I'll keep it short but detailed.
I killed my K7S5A a week ago while removing the heatsink for spring cleaning, decided to step up to an nForce2 board. 8rda, non-+, new retail version. I did NOT reinstall Windows, instead went into safe mode and removed all the previous drivers manually, then installed the nForce2 UDP for 9x (on Win98 (not SE)), then allowed Windows to reinstall the drivers for the periph cards.
At this point, everything's working fine, except for the optical drives. The DVD-ROM drive keeps ejecting the tray at random times, for no apparant reason.
I've done the following to try to isolate the problem:
I've basically done everything I can think of to clear this problem up, without any success at all. Nothing I do keeps this tray closed (yes, i have superglue, but i really don't think that's the best option yet). I close it, I go to bed, it's open when I wake up. I close it, I go to work, it's open when I come home. I close it, sit down to play a game, do some surfing, burn a disc, anything at all, and sooner or later it pops open again. No set interval, no regularity, just sudden opening. It even opens right back up after being closed occasionally.
At this point, I can only think of five things that could be causing this.
First, a virus. And there is a virus that could cause this, but the only software I installed immediately before it started occuring was the 1.15 nForce2 UDP on the Epox driver disc, so if it were a virus, I'd expect to see a few hundred to a few thousand posts or comments by 8rda owners when I type do a search in Google, and that's not happening.
Second, the drive is failing. That wouldn't bother me so much, except that my CD-RW drive also died just after installing the new board. Not only does that make me extremely suspicious (and nervous), it seems about as probable as me getting a particle accelerator and a cheerleader squad (i've been asking for both at work for 4.5 years, and they keep giving me the "we'll see what we can do" line). And both drives (Lite-On LTD163D and Aopen CRW-1232) are common enough that if they did both have issues with the 8rda or the nForce2 chipset, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE would've noted it (again, a Google search turns up nothing).
Third would be the PSU, an Antec SL300. I realize that only 300w is pushing it, but it's served perfectly well through several months of dealing with a K7S5A, and if anything, the 8rda should be a walk in the park for it. According to MBM 5.3.0.0, the +12v rail holds at an average of about +12.08v, the +5v rail at about +4.83 (low, but within the 5% variable), and the +3.3v rail at +2.86 (well below the 5% tolerance, but even with the +3.3v and +5v rails sharing, it still shouldn't affect optical drives. nor am i seeing any negative CPU issues due to the sub-tolerance voltage on +3.3v). While I realize a power fluctuation could have some impact on drives, by that reasoning, if the drive were going to eject the tray at every dip and bump, it'd also happen during cold boots and shutdowns. And it's not.
Fourth is the OS. I'm well aware that Win98 and nForce2 aren't the best of friends, but I've been holding back from updating to 2k or XP because of certain issues I encountered last time I gave them a run (WinTV card, couldn't get anything larger than a 640x480 output in either OS; IBM Rapid Access keyboard, no 2k/XP drivers). At this point, I've replaced the keyboard with an IBM Rapid Access II, which does have 2k/XP drivers, and I'm hopeful that the latest 2k/XP drivers for the WinTV PCI have cleared that problem up, but I still can't change OS' until I the CD-RW drive I ordered arrives because I want to back everything up just in case and the most recent backup I have is several weeks old. I'll be booting into DOS tomorrow before leaving for work, to discover whether it's the board or the OS causing the ejects.
Fifth and final - something, either the nForce2 chipset or the 8rda's implimentation of the second IDE channel, did something extremely unpleasant to both of my optical drives. But since I haven't seen anything about 8rda's destroying drives hooked up to the secondary IDE channel, I certainly don't want to dash about pointing fingers and making a fool of myself.
I really don't expect much in the way of responses, as every other time I've ever had to resort to looking for help with a problem, it's been something similarly outlandish and few, if any, people have dealt with similar problems or had any suggestions (i never seem to get the easy ones), but please, anything anyone can think of that might prevent me from reaching over and ripping that tray right out of the drive would be GREATLY APPRECIATED.
I killed my K7S5A a week ago while removing the heatsink for spring cleaning, decided to step up to an nForce2 board. 8rda, non-+, new retail version. I did NOT reinstall Windows, instead went into safe mode and removed all the previous drivers manually, then installed the nForce2 UDP for 9x (on Win98 (not SE)), then allowed Windows to reinstall the drivers for the periph cards.
At this point, everything's working fine, except for the optical drives. The DVD-ROM drive keeps ejecting the tray at random times, for no apparant reason.
