System hangs when CD/DVDs are read

Croaking_Toad SG

I have a PC system using an ASUS P5W motherboard with the following hardware:-

1. Two DVD drives connected by IDE cable to ICH7R IDE connector (40-1 pin PRI_IDE), assigned as Primary Master and Primary Slave respectively.

2. One SATA HDD connected by SATA cable to SATA1 connector, assigned as 3rd Master (Containing OS etc.)

3. One SATA DVD drive connected by SATA cable to SATA 3 connector, assigned as 4th Master.

4. Two IDE HDDs connected by IDE cable to IDE connector (40-1 PRI_EIDE). This connector is a different one from the one described above. These two HDDs (containing files etc) are connected to the system using a JMicron PCIE to SATAII/IDE RAID controller.

Whenever a CD or DVD is inserted into any of the DVD drives, the system freezes and hangs. Only solution is to use the reboot button. I have tried systematically removing the PATA and SATA DVD drives to check if CDs/DVDs are read, but the problem remains. Any suggestion is much appreciated.

The motherboard has four DDR2 DIMM sockets and can take up to 8 GB of memory. My other question is: Do I need to use the same pair/s of module? Can I use two different pairs of module, eg. a pair of 1GB and 2GB modules? Can DDR2 modules be used together with DDR3 modules? I have a pair of 1GB DDR2 800MHZ modules.

Thank you.

PWNED32 SG

Should be ok what. Try reinstalling.

Raraken SG

2nd question:

2 different pairs, yes. Just put them into the same channel.

If you don't know what I mean, or anyone, for that matter:

Lets say your mobo has 2 orange and 2 yellow DIMM slots.

Put the 1GB DIMMs into the Yellow slots, and the 2GB sticks into the Orange Slots.

DDR2 Modules CANNOT be used with DDR3 Modules. If your mobo has both types of slots, well, Try use DDR2 or DDR3 only. DDR3 modules cannot fit into DDR2 slots, and vice cersa.

Question 1: OS in question?

Croaking_Toad SG

OS is XP Profsessional.

I tried removing sequentially the DVD drives while checking to see each individual drive if the problem persists. No luck there :(

Raraken SG

So even if 1 DVD drive is present, it still crashes?

Croaking_Toad SG

Yup! That's right. The frozen screen of death. No keypress reboot. Only the reboot button does the job. Neither the SATA DVD drive nor the IDE DVD drives, either installed individually or together works properly.

Raraken SG

Then I believe the problem is your motherboard. Can you switch the IDE HDDs and the IDE CD/DVD drives, say the IDE DVD drives to the JMicron PCIE RAID card, and HDDs to the ICH7R?

Croaking_Toad SG

I managed to dig out the MoB user guide.

Following is what is written in the guide:

1. "JMicron IDE connector (40-1 pin PRI_EIDE [black])

This connector is for Ultra ATA 133/100/66 signal cables. The JMicron IDE connector supports up to two IDE hard disk drives for easier storage. This connector does not support ATAPI devices."

Taken from Page31 (59 of 212).

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/p ub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5W%20DH%20Deluxe/e2557_p5w_dh_dlx.pdf

The two IDE HDDs is currently connected to this by using the JMicron PCIE to SATAII/IDE RAID Controller and they run fine.

2. "Intel ICH7R IDE connector (40-1 pin PRI_IDE)

The onboard IDe connector is for the Ultra DMA (133/)100/66 signal cable.There are three connectors on each Ultra DMA 133/100/66 signal cable: blue, black and gray. Connect blue connector to the motherboard's IDE connector, then select one of the following modes to configure your device.

Install devices on this connector (PRI_IDE) first, then install on the JMicron IDE connector, PRI_EIDE".

Taken from Page32 (60 of 212).

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5W%20DH%20Deluxe/e2557_p5w_dh_dlx.pdf

The two IDE DVD drives are connected to this connector.

Sorry, I do not know how to paste the PDF image from the online manual.

Raraken SG

So switching HDDs and DVD drives are out of the question.........

I have no idea how to solve it, so can you contact ASUS support?

Croaking_Toad SG

The two HDDs were connected with the RAID controller by the Shifu Uncle at Fuwell at SLS. The DVD drives were done by me as I upgraded the hardware. Maybe can bring it back again. But so sian to have to bring the CPU to SLS. SIGH!!!!!!

Thanks for your help anyways :)

Raraken SG

Thanks for your help anyways :)

Yeah, best course of action would be to send it back to the people. Fuwell are quite good retailers, as are some others. He did the correct thing by connecting the HDDs to the RAID controller, as it cannot support the DVD drives.

Hopefully they can solve it. Your system specs sound very nice (though I don't know what the front of your case looks like with 3 drives poking out )

Croaking_Toad SG

Ohhh the two HDDs were salvaged from my older system but they were relatively new, a maxtor and a quantum, the latter being more realiable. Either way, I didn't want to let them go to waste. So when I built the new system, I ta-pow all, and that's what I have today, together with the SATA HDD containing the OS. It's the same story with the DVD drives. Yeah, ok call me crazy !

The casing is an Atrix. Looks nice with the lights and all, but if i knew then I wouldn't have gotten it. What's the big use of the LCD panel showing temperature, date etc, when I have to change the cell battery every two months which involves dismantling the front panel to reach the battery slot. BAH!!!!!!!!!