Please help - bad FDD controller on motherboard?

[AmazonRasta]

I just purchased an Abit BD7II-Raid along with 512MB Samsung PC2700 and an Intel Pentium 4 1.8A. Installed it and got everything up and running without a hitch.

However, everytime I try to read from a floppy disk, WindowsXP reports the disk as unformatted, after taking close to five minutes to read it. If I try boot from the floppy drive (I tried flashing my BIOS the other day for example) I get an I/O error. I tried swapping cables on the same drive and motherboard, no go. When I move the drive to another motherboard, the disk is read no problem and the drive works without a hitch.

So, do you guys know of a solution to my problem, or is it RMA time? Oh, so you know, I was overclocking, but when I saw this started happening, I put the CPU back down to 1800MHz and I still had the problems.

 

[Zepper]

The floppy drive interface has to operate in the vicinity of 8MHz - too little or too much will cause it to fail. I would suggest taking a real close look thru the BIOS settings.
.bh.

 

[Macro2]

Hum...
Examine your pins on the floppy controller socket on your mobo. See if any are bent.

See if you have damaged or bent over any of the mobo components near your floppy connector on the motherboard. Especially capacitors. small barrel like things.

Try another floppy cable or two, from different vendors.

Try another floppy. I've had mobos that just plain didn't like certain floppy drives.

if all fails...
Go to a computer store that has old parts and pick up an old I/O card with a floppy controller on it and see if that will run your floppy. SHouldn't be more than 5 bucks.

If that works then maybe RMA the board.


I just went through a similar situation. The 3 floppy cable fixed it.




Also, are you running Win/2000?

 

[AmazonRasta]

Tried a couple of different floppy drives with similar results. A couple of pins were bent, but I straightened them out and it still doesn't work on the BD7II-Raid (works like a charm on the K7SEM). I've also tried different (three different, to be exact) floppy cables and still, it's a no go.

Zepper - I didn't know you can change the operating frequency of the FDD controller . So you know, the floppy drive doesn't fail; I enabled boot-up floppy seek and I do not get any error messages during boot. I simply get an i/o error when trying to boot from the floppy and Windows 2000/XP reads all my floppy disks as unformatted.

Macro2 - Yes, I am currently using Windows 2000 on the BD7II-Raid. It's a legal version. I was using a non-legal version of WindowsXP previously and I was having the same problems, so I thought it might just be the operating system.

 

[FrancesBeansRevenge]

Double check to make sure the cables are on the proper way. I know it sounds silly but it happens all the damn time.
EVERY floppy problem I've had when building a system is the cable on backwards.... very easy mistake to make.

 

[AmazonRasta]

I told you before and I'll tell you again. The cables were on correctly and the disk drives themselves work fine.

 

[Zepper]

Generally the FD interface works off a PCI/4 divider. So if your PCI is 33MHz, your FD will be at about 8.

Perhaps a dumb suggestion - Look in the Dev Mgr and see how it has your FD listed (A or B). If B, either enable "Swap FD" in BIOS or change switch or jumper on FD. Std. FD on the end connector of a twisted (AT) floppy cable should be set to either DS1 or DS2 (depends on whether the numbering scheme begins with 0 or 1). If your FD cable has no twist, the switch should be at DS0 or DS1 (first position).
I have also seen connetor pins squashed right down or broken by dimbulbs trying to put a keyed (pin blocked) cable on backwards - there should only be one misssing pin on the mobo or the drive.
.bh.

 

[Daddad]

I have seen this problem discussed MANY times over the past months in quite a few BBS's.
I believe it may be more of a software problem with XP and perhaps 2000 OS's.
I have to ask, what OS was being used in "another motherboard" that allowed the FDD to work properly ??
I too have experienced this same problem here on a number of occasions using the XP OS.
To date, I have found no sure fire fix for this problem.
Re-booting will restore the FDD to normal operation (sometimes)
I'de be willing to bet if you used Win98SE in the new Abit BD7 system for a test, the FDD would
function properly.

Daddad

 

[Giles]

Hi all.

If the floppy worked ok in another motherboard, use the same cable and try it in the Abit BD7II-Raid. If it doesn't work, you have a bad motherboard.

If you are booting from the floppy and it doesn't work it can't be the operating system because it hasn't loaded yet. It has to be the motherboard bios or the physical motherboard itself. Solder splash, bad plug, bad capacitor, etc. As you say, you're not overclocking now so that doesn't matter and it wouldn't have damaged the the floppy anyway. There have been some possible issues with the XP operating system controlling the floppy but booting from the floppy eliminates any operating system on the hard disk.

Since you already tried other cables and floppys with the same results, you have a bad motherboard. RMA it soonest.

FYI, I've never seen an overclocked motherboard interfere with the floppy drive. Could happen I suppose but never seen it so far.

The XP operating system definitely handles the input/output lines funny and will cause a problem with the floppy drives depending on whats loaded from the system and running in the background. It causes great problems with scanners that plug into the parallel printer port. Even if you install a separate parallel card they run funny. XP doesn't seem capable of isolating a line status in sequencing the program trying to control the scanner. Sometimes the scanner will just sit there for minutes before it will do anything. If you're running XP, opt for USB whenever possible for all external devices. I think the market is going that way anyway.

RMA your motherboard, save youself a lot of trouble.