Flipped floppy cable on new Asus P5B.. Did I kill it?

[Doug Warner]

Built my first new system in 4 years with an Asus P5B Deluxe..
The only thing that didn't work out was that I had the diskette drive
cable upside-down at the drive. The symptom was that the drive was
not ready, and the activity LED was on all the time.

No problem, in my support work and personal experience, I've seen this
issue many times, and it always works when the cable is flipped back.

Not this time..
Boot attempt: = "Disk I/O error, replace the disk, press any key.."

Write attempt: = (From Asus CD boot) = Error reading from driver A:
DOS area: Drive not ready.:

Format A: /U = It steps through 100%, then:" Critical error during DOS
disk access. DOS Driver error 0B Description: Read fault. Program
terminated"

The drive light turns on when it's being accessed, and the diskette
motor spins.. I tried a different cable, and a known-good drive. The
twist section of the cable is at the drive end, and the twist (and pin
1) are on the power connector side.

Is the floppy interface on newer boards so delicate that it can't
stand a cable reversal? If so, does Asus repair their boards, or am
I out $250? (Purchased at Fry's)

 

[BigJim]

did you set the floppy to enable in the bios?
If it is listed in the device manager uninstall it turn the power supply off
then on
then do a reboot.

Built my first new system in 4 years with an Asus P5B Deluxe..
The only thing that didn't work out was that I had the diskette drive
cable upside-down at the drive. The symptom was that the drive was
not ready, and the activity LED was on all the time.

No problem, in my support work and personal experience, I've seen this
issue many times, and it always works when the cable is flipped back.

Not this time..
Boot attempt: = "Disk I/O error, replace the disk, press any key.."

Write attempt: = (From Asus CD boot) = Error reading from driver A:
DOS area: Drive not ready.:

Format A: /U = It steps through 100%, then:" Critical error during DOS
disk access. DOS Driver error 0B Description: Read fault. Program
terminated"

The drive light turns on when it's being accessed, and the diskette
motor spins.. I tried a different cable, and a known-good drive. The
twist section of the cable is at the drive end, and the twist (and pin
1) are on the power connector side.

Is the floppy interface on newer boards so delicate that it can't
stand a cable reversal? If so, does Asus repair their boards, or am
I out $250? (Purchased at Fry's)

 

[Rod Speed]

Built my first new system in 4 years with an Asus P5B Deluxe..
The only thing that didn't work out was that I had the diskette
drive cable upside-down at the drive. The symptom was that
the drive was not ready, and the activity LED was on all the time.

Yep, one of the classic symptoms that means only one thing.

No problem, in my support work and personal experience, I've seen this
issue many times, and it always works when the cable is flipped back.

Yeah, I've never seen it cause a permanent problem.

Not this time..
Boot attempt: = "Disk I/O error, replace the disk, press any key.."

Write attempt: = (From Asus CD boot) = Error reading from driver A:
DOS area: Drive not ready.:

Format A: /U = It steps through 100%, then:" Critical error during DOS disk
access. DOS Driver error 0B Description: Read fault. Program terminated"

The drive light turns on when it's being accessed, and the diskette
motor spins.. I tried a different cable, and a known-good drive.
The twist section of the cable is at the drive end, and the twist
(and pin 1) are on the power connector side.

Is the floppy interface on newer boards so
delicate that it can't stand a cable reversal?

Never seen that happen.

If so, does Asus repair their boards,
Nope.

or am I out $250? (Purchased at Fry's)

You could just return it as defective, dont mention that you reversed
the cable. Only a little dubious morally, it shouldnt have killed it.

 

[Guest]

I had the diskette drive cable upside-down at the drive.

No problem, in my support work and personal experience, I've seen this
issue many times, and it always works when the cable is flipped back.

Not this time..
Boot attempt: = "Disk I/O error, replace the disk, press any key.."

The drive light turns on when it's being accessed, and the diskette
motor spins.. I tried a different cable, and a known-good drive. The
twist section of the cable is at the drive end, and the twist (and pin
1) are on the power connector side.

Typically:

Drive light continuously on = cable connected backward

Drive light turns on and off but disks can't be read = drive is plugged
into to wrong connector on cable.

