[McGufter]

Hello Geeks,

First post for me and its a problem that I can find no obvious solution to, may be someone here can be of assistance, thanks in advance....

I have a computer I built with help from some friends 4 years ago and I decided to up grade the memory and HDD capacity.

Original specs; Mainboard Asus KN8-E Delux
Memory Crosair twinx512-3200XL DDR-DIMM 512Mb Kit with two matched 256
HDD 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80gb SATA 7200RPM
Processor AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0 GHzSocket 754 512 cache

So... I bought new memory, Trancend 1GB 184P DDR400 DIMM(128x64), and a new Samsung 750GB and I did the following..

1. I removed the old memory and put in the new memory, started the computer and all was good

2. Replaced one of the old drives (D) with the new HDD, started the computer, formatted and partitioned the drive, all was good.

3. Transfered all the files from the old drive to the new one, all was good.

4. Discovered the mainboard can support up to 3GB of memory and replaced the old DIMM into the two vacant sockets, start up was taking a long time, black screen, so I pulled the plug and removed the old DIMM. Started up again. Start up still taking a long time, 10 mins, eventually it did but the second Drive was not seen by Winxp.

5. Shut down, re started went into BIOS and saw the drive is listed. Went to start up from BIOS but It went as far as to the mainboard display page, briefly shutting down and starting again, it repeated this until I pulled the power.

6. Started up again, it went to the options page with start in safe mode, start with last known working configuration, start as normal etc., but again from here it only went as far as to the mainboard display page, briefly shutting down and starting again, it repeated this until I pulled the power.

7. Disconnected the new drive, started up as normal.

8. Re connected the new drive, started up but it takes 10 mins to start up and wont recognise the new drive in windowsxp.

been through steps 5-8 several times but no second drive found, even in the device manager.


What have I done

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Get your motherboard manual and check the memory configs and find the fastest arrangement, boards are often fussy about how much memory it takes and in which exact slots it takes it. Once you have all the modules in the fastest possible arrangement go into bios and make sure they are running at full speed. On that generation of AMD boards it really doesn't like using more than two memory slots at all and any other config usually incurs a speed penalty either you can't use the matched pair properly or it drops the speed a notch.

Then install a fresh copy of winXP on the new drive or one of your old ones, install all the updates and drivers and if its still not working then it may be a problem with your powersupply.

[warriorscot]

Get your motherboard manual and check the memory configs and find the fastest arrangement, boards are often fussy about how much memory it takes and in which exact slots it takes it. Once you have all the modules in the fastest possible arrangement go into bios and make sure they are running at full speed. On that generation of AMD boards it really doesn't like using more than two memory slots at all and any other config usually incurs a speed penalty either you can't use the matched pair properly or it drops the speed a notch.

Then install a fresh copy of winXP on the new drive or one of your old ones, install all the updates and drivers and if its still not working then it may be a problem with your powersupply.

[McGufter]

Thanks Warriorscot for you reply,

I am the worst kind of person in this situation, I know a little about computers and am willing to tinker and to try solve problems with the little knowledge I have . I checked the memory configurations and thanks to your post now understand what that table means. I see where I made a mistake in installing the old ram by just putting them into the available sockets. I am happy enough not to have the old DIMM in the computer, its already twice as fast as it was with the new memory and if I upgrade again I'll go for another 1Gb of the same, so the 2x 256 DIMM are out and will stay out. I checked in BIOS and the 1Gb is running properly.

I was dreading the install winXP bit, the copy on the computer was put on by a friend who works for a computer company who had multiple licence version and I do not have a copy of XP. I will try and track down a copy. The boot up is from the old drive that stayed in the computer, the C drive, If I get a new copy of windows do I uninstall the one on the existing C drive and reinstall from disc back onto that drive?

I did install the windows updates but still the same story, when the new drive is hooked up the computer takes 10mins to start up and then it is not seen in windows, when it is disconnected the computer starts up as normal.

[McGufter]

I was hoping to post a story of how every thing is up and running again..... but I can't

I decided to do a bit of Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, try locate the problem by process of elimination.

1. I took the new 750gb Hard drive to the computer shop where I bought it and explained the problem, they took the HDD off to a room out of view, came back and said that windows (not sure if it was XP of vista) could see it but it was empty??? I am sure I transfered files on to it.

2. I reinstalled the old 80gb Hard drive, really to see if the SATA connection was ok, and windows saw it. Conclusion: that the SATA connection was fine.

3. Swapped the 80gb hard drive for the 750gb hard drive in my computer, started up the computer and it was fine . All the files that I had transfered were there!!

At this point I was thinking that the problem was solved, how I don't know but solved never the less.

