What are the symptoms of IDE controller problems?

[Storm]

My little bro came back from college recently from college for the summer.

So guess who gets to take a look at his slightly problematic computer?

Hes running

XP Pro on an Asus A7M266 SocketA(462)

with an old Athlon 1400 (200 Mhz FSB)

Western digital 80 gig HD

Maxtor 250 gig HD

Pioneer 105 or 106S slot dvd drive

Lite-On 40x12x48x CDRW...


Problem #1

The CPU clocks in at 1050 and not 1400... its been three years. I haven't taken the puter apart since it still runs "fine" at 1050 according to my bro.

A shot in the dark here the Artic Silver applied on the cpu and heatsink may have dried up? I won't really know until I take the heatsink off...

Problem #2 etc...

My bro in his misplaced jumps on the Pioneer so it didnt boot. After that was fixed the computer won't always boot into XP fine if there is a CD in the slot drive. It will just hang at the login screen.

Otherwise ocassionally windows will freeze when that drive is connected and XP was successfully loaded... Now I have no problems at all with that drive in my machine. I might need to test that drive for a longer period of time.

The CD that causes it the most problems is Diablo 2 LOD when my bro wants to play it. Right now he's using his Lite-On and it plays it fine.

It has to be either the drive, the IDE controller, the game itself or possibly XP and the driver causing problems? It can't be the drive cause it works fine on my puter using Diablo 2 LOD.

So its either the install of D2 LOD, XP and the device driver, or the IDE controller? The reason I suggest the install of D2 is the inability to uninstall the game cleanly. As a result there may be some file corrupt that is causing the problem?

He has installed it elsewhere between his two drives, but it still will not be cleanly removed.

Does anyone have any suggestions or insight on my late night babble?

I suppose I could go the expensive route and give him an upgrade to a mobile athlon, new mobo and some ram. I dont think I can use his ddr 2100 ram in the new mobos. But is there anything else I can do or have missed?

 

[johnjkr1]

Your athlon 1400 is showing as 1050 because you have the bus speed set incorrectly. It should be 133 x 10.5. You have it set to 100 x 10.5. For testing purposes you should try the system without the pioneer connected at all. It sounds like someone has incorrectly dont the jumpers, it is just easier to take it out for troubleshooting. You should also check your temperatures in the bios.

For the most part, it is extremely rare that an IDE controller would go bad. It sounds more like someone has been messing with things. I'd start be resetting bios defaults, removing the problematic pioneer, and formatting and clean installing windows xp (of course, not connecting to the net while doing so)., followed by sp1 and then the chipset drivers, then the rest.

You can test out the hard drive by running the diagnostic from the hard drive maker, that would rule out one more component. You could also try memtest to make sure the memory is ok.

 

[nanaki333]

just a side note. if his cpu IS a 1.4ghz 200fsb, his multiplier should be set at 14 and his fsb at 100. they did make 266fsb and 200fsb thunderbirds.

 

[KGB]

Storm,

What is the primary/secondary - master/slave configuration of these drives?

 

[Storm]

Update

Originally based on my bro's invoice the cpu is CPU AMD|T-BIRD 1.4GHZ/266 PGA

So like johnjkr1 stated the settings should be 133fsb x10.5 multiplier. Currently its at 100 x 10.5 now if I try bumping it back up to 133 the computer will keep restarting itself when its loading XP with the Knight Rider meter that goes back and forth.

Currently the only options for the cpu and fsb are 100x 10.5 and 133x10.5 multiplier is locked.

Right now the Pioneer is removed....

As for KGBMAN's question it used to be

Primary Master
-Western 60 gig not 80

Primary Slave
-Pioneer (now removed)

Secondary Master
-Lite-On Burner

Secondary Slave
-Maxtor 250

Now the Pioneer I threw on as master and I didnt have any problems for like 15 mins before taking it off.

My bro did do a format not too long ago before he came back home. He wont be back til the end of the summer so I'm trying to get some ideas on what else to do before he comes back.


Again thanks for all the suggestions

 

[huesmann]

Perhaps you could take the CPU out and check the markings on it to confirm what sort of chip it is.

 

[nanaki333]

heh.. about your CPU, my buddy had a 1.33 266fsb TB and it would do the same thing if he set the it to 10 x 133. if he set it to 13 x 100 it would work fine. try setting your multiplier to 14 and your FSB to 100. if the processor needs to be unlocked, it's as simple as coloring with a pencil.

 

[Storm]

Originally posted by: nanaki333
heh.. about your CPU, my buddy had a 1.33 266fsb TB and it would do the same thing if he set the it to 10 x 133. if he set it to 13 x 100 it would work fine. try setting your multiplier to 14 and your FSB to 100. if the processor needs to be unlocked, it's as simple as coloring with a pencil.

It ran at 1400 before... for at least a year or two. Not sure why its not doing that now. Havent checked to see how the Artic Silver is holding up though.

 

[jyates]

It is possible that your dvd is dirty or has a problem. I just took
a cdrw drive out of a machine that had worked fine for 4 years
but then suddenly just started not doing anything right. I've
even seen bad cdrom drives cause machines to blue screen on
boot up also. One of those was a brand new out of the box cdrom.

 

[billandopus]

If there's anything wrong with an IDE controller it's usually a chipset driver problem in my experience. Usually removing and reinstalling the latest chipset drivers will do the trick. This is usually when upon bootup your cdr/w devices end up not being recognized.

Anyways, with respect to the D2 LoD problems I have to ask if if the LoD is a burnt copy ... because if it is there may be a host of problems.

Can't remember the copy protection on LoD but I remember that my friend tried installing a burnt copy of LoD onto his old laptop that only had a cdrom.

His home comp has LoD installed but he did it on his cdrw.

He usec Alcohol 120% to image/mount and copy protection emulate on the desktop and it works fine.

However, he could only install d2 classic on the laptop but when trying to install LoD it would not take at all. He asked me to help but no amount of fooling around with emulation settings etc would help. I'm thinking that (morals aside) he could install the d2 classic (burnt copy too) on the lappie with the cdrom but the LoD wouldn't take because of copy protection issues (ATIP related?) that couldn't be solved software-wise.

Anyways, just a thought.

 

[KGB]

Storm,

Back to your problem:

How is your WD60G primary master drive jumpered?
Keep in mind that WD drives still have the "Master - Alone" and "Master - with Slave present" jumper settings.

If you want it with the Pioneer drive as the slave, you need to have it jumpered with the "Master - with Slave present" configuration.

 

[Mem]

Have you tried a different(quality) PSU?...I don`t know what you are using but I`ve seen poor quality PSUs run CPUs at lower speeds but when set to the recommended CPU/FSB speed not boot up,so it`s worth trying a quality PSU like Antec,Enermax,Sparkle etc....btw try some new IDE cables as well.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Storm
XP Pro on an Asus A7M266 SocketA(462)

with an old Athlon 1400 (200 Mhz FSB)

What chipset does that mobo use? I seem to recall issues with the IDE controllers on a similar-model Asus board, that had an AMD northbridge, and an ALI southbridge chipset.

ALI's chipset and IDE drivers leave a lot to be desired, trust me. :|

I just can't recall if that mobo was an A7A266 or something, or the same one as yours.. ?

That may not be the issue at all, but I mention it for completeness. If it is the ALI chipset, and is running the ALI drivers, then those could well interfere with those finicky CD copy-protection routines that some games use.

As far as the CPU speed goes, that's just because the FSB is set to 100Mhz instead of 133MHz. Not sure why it wouldn't run stably at 133, if it has in the past. Possibly mobo caps going bad, or PSU going bad? I dunno.