Is the floppy interface on newer boards so delicate that it can't
stand a cable reversal? If so, does Asus repair their boards, or am
I out $250? (Purchased at Fry's)

Floppy signals are supposed to be open collector, meaning it should be
impossible to damage anything by tying 2 outputs to one another, such
as by connecting a cable backward. But static discharge is another
matter. If the floppy controller is damaged, check Ebay or independent
computer shops for PCI floppy controllers. I don't believe these are
plug & play, so you'll likely have to deactivate the motherboard's own
controller through the BIOS setup, along with any other functions the
PCI card has that haven't been deactivated.

 

[Guest]

I had the diskette drive cable upside-down at the drive.

No problem, in my support work and personal experience, I've seen this
issue many times, and it always works when the cable is flipped back.

Not this time..
Boot attempt: = "Disk I/O error, replace the disk, press any key.."

The drive light turns on when it's being accessed, and the diskette
motor spins.. I tried a different cable, and a known-good drive. The
twist section of the cable is at the drive end, and the twist (and pin
1) are on the power connector side.

Typically:

Drive light continuously on = cable connected backward

Drive light turns on and off but disks can't be read = drive is plugged
into to wrong connector on cable.

Is the floppy interface on newer boards so delicate that it can't
stand a cable reversal? If so, does Asus repair their boards, or am
I out $250? (Purchased at Fry's)

Floppy signals are supposed to be open collector, meaning it should be
impossible to damage anything by tying 2 outputs to one another, such
as by connecting a cable backward. But static discharge is another
matter. If the floppy controller is damaged, check Ebay or independent
computer shops for PCI floppy controllers. I don't believe these are
plug & play, so you'll likely have to deactivate the motherboard's own
controller through the BIOS setup, along with any other functions the
PCI card has that haven't been deactivated.

 

[Doug Warner]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:

ctor side.

Typically:

Drive light continuously on = cable connected backward

Drive light turns on and off but disks can't be read = drive is plugged
into to wrong connector on cable.

Only one connector on the two cables I have (Still has the twisted
section)

Floppy signals are supposed to be open collector, meaning it should be
impossible to damage anything by tying 2 outputs to one another, such
as by connecting a cable backward. But static discharge is another
matter. If the floppy controller is damaged, check Ebay or independent
computer shops for PCI floppy controllers. I don't believe these are
plug & play, so you'll likely have to deactivate the motherboard's own
controller through the BIOS setup, along with any other functions the
PCI card has that haven't been deactivated.

Had the board on a static mat when out of system, and I was always in
contact with the chassis when assembling, so everyting was at the same
potential. Plus, the air was failrly humid as well.
A PCI FDD controller is not an option, since I only have one PCI slot
left, and I need it for a SCSI adapter.

I'm going to bring my USB FDD in from work today and see if I can
complete the install with it. (Can't swap the board right now, since I
bought the only one in stock.. (In sealed box)..

I even tried updating the BIOS (USB flash drive), which cleared CMOS.
The onboard FDC is enabled, and set to 1.44.
The pain about excanging it is that I'm now going to have to disturb
the heat sink thermal bond (Intel Core Duo factory sink). I suppose I
may just have to strip and re-grease if necesssary.

One interesting note: The flat cables that come with this board don't
have the key bumps. Not an issue for the FDD, which doesn't have a
key slot, but it's a bit more confusing on the mobo conns. You either
have to look for the pin 1 marker, or fogure where the key bump should
be by looking at a cable that has one. (looking into male connector,
stripe to right = key on top.)

 

[spodosaurus]

Built my first new system in 4 years with an Asus P5B Deluxe..
The only thing that didn't work out was that I had the diskette drive
cable upside-down at the drive. The symptom was that the drive was
not ready, and the activity LED was on all the time.

No problem, in my support work and personal experience, I've seen this
issue many times, and it always works when the cable is flipped back.

Not this time..
Boot attempt: = "Disk I/O error, replace the disk, press any key.."

Write attempt: = (From Asus CD boot) = Error reading from driver A:
DOS area: Drive not ready.:

Format A: /U = It steps through 100%, then:" Critical error during DOS
disk access. DOS Driver error 0B Description: Read fault. Program
terminated"

The drive light turns on when it's being accessed, and the diskette
motor spins.. I tried a different cable, and a known-good drive. The
twist section of the cable is at the drive end, and the twist (and pin
1) are on the power connector side.

