The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Russ: because if I don't get the last word, I end up looking like a liar, and a troll / troublemaker. It's a matter of principle. I shouldn't need the last word for that to be the case, but apparently I do.
Rob: So you have just one S-ATA drive on the PC that's disappeared, and it doesn't work on any of the S-ATA ports? I think a new cable is in order. To be fair, I have had a couple of dodgy Gigabyte S-ATA cables.

 

ok heresnsome odd stuff. i have bothe my WD drives in both sata 250 & 500gb drives. they show up no matter what post i have them in, my 2 sata optaric burners show up no matter what port. get this. my 2 seagate drives are gone. yes ive tries all ports none work. tried 3 different new cables. even tried the cables the WD drives are useing.. the seagates wont show up. no heres where it gets really weird. i took all drives outunplugged them) put in my 250gb seagate by itself,, yes it works???? put everything else back in and in the bios it shows nothing at all not even the burners????

 

Sounds like quite the predicament. If I had that kind of situation, in my current living environment, i'd probably put a gun to my head. LOL! No I wouldn't. But it would anger me greatly. I have a lot of patience, but having all my belongings crammed in a tiny room really sucks!
Have you tried resetting the CMOS? Have you tried hitting it with a hammer?

 

i unplugged the power cable. took out battery and cleared cmos. those 2 drives dont show up anywhere??

 

do they work in other pcs?

 

Rob: Those damn seagates, always being a pain in the backside - I'd give them a thorough run-through with SMART tests in another PC, or a USB enclosure if you have one. All I can perhaps suggest to check is AHCI mode in the BIOS for S-ATA drives, and what any jumper settings on the drives may do? it's conceivable they will only work if they're drive #1 or something like that.

 

i wont find that out until later i only have this one PC with sata capability

 

the only thing with that though Sam is they have been in the same position for the last 6+ months and no issues???

 

So this problem happened without any hardware changes, or when you added a WD drive?

 

My secondary is a Barebone MSI. That sucker is ROCK solid! I trust it to outlive my Primary. That's saying a lot. You can pick them up pretty cheap sometimes. Definitely pays to have a secondary standing by. I may need mine soon...

 

Here she is, for those curious.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167009

 

Never had any grief with MSI stuff, no matter how cheap. My friend had an MSI 6100 basic board for a long time, only replaced it so he could actually underclock his CPU for energy efficiency (file server)

 

no no i havent added anything. ive been running wit h4 hdd now for over 6 months the same 4 hdd in the same positions no the board. i just shut down the system to adjust the fan speed on the antec tricool fans, started it back up and all the dramma happend..

 

Interesting. I know Gigabyte boards are definitely picky with certain SATA cables, but a bad SATA controller? I've seen loads of ASUS boards with bad SATA controllers but never a Gigabyte @_@

 

The ICH9 boards can be finicky, but I've never heard of any grief with the ICH10s. To be honest, my X48-DS4 is ridiculously picky about whether I've got a good S-ATA cable with no kinks in it. Make absolutely sure all your cables are working properly before doing anything else.

 

if i find out the seagate drives work in another system just fine(which will be soon) i will be talking with gigabyte again and not nicely. this will be the second time this board has been sent to them for the same issue. well not the exact same board the first time i sent it to them they said the sata controller was bad and gave me a new board with the newest bios update on it. and havent had any issues with it until today. its just odd haven the same issue with the same board about the same amount of time of use on them... sorry guys i know you all love the gigabyte boards and ive tried and tried time after time board after board, if this is another sata controller issue i will be like Sam is with ASUS boards towards gigabyte.... you know its not like im swapping out parts every other day. the last thign ive done is get my Q9550 a few months back. so i know it hasnt been takeing a beating with new this and new that...

 

To be honest, Gigabyte do have ICH problems, I won't hide that. I just personally find that a slightly quirky ICH isn't usually enough to stop me from using a board, whereas with Asus boards, the whole PC is unusable until the board is changed. I wouldn't say I'm wholly satisfied with gigabyte stuff, it's just the lesser of some evils. I'd gladly buy a Biostar board did they actually make an X48 or X38 product, which they don't.

 

now Sam not one to start anything but from the last debate here you all were taling about spending on parts and such, if you bought something and only part of it worked wouldnt you send it back or find something to make it work or something that will work. why would i continue to buy something that i know is going to fail? and yes that is enough for me to stop useing a product. ifi spend my hard earned money on something i want it right, not 75% of it working. hell you have way more HDD's than i do how wold you like it if your sata controller only worked part of the time??

 

Because quite frankly, knowing how many "good" brands out there are terrible, finding one that's pretty good with the occasional minor glitches I'm happy to live with. I haven't had an ICH bug stop me from using my PC properly yet, so I don't really consider it an issue worthy of replacement.

 

and i am useing the board right now it is working fine other than not haveing 2 hdds in it. luckly whats on those hdds is of no dire need to me right now. its the princaple of the point. i have 6 sata connectors on my board i expect 6 of them to work. now if it is the hdds that might be the issue then i will appologize to gigabyte and start on seagate..lol like said im not trying to start anything here just a point im trying to make about the board, either it being gigabyte,asus,msi.dfi,biostar. if it has a working part when it is first bought it should still work 5 months down the road... thats all im sying