4. Started the computer again but the old problem returned, 10 min start up and then no 750gb drive seen in windows despit being seen in BIOS.


Any one like to take a stab at whats going on.

[Troy]

I'll take a stab and agree with warriorscot - what PSU do you have?

Also, another thought, the original 80GB SATA drive is probably SATA (1st generation), whilst the new 750GB would be SATAII (second generation). In theory, the two are intercompatible with no problems, but I've personally never seen it happen in practice. Somebody else may have, but for now on such an old motherboard, you might wish to stick with IDE (or upgrade your motherboard).

I never install a SATA hard drive into a motherboard only support SATA 1, I go back to IDE for those computers.

Just some thoughts for you to digest. Let us know if you have any more questions, or try anything.

Troy

[McGufter]

Hello Troy,

The PSU is a Q-tec 350W ATX, I would be delighted if this was the problem, easy and inexpensive to remedy.

The new HD is indeed SATA II but I was assured by the shop where I bought it that it was fully compatible with the SATA I connection. I think in the long run going back to IDE is, well, going back, and rather than spending the money on an new IDE HD I may as well upgrade the motherboard and chip. One thing at a time for the moment though, I think the next thing I'll try is to swap the two different HD's SATA connection and see if that makes any difference, I suspect not but it will cost noting to try.

I really appreciate you taking the time to reply to my post.

[Troy]

Another thought would be to try a different SATA cable.

Troy

[McGufter]

Another thought would be to try a different SATA cable.

Troy

I tried reversing the HD's, just swapping over the SATA cables, on start up it said there was nothing to boot from, so I shut the computer off and just unplugged the 750 HD, and left the C drive connected to the same cable, it started up fine. I am confused it seems as there is a boot sequence to the SATA connections and not the necessarily the drives??? Then I shut down and swapped the SATA cable back for the C drive, left the 750 plugged out and it started fine. Concluding that the cables are fine.

Is the PSU mentioned above sufficient?

[Troy]

I don't know about that PSU, to be honest. I haven't heard of the brand before, and 350W isn't a lot, but it could be enough for your system.

A good way to check would be to get hold of a better one, and swap it over to test. If you can't find someone who's got one to spare (or let you borrow out of their system), then a local PC repair shop should be able to do it for a small fee.

It does sound weird, either way. I know that adding another hard drive to a computer system does not increase PSU usage very much under running conditions, but when a drive first starts up there is a large spike to spin the drives up. In your case I would look at upgrading the PSU anyway, even if it doesn't fix this problem.

Another thought, is there a jumper you can add to the hard drive (or remove) that gets the drive working at SATA 1.5 mode?

Troy

[McGufter]

I was going to post here to nominate you for an award for services to inept computer tinkerers,

found the jumper sequence to reduce the SATA down to 1.5, attached said jumper, started up the computer and there it was, the 750gb HD in all its glory, I was a happy man with a resolved problem that cost a tiny bit of plastic and metal.

until...

I started it again and we were back to the 10min start up and no new HD recognised. Crap. It seem as though when I make a change it works one time and then not again. So I shut down, disconnected the new drive, started up again as normal, shut down re connected the 750, started it up but this time went into BIOS made sure it was there, which it was. save and exit but the computer would not start at all, got as far as one of the black screen, stopped and announced (the first time my computer has spoken to me) 'System failed due to CPU overclocking' ????

Then it just shut down, it tried to start itself again and got to the 3rd black screen text page and self shut down, doing so repeatedly till I manually shut it down. Disconnected the 750 and here we are again. Completely bamboozled.

I am really considering new mainboard, processor and probably PSU, but I am stubborn and curious to remedy this problem.

[McGufter]

Hello again,

I just wanted to draw this topic to a conclusion and explain how the problem was eventually solved. I found on an ASUS forum specifically for my motherboard that the K8NE-Delux does not support HDD of 750 or older, . There was how ever solutions offered by some poster; as it is an old mobo, Asus had stopped developing the bios but silicon image who supply the 4 SATA raid ports to the board had an update that could be intergrated to the last Asus bios upgrade. Having flashed the bios with this modified bios, I went to the Silicon image, downloaded and installed a driver update for the SATA controllers. I then went into bios and turned the silicon image controller from RAID mode to SATA mode and plugged the 750 HDD into one of the 4 raid ports........ it started up without issue.
Anyhoo, I want to say thanks to all who offered suggestions as to how this could be fixed, it all went towards the eventual resolution. I have recommended this site to several people who had been experiencing computer problems. And on the off chance that this same problem occurs to another who posts here I would happy to supply the information, ie where and what to download, if it does not contravene the forum rules.