Make a new disk, if you put a disk in with the cable the wrong way
around I've found it often gets eaten.

Is the floppy interface on newer boards so delicate that it can't
stand a cable reversal? If so, does Asus repair their boards, or am
I out $250? (Purchased at Fry's)

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[mackenoly]

I would say that your mother is bad, I have the same trouble with mine.
I have an Asus A7V rev 1.02 and the floppy doesn't work either. Access
light comes on runs and then gives me an error,"install disk".did
everything I know to do but nada,she's a not work. so I give up and if
you need to use floppy drive,get a usb floppy,works ok.

 

[tom]

--
---AVG Certified Virus-Free---

I would say that your mother is bad, I have the same trouble with mine.
I have an Asus A7V rev 1.02 and the floppy doesn't work either. Access
light comes on runs and then gives me an error,"install disk".did
everything I know to do but nada,she's a not work. so I give up and if
you need to use floppy drive,get a usb floppy,works ok.

Just to cover all of your bases, re-check the floppy's power connection for
proper orientation/bent pins. I just experienced your symptoms here with my
new build. Somehow I managed to mangle pin 4. Straightened and re-connected.
Now all is OK.

 

[spodosaurus]

I would say that your mother is bad, I have the same trouble with mine.

We've had our differences, but I'd not really describe her as 'bad'. I
certainly didn't turn out to be a career criminal or a banker (trying to
think of a second not well liked career that wouldn't offend a family
member can be tedious).




--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Don Freeman]

We've had our differences, but I'd not really describe her as 'bad'. I
certainly didn't turn out to be a career criminal or a banker (trying to
think of a second not well liked career that wouldn't offend a family
member can be tedious).

You must have a lawyer in your family <G>.

 

[mackenoly]

Sorry for the slipup,didn't mean your mother is
bad,pardon,MOTHERBOARD,I meant the floppy drive controller is probably
gone bad, if not and you find a solution,please post, thanks much have
a good day

 

[Stephen]

Built my first new system in 4 years with an Asus P5B Deluxe..
The only thing that didn't work out was that I had the diskette drive
cable upside-down at the drive. The symptom was that the drive was
not ready, and the activity LED was on all the time.

No problem, in my support work and personal experience, I've seen this
issue many times, and it always works when the cable is flipped back.

Not this time..
Boot attempt: = "Disk I/O error, replace the disk, press any key.."

Write attempt: = (From Asus CD boot) = Error reading from driver A:
DOS area: Drive not ready.:

Format A: /U = It steps through 100%, then:" Critical error during DOS
disk access. DOS Driver error 0B Description: Read fault. Program
terminated"

The drive light turns on when it's being accessed, and the diskette
motor spins.. I tried a different cable, and a known-good drive. The
twist section of the cable is at the drive end, and the twist (and pin
1) are on the power connector side.

Is the floppy interface on newer boards so delicate that it can't
stand a cable reversal? If so, does Asus repair their boards, or am
I out $250? (Purchased at Fry's)

Flipping the cable doesn't hurt anything other than the floppy in the
drive.

Check the bios settings. Use a different cable, try a different
floppy. If none of those fixed it, the floppy controller on the
motherboard is bad.

Stephen
--

 

[Doug Warner]

I would say that your mother is bad, I have the same trouble with mine.
I have an Asus A7V rev 1.02 and the floppy doesn't work either. Access
light comes on runs and then gives me an error,"install disk".did
everything I know to do but nada,she's a not work. so I give up and if
you need to use floppy drive,get a usb floppy,works ok.
spodosaurus wrote:

Just tried my USB floppy drive tonight. Turned off legacy floppy, USB
mass storage set to "Forced FDD" It sees the drive on that page as
well. The first few times, the XP Pro installer wouldn't see the
USB drive at all, but now, for some reason, it just worked (tired,
don't recall what I changed to make it work..)

The board goes back to the store tomorrow

 

[Doug Warner]

Flipping the cable doesn't hurt anything other than the floppy in the
drive.

Check the bios settings. Use a different cable, try a different
floppy. If none of those fixed it, the floppy controller on the
motherboard is bad.

Did all that.. Exchanged board today, installed it, taking care to
ground myself on the chassis of another plugged-in system before
touching any parts.. Replacement board was in sealed box.

