to reboot, but instead it did what it did the first time, light went off, comp worked fine – but I noticed that both of the CD drives had become un-detected while I was on the comp

This is REALLY confusing me – anyone got any ideas to what it might be???? The only think I could think of is that I need a new CD DVD ROM drive.

[Psyco Groupie]

Put your motherboard code in google and see what comes up .. or better yet tell us your setup other than you have two cd drives and your a hardware goon

[DigestiveBiscui]

Soltek motherboard (don’t know the exact make – but I have had it since march 2003)
512 DDR RAM
AMD Athlon XP 1800
GeForce 4 MX440 (64MB)
52x Slot CD DVD Drive – don’t know make
CD RW drive
80GB Hard Drive (7200RPM – think its made my Matrox or something like that J)
Windows XP Pro with SP1

Anything else u need?

[Jesterthegreat]

Originally posted by DigestiveBiscui

GeForce 4 MX440 (64MB)


aaaah! keep it away!


er... back on topic... all windows updated / virus scanned / spyware free etc?

:edit: and all drivers most up to date?

[Psyco Groupie]

The exact code .. so you can search for IDE troubles and/or bios updates

[DigestiveBiscui]

I will have to look for the code at home – ill run over to the soltek website now and see if I can notice it

As for updates – Windows update is on auto-update, same as Norton and I checked for viruses last night – spyware scanned last night as well

[ZoneVortex]

try going into your BIOS when booting up and going to....ack what is it....

the tab where you can set primary, secondary, and slave devices

then make sure that your CD drives and hard drives are in the proper settings under bios

[DigestiveBiscui]

meh, cant find the chipset so ill look when i get home

as for BIOS order, whats the recommended order for them? i guess booting from HD first is correct...i havent been in there since the computer was made :p

[GT_Rince]

I know exactly what causes this - well, in 99% of cases.

[ezza]

Originally posted by GT_Rince
I know exactly what causes this - well, in 99% of cases. and that would be?

[DigestiveBiscui]

Originally posted by GT_Rince
I know exactly what causes this - well, in 99% of cases.

thats nice

[kurai]

Could always be fucked cabling, and/or borderline PSU, rather than a firmware/driver issue.

[DigestiveBiscui]

Originally posted by kurai
Could always be fucked cabling, and/or borderline PSU, rather than a firmware/driver issue.

yea i was wondering if it was a dodgy IDE cable or something - but i dont wanna piss about with the comp until i know what it could be - its not just my comp

[DigestiveBiscui]

could it be a motherboard issue??

plz say no :p i dont wanna buy another one :(

[kurai]

It's possible, but not the most likely cause.

Investigate the other stuff before doing the expensive shit.

[J. Folsom]

Personally, I think the Flux Capacitator is acting inverted and messing with your Photon Drive, sending a pulse with wavelength 31370 along your harddrive's hull should fix it.

:p

Sounds like the cables are borked as far as I'm concerned.

But I know less about computer hardware then I know about metaphysics. :p

[Ozambabbaz]

my SCSI controller simply drains my system periodically, disabling it removed all bog-downs.

Manually configuring ur drives in BIOS might help

[numb]

The cables could simply be loose (either the IDE cables or the power into your CDROM). It would be worth sliding the side of the case off and pushing them all in again (although due to the fact I'm in work, I couldnt spend ages reading over your long post).

I also have a soltek motherboard (SL-DR75 [or something like that]) based on KT333 chipset - they are nice + stable boards.

[DigestiveBiscui]

OK

at home - found the motherboard number

SL-75FRV/75FRV-L
Socket A bla bla
VIA appollo KT400 series

and as for BIOS - i dont really like pissing about with that side of things unless nessesary :( + i dont know much about it :p still doing IT @ college

[kurai]

The reason I'm not convinced it's a BIOS issue is that it only recently started happening.

If it was a known firnware issue it would surely have made itself known before now.

Firmware is pretty much static - it doesn't change unless you deliberately go in and tinker.
If a BIOS *does* suddenly get corrupted (static, spilt coke, dead mice etc :D) it's vanishingly unlikely that only CD Roms would be affected - it's essentially the roadmap to your motherboard, so you'd see a whole lot more problems than you are doing.

Hence my advice to look at mutables ... have any cables worked loose, got frayed, been bent too much and therefore have snapped internal wires etc

Then back out any hardware changes you might have made - new stuff you've installed/upgraded/replaced recently.

If there haven't been any changes then it's most likely a software problem.

Here you have two choices - try and backout/test/re-install any recent application changes.
If no luck, then do the same with drivers.
If no luck then try a repair install with XP.
If no luck wipe the fucker and start again :(

To be honest, depending how much free time you have on your hands it will most likely be easiset/quickest to go with the wipe/start again option.

[DigestiveBiscui]

args!!!

illfiddle with cables first :p then i guess wipe :(

[Maarten]

Possible causes:
- Power Supply broken. It gives irregular power over your cdrom which, in turn, goes crazy.
- CD Drive broken. The most likely cause. Best would be to disconnect this drive inside the case and see if the problem remains.
- Motherboard broken. Something around the IDE connectors is screwed.

A loose cable would be unlikely because a cable doesn't suddenly jump out of it's socket. Unless you dropped the case or someone kicked against it or something.

[DigestiveBiscui]

hmmm, well the problem didn't happen last night

i think i will wait and see if it happens again and when it does - remove the CD drive for a while :)

thx for the help :)

[numb]

Originally posted by Maarten
A loose cable would be unlikely because a cable doesn't suddenly jump out of it's socket. Unless you dropped the case or someone kicked against it or something.

The cable may have been in quite loosely to start with, and with the various vibrations a PC is making perhaps it can come loose. I regularly watch things move around my room, off shelves and cupboards when I'm listening to music ;)

[SynC_187]

Sounds like a wierd cause, but did you have a recent DVD video in the DVD drive when you've had the problem?

Some recent DVD's can cause the whole IDE channel to lash up if they are in the drive on bootup.

Depending on the disk people see different things.

Some drives are found by the BIOS but don't appear in Windows.
Some freeze for up to a minute on the Boot from CD... prompt.
Some freeze up during POST.

The one's that freeze during post can happen in 2 ways.
If it freezes immediately then neither master or slave will be detected.
If it manages to get past detecting the master before freezing you will just be missing the slave.

The last bit could fit your problem.

I get the:
Some freeze for up to a minute on the Boot from CD... prompt.

[DigestiveBiscui]

i play DVD's in there at times - but never leave them in there when i turn the comp off

[kurai]

Originally posted by Maarten
A loose cable would be unlikely because a cable doesn't suddenly jump out of it's socket. Unless you dropped the case or someone kicked against it or something. You'd be surprised - lot of things in a PC will work themselves loose given enough time and enough thermal expansion/contraction cycles.

In the old days of non keyed/clipped components (.i.e. socketed multileg ram chips) I saw a really bizarre case where a chip had worked itelf out of a socket, and, being slightly sprung, pinged across the inside of the machine and came to rest shorting out a 12v power track.

*fizzle* :D

[DigestiveBiscui]

hasn't done it since i posted :)

and i'm not unhappy its not happening. Don't think i want it to happen lol - its a good thing :)