Puzzling hard drive grinding at POST with new HD5450

[Termie]

Just bought this Asus HD5450 32-bit card for $10AR to replace an HD4670 that was working just fine but was going to be used elsewhere: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121476

When I boot the computer, it only starts after going through a grinding hard drive routine - the hard drive thrashes about 8 times, and I can feel the vibration through the case. It then boots - in fact I'm typing this from the system, and it seems to be working fine. When I put the 4670 back in, the grinding goes away, and when I put the 5450 in again, the grinding comes back.

Also BSOD's upon waking from sleep.

I put it in this older Shuttle system with an AMD X2 processor and an nVidia chipset: http://global.shuttle.com/products/productsDetailUS?productId=189

So what's the deal? Nominally defective card, incompatibility with the nVidia chipset, bad BIOS setting, or something else? Really just bought this as a spare - looks like it might not even work for that purpose.

 

[KingFatty]

I'm not sure it would make a difference, but is the hard drive connected via the IDE or SATA interface on that board? If IDE, is the BIOS set to autodetect?

Regardless of interface, maybe try disabling the hard drive connection, which should make it unable to load an operating system. Then, will the drive still make that sound when you go through the BIOS bootup procedure?

 

[Termie]

I'm not sure it would make a difference, but is the hard drive connected via the IDE or SATA interface on that board? If IDE, is the BIOS set to autodetect?

Regardless of interface, maybe try disabling the hard drive connection, which should make it unable to load an operating system. Then, will the drive still make that sound when you go through the BIOS bootup procedure?

Thanks for the response. The hard drive is connected via a SATA interface. Maybe I'll poke around the BIOS to see if there's anything else I can think of.

 

[RavenSEAL]

This is the first time I've ever heard anything like this, and even then, its completely illogical how such a change could cause the hard drive to earthquake.

 

[Termie]

This is the first time I've ever heard anything like this, and even then, its completely illogical how such a change could cause the hard drive to earthquake.

Tell me about it! Luckily it was really cheap, but not so luckily it's complete garbage, apparently.

My search for an inexpensive spare card that actually works continues...

 

[VirtualLarry]

I had something like that happen, when I upgrade my Athlon XP rig with an IDE drive, with an X800 AGP card. It was too powerful for the power supply, and it would cause the HD to spin down when switching into 3D mode.

 

[Termie]

Turns out it was the old Shuttle system that was at fault, or at least incompatible. While an HD4670 worked fine in it, the newer HD5450 did not.

The test? I plugged the HD5450 into my personal HTPC (specs below), and it worked straight away.

This tells me that the newer AMD card, unlike the older AMD card, had some type of incompatibility with the Shuttle nVidia chipset. The PCIe slot was an x16, but I've been unable to determine if it was 1.0, 2.0, or 2.1, and I'm suspicious that this could have been the problem.

I'm going to post this as a warning to the other person who has been asking about upgrading an older AMD system with an nVidia chipset: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2239344