First power up, BIOS said "overclocking failed, defaults set" or
something to that effect. I went into setup and re-set defaults.

First boot attempt from an old boot diskette (unknow quality): I/O
error. Tried to format it on other system from windows GUI, it
hung.

Formatted from CMD window, then again as a system disk from the XP GUI
formatter. It worked.

Returned to the new system, it was hung with the error message on
screen. ctrl-alt-del has no effect. Pressed reset, got into F1,
hung again.. Reset, and now the fan on the video card runs full
speed.(Radeon X1900XTX) and no video output.
Every power up now ends with the same result. Fast fan on the vid
card and nothing else.

If I remove all the memory, I get a beep code, so there's some sign of
life.

Pulled the video card, installed an old PCI VGA adapter, no video..

Reseated the processor, no change.

Processor (Core Duo E6600) has good coat of Arctic SIlver grease..

Every other system I've built in the past has fired up with no
problems at all All of them were build with the previous generation's
components,. This was to be my first "bleeding edge" system, but it's
turned into an expensive disaster..

Plus, when the old board was "working" I tried to install XP Pro with
the Intel ICH8R RAID enabled (2 drives) and the driver loaded with an
F6. It completed the entire load process, file copies, everyting, but
on the first boot attempt, it errored out.

I'm really getting sick of this thing. I may just hand it over to
the store's service dept and tell them to make it work. At least they
have spare components to work with.

Oh, this time, I made sure the floppy cable was connected properly.

 

[JAD]

admittedly I did not read all the posts but the first thing I would figure
out is what the common denomnator is,,as far as I can tell its the PSU.
putting the connector on wrong CAN have adverse effects on a PSU and
'''sometimes''' the MB.

Flipping the cable doesn't hurt anything other than the floppy in the
drive.

Check the bios settings. Use a different cable, try a different
floppy. If none of those fixed it, the floppy controller on the
motherboard is bad.

Did all that.. Exchanged board today, installed it, taking care to
ground myself on the chassis of another plugged-in system before
touching any parts.. Replacement board was in sealed box.

First power up, BIOS said "overclocking failed, defaults set" or
something to that effect. I went into setup and re-set defaults.

First boot attempt from an old boot diskette (unknow quality): I/O
error. Tried to format it on other system from windows GUI, it
hung.

forget the

Formatted from CMD window, then again as a system disk from the XP GUI
formatter. It worked.

Returned to the new system, it was hung with the error message on
screen. ctrl-alt-del has no effect. Pressed reset, got into F1,
hung again.. Reset, and now the fan on the video card runs full
speed.(Radeon X1900XTX) and no video output.
Every power up now ends with the same result. Fast fan on the vid
card and nothing else.

If I remove all the memory, I get a beep code, so there's some sign of
life.

Pulled the video card, installed an old PCI VGA adapter, no video..

Reseated the processor, no change.

Processor (Core Duo E6600) has good coat of Arctic SIlver grease..

Every other system I've built in the past has fired up with no
problems at all All of them were build with the previous generation's
components,. This was to be my first "bleeding edge" system, but it's
turned into an expensive disaster..

Plus, when the old board was "working" I tried to install XP Pro with
the Intel ICH8R RAID enabled (2 drives) and the driver loaded with an
F6. It completed the entire load process, file copies, everyting, but
on the first boot attempt, it errored out.

I'm really getting sick of this thing. I may just hand it over to
the store's service dept and tell them to make it work. At least they
have spare components to work with.

Oh, this time, I made sure the floppy cable was connected properly.

 

[Guest]

Exchanged board today, installed it, taking care to
ground myself on the chassis of another plugged-in system before
touching any parts..

That's not proper anti-static procedure. Ground yourself to the
chassis you'll be working with and never with anything plugged into an
AC outlet (even if there is a hard on-off switch -- anti-static straps
don't have 1M ohms for no reason).

 

[Doug Warner]

That's not proper anti-static procedure. Ground yourself to the
chassis you'll be working with and never with anything plugged into an
AC outlet (even if there is a hard on-off switch -- anti-static straps
don't have 1M ohms for no reason).

I touched the grounded chassis after any major moves, such as sitting
down, just in case I had built up any large charges. Before contacign
any components, I then maintained contact with the new system chassis
(unplugged) to equalize it to myself to it. (Couldn't find my strap.)

