Just another in my few weeks' worth of computer troubles... I actually typed out a long rant about them but it seems it was too long for the forum!
After replacing my DVD drive, PSU, graphics card, motherboard, CPU, and RAM for various reasons, dealing with a few hiccups seemingly caused by BIOS settings, and a necessary Windows reformat, I've got my comp working again... so long as I don't plug in my Promise Ultra133 TX2 IDE controller card. When I do, even without any HDs connected to it, the system freezes during the card's "detecting" (drives) screen. Once it got to the point where it finished searching and gave its "BIOS won't be loaded because no drives are connected" message before freezing. All other times it either stops with a blinking cursor on a black screen or actually displays the card's name, BIOS version number, and the "detecting" text with the "rotating" status indicator that switches between slashes, dashes, and pipe characters. When it shows the status indicator, it does its rotating for a second or two before stopping on a character and staying there indefinitely, while the cursor blinks underneath. Thinking there might be some sort of conflict, I tried disabling the onboard JMicron IDE controller and ATI chipset SATA controller and removing my audio card with no luck (the onboard audio, parallel, serial, and floppy were already disabled as I don't use them). I haven't tried disabling the chipset ATA controller (IDE0) since changing those BIOS settings but it didn't help before. The motherboard and Promise card both have their latest BIOS. The card worked fine in the other motherboard, and indeed it still works fine testing it in the Compaq.
Any ideas? I wouldn't mind just replacing the card with another model much but I'm worried that a new one would freeze too.
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4600+ (Energy Efficient 65W)
Motherboard: ECS KA3 MVP Extreme
RAM: 2x512MB Crucial Rendition DDR2 PC5300
Graphics: ATI Radeon X1950 Pro
Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
PSU: Corsair HX620W
Optical: Samsung SH-S182M DVD writer
HDs: 5 ATA100/ATA133 Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor 80-300GB each
After replacing my DVD drive, PSU, graphics card, motherboard, CPU, and RAM for various reasons, dealing with a few hiccups seemingly caused by BIOS settings, and a necessary Windows reformat, I've got my comp working again... so long as I don't plug in my Promise Ultra133 TX2 IDE controller card. When I do, even without any HDs connected to it, the system freezes during the card's "detecting" (drives) screen. Once it got to the point where it finished searching and gave its "BIOS won't be loaded because no drives are connected" message before freezing. All other times it either stops with a blinking cursor on a black screen or actually displays the card's name, BIOS version number, and the "detecting" text with the "rotating" status indicator that switches between slashes, dashes, and pipe characters. When it shows the status indicator, it does its rotating for a second or two before stopping on a character and staying there indefinitely, while the cursor blinks underneath. Thinking there might be some sort of conflict, I tried disabling the onboard JMicron IDE controller and ATI chipset SATA controller and removing my audio card with no luck (the onboard audio, parallel, serial, and floppy were already disabled as I don't use them). I haven't tried disabling the chipset ATA controller (IDE0) since changing those BIOS settings but it didn't help before. The motherboard and Promise card both have their latest BIOS. The card worked fine in the other motherboard, and indeed it still works fine testing it in the Compaq.
Any ideas? I wouldn't mind just replacing the card with another model much but I'm worried that a new one would freeze too.
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4600+ (Energy Efficient 65W)
Motherboard: ECS KA3 MVP Extreme
RAM: 2x512MB Crucial Rendition DDR2 PC5300
Graphics: ATI Radeon X1950 Pro
Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
PSU: Corsair HX620W
Optical: Samsung SH-S182M DVD writer
HDs: 5 ATA100/ATA133 Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor 80-300GB each