I've done the following to try to isolate the problem:
- Manually set the HDD settings in the BIOS and set all other IDE drives to None instead of allowing autodetection of the optical drives.
- Changed IDE cables (4 different cables, all 80 wire/40 pin).
- Moved the DVD-ROM drive to the master position on the secondary channel, then the slave position on the primary channel (originally set as slave on secondary channel).
- Changed NIC.
- Manually set IRQs for periph cards in BIOS, then restored default Auto IRQ setting option when it didn't alleviate the problem.
- Disabled any software that is or may be related to optical drives (keyboard software, Nero, PowerDVD, everything), then removed and reinstalled anything I felt might be related to the problem.
- Scoured the registry of any references to the optical drives, in regards to install locations, and triple-checked the Run/Runonce keys to be certain nothing was loading in reference to the drives.
- Verified that nothing optical-drive-oriented is listed in the Startup folder, win.ini, autoexec.bat, config.sys, or msdos.sys.
- Went back into the BIOS and changed any setting that may even remotely affect drives.
I've basically done everything I can think of to clear this problem up, without any success at all. Nothing I do keeps this tray closed (yes, i have superglue, but i really don't think that's the best option yet). I close it, I go to bed, it's open when I wake up. I close it, I go to work, it's open when I come home. I close it, sit down to play a game, do some surfing, burn a disc, anything at all, and sooner or later it pops open again. No set interval, no regularity, just sudden opening. It even opens right back up after being closed occasionally.
At this point, I can only think of five things that could be causing this.
First, a virus. And there is a virus that could cause this, but the only software I installed immediately before it started occuring was the 1.15 nForce2 UDP on the Epox driver disc, so if it were a virus, I'd expect to see a few hundred to a few thousand posts or comments by 8rda owners when I type do a search in Google, and that's not happening.
Second, the drive is failing. That wouldn't bother me so much, except that my CD-RW drive also died just after installing the new board. Not only does that make me extremely suspicious (and nervous), it seems about as probable as me getting a particle accelerator and a cheerleader squad (i've been asking for both at work for 4.5 years, and they keep giving me the "we'll see what we can do" line). And both drives (Lite-On LTD163D and Aopen CRW-1232) are common enough that if they did both have issues with the 8rda or the nForce2 chipset, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE would've noted it (again, a Google search turns up nothing).
Third would be the PSU, an Antec SL300. I realize that only 300w is pushing it, but it's served perfectly well through several months of dealing with a K7S5A, and if anything, the 8rda should be a walk in the park for it. According to MBM 5.3.0.0, the +12v rail holds at an average of about +12.08v, the +5v rail at about +4.83 (low, but within the 5% variable), and the +3.3v rail at +2.86 (well below the 5% tolerance, but even with the +3.3v and +5v rails sharing, it still shouldn't affect optical drives. nor am i seeing any negative CPU issues due to the sub-tolerance voltage on +3.3v). While I realize a power fluctuation could have some impact on drives, by that reasoning, if the drive were going to eject the tray at every dip and bump, it'd also happen during cold boots and shutdowns. And it's not.
Fourth is the OS. I'm well aware that Win98 and nForce2 aren't the best of friends, but I've been holding back from updating to 2k or XP because of certain issues I encountered last time I gave them a run (WinTV card, couldn't get anything larger than a 640x480 output in either OS; IBM Rapid Access keyboard, no 2k/XP drivers). At this point, I've replaced the keyboard with an IBM Rapid Access II, which does have 2k/XP drivers, and I'm hopeful that the latest 2k/XP drivers for the WinTV PCI have cleared that problem up, but I still can't change OS' until I the CD-RW drive I ordered arrives because I want to back everything up just in case and the most recent backup I have is several weeks old. I'll be booting into DOS tomorrow before leaving for work, to discover whether it's the board or the OS causing the ejects.
Fifth and final - something, either the nForce2 chipset or the 8rda's implimentation of the second IDE channel, did something extremely unpleasant to both of my optical drives. But since I haven't seen anything about 8rda's destroying drives hooked up to the secondary IDE channel, I certainly don't want to dash about pointing fingers and making a fool of myself.
I really don't expect much in the way of responses, as every other time I've ever had to resort to looking for help with a problem, it's been something similarly outlandish and few, if any, people have dealt with similar problems or had any suggestions (i never seem to get the easy ones), but please, anything anyone can think of that might prevent me from reaching over and ripping that tray right out of the drive would be GREATLY APPRECIATED.
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