 

[Doug Warner]

The only problem I ever had on a new system build was forgetting to
buy a keyboard on my first one. The latest one has turned into a mess:


Sunday Sep 24:

1. Purchased compoonents:
Intel Core2 Duo 6600
Asus P5B Deluxe Mobo
Ati Radeon X1900XTX
Seagate ST3300622AS-RX 300 GB drives (2)
Antec 400W PS
Sony DRU820A DVD-RW drive
Win XP Pro.

2. Installed parts in chassis. Initial boot said SPU not configured,
Went into setup, accepted default settings.

3. Started XP install, let format of first partition complete, then
decided to enable RAID.

4. Enabled the Intel RAID controller, set up a RAID1 array in the
ctrl-I configuration.

5. Made the Intel ICH8 32-bit driver disk from the Asus CD, on old
system.

6. Attempted XP Pro install again. It would not read the diskette.
Found the FDD cable reversed at the drive. Corrected it.

7. Tried again, FDD light blinks, but it says there's no driver on the
disk.

8. Tried new diskette, reformatted. Tried different cable, Tried
different drive.

9. Tried formatting disk in new system from the DOS on the CD. It
steps through the whole 100%, then fails.

10. Posted issue on alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt newsgroup, Most
responders conclude that fdd cable reversal never damages
motherboards. This matches personal experience. Conclusion: the board
must be defective

11. Just in case, I updated the BIOS via USB flash and the latest
version from the Asus website. No change.

12. Too late to disassemble and repackage, time to sleep.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday, Sep 25:

1. Brought USB FDD home from work, attempted XP install again. F2,
reads driver diskette.

2. Completed the partitioning / format phases of the install, and all
the file copies. When it reboots to HD, it fails with a message about
hardware issues. Possible bad driver? (I'll figure this one out
later, still have to deal with the FDD issue.

3. Disassembled system, repackaged motherboard.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, Sep 26:

1. Exchanged motherboard for new one at store.

2. Installed it. taking care to touch grounded chassis of old system
every time I sat down. Touched the chassis of the new system before
installing any parts. (Used fresh coat of Arctic Silver 3 thermal
grease because the original Intel thermal compound had spread
unevenly. Made sure the FDD cable was installed corectly this time.

3. First POST: It displayed a message about "overclocking failed" and
went back to default settings.

4. Attempted to boot an old Win98 boot diskette (not sure if it was
good or not) It failed with an I/O error.

5. Reformatted another diskette from a CMD window, then again from the
GUI to make it bootable.

6. Found that the new system was hung at the error message and would
not respond to ctrl-alt-del. Pressed RESET (Up to now, every reboot
would result in in the video card running it's fan to high speed for a
second, then it would slow down).

7: Tried RESET, power cycle, NOW all it does is immediately run the
video fan to full speed, and no display.

8. Pulled all the memory. 3-3-3-3-3... beep code..

9. Tried another floppy boot, but the system hung in POST, with the
video fan running at high speed. Ctrl-Alt-Del didn't work

10. Cleared CMOS with jumper. = No change.

11. Reseated everything, including CPU. = No change.

12. Tried video card without the power cable, It did not display the
usual power warning. (Did the vid card fail, or is it being held in a
reset state?)

13. Pulled motherboard to check for stray screws underneath, (none
found) Reinstalled. = No change.

14. Disconnected all unnecessary cables for POST. mouse, keyboard,
IDE, SATA, USB, chassis fans..= No change, still fast fan and no
signs of life.

15. Removed the Radeon card, installed an old Matrox PCI video
adapter. = No display, no beeps, (not sure if the BIOS would work
with it anyway.)

16. Gave up, went to bed.

 

[johns]

First, when are you guys going to stop with the
ASUS mobos ? No doubt that store is giving
you refurbs and restocks ... WHICH they probably
got from their wholesaler because of the small
quantity they bought. I'm surprised they honored
any kind of warranty, and did not try to blame you
for that static crap. THAT is crap. As you know,
all you need to do is touch the metal case to
disappate any static. Easy to prove that too.
I use a ground wire connected to a metal file
cabinet to discharge those stinking packing
boxes. I can hear the "pop", and then I can
go about my business without fear of more
lightning bolts. See if they carry Gigabyte,
and will swap you.

johns