problem with a very old mobo!

[Kenny]

I;ve beena sked to look at a mates computer. The mobo is a "SuperP6SBA" its OLD. Its either a Pentium I or II...no newer.

The problem is around the BIOS and IDE slots/ports. If a single IDE cable is plugged in with an HDD attached..I can get things working. However, if I attach a 2nd IDE cable- even if the CD drive is unpowered, I cannot- using any mix of BIOS settings- get the damned thing to POST.

I have to enter the track size/cylinder count etc of the HDD in the BIOS before that'll work. At least...I think I do, and given the POST time, better safe than sorry!

Its possible the 2nd IDE cable is borked, but past that, given all the settings iv tried, I cant think of any reason for things to behave as they are.



Does anyone have any ideas? I dont have the computer here so I cant check anything but I can take any ideas to it next time im at his flat.

Cheers guys!

Kenny

 

[muckshifter]

Yep, that is old ...


Slot 1 MB, 440BX chipset, 100MHz FSB, PCI, ISA, AGP 1 ... It should be able to use Pentium III/II 233 ... I had 3 of them here for months trying to get Linux installed, no problem with WinME.

I have the MB manual ...

You can set the 'drives' to Auto or LBA mode if over 540Mb , the CDRom Select type should be CDRom ... there was a strange behavior with anything over 8Gb, a BIOS limitation.


Good luck!

 

[Kenny]

Yep, that is old ...
no problem with WinME.

I have the MB manual ...

You can set the 'drives' to Auto or LBA mode if over 540Mb , the CDRom Select type should be CDRom ... there was a strange behavior with anything over 8Gb, a BIOS limitation.


Good luck!

Thanks Mucks! I left the Win ME in the quote because...my mate is using Windows 98!!! Oh yes.

I tried setting everything to auto, but no joy. Iv never seen anything go pear-shaped in such a way before.

Il keep that info in mind next time I have access to it, but TBH I think im gonna try and push him to upgrading. A cheap AM2 will be such a massive boost he'll be in awe so it should be reasonably easy, but I really wanna get past this problem.

Any fool can look after something when its working...