Need help with friend's soltek system

[professorbooty]

i was helping my friend who'd never built a computer before build one. i've built probably close to 20 computers, but i can't figure out what's wrong here.

Specs:
Soltek k8av-RL
athlon 64 3200
seagate 120
wd raptor 36gb 10k rpm SATA
1gb pc3200 Patriot Memory see here
ATI 9600LE 128mb

Basically, what's happening is one of the IDE channels isn't working. We have tried 2 different harddrives, and a dvd drive, none work correctly when connected. They are detected, but do not perform correctly. When we're in the windows installation, it says it can't format the harddrive properly. We ran a diagnostic test on the seagate with a disc that came with it, and it came up with errors, but did not on another machine. We thought it was just a bad motherboard so we RMA'd it and got a new one - same problem. We've switched cables and ram out, as well as underclocked the processor, but there's still the same problem. It seems unlikely that both boards are defective in the same exact way, but I really don't know the problem.

We'd really appreciate some help, any ideas are welcome

Thanks, Greg

 

[blodhi74]

not to insult UR intellegence but are the cables 40 wire or 80 wire and look here

 

[professorbooty]

Hi,
Your link didn't work, but the cables are 80 wire. We've tried using the cables that came with the MB and with the HD
Thanks, Greg

 

[blodhi74]

try the link again .... what do U have on the primary IDE channel ... and is the HD on master or cable select jumper ???

 

[sheepforwheat]

Hey, Its my comptuer that greg is helping me with. On the primary IDE is the hard drive. I have tried the jumper on master and cable select. And neither works.

I know that my equiptment is ok. I have tried many different cables, RAM, windows disks, hard drives, cd drives. The only thing i haven't swapped out is the case (power source) 350 Watts, and the processor.

Its got to be some kind of initial setting that comes on the motherboard that prevents it from working. If i can bypass the IDE port i figure that may work. I would like to install windows on my wd raptor 36g 10kRPM SATA. So i plugged in the SATA and it wouldn't recognize it. How do i make windows recognize it to install xp on that serial hard drive?

 

[Fern]

On the primary IDE is the hard drive. I have tried the jumper on master and cable select. And neither works.

If it's a WD HD, may need to have jumper removed to work properly. For a WD on an IDE channel by itself, the "master" posotion is NO jumper.

Fern

 

[professorbooty]

Fern,
Yes, we've tried messing with the harddrive jumpers - same problem.
Greg