The PSU might look fine, but is it? It's old enough that you should make sure it is.
I'd try the cdrom and hdd alone (as master device) to see if one of them has an obvious problem. Also use another molex to power them.

idan182 wrote on 2022-09-09, 11:03:

Problem is, the CD drive + Hard disk working on the same IDE cable.
CD is the secondary master, sometimes it does recognize on bios and sometimes not.

How can I understand it? Same = 1 cable for both (HDD+CD drive) devices? Then HDD must be set as MASTER and CD as SLAVE. Primary or secondary , it depends on which IDE port they are connected to - IDE 0 as PRIMARY, IDE 1 as SECONDARY.
If CD drive is set to SECONDARY MASTER, then must be connected on another cable to IDE1 port onboard.

CF adapter is Primary master.

Cd is secondary master which is not recognized.
Mechanical HD is secondary slave.

I just notice that if I turn the computer on, either the mechanical HD, CD or Fan of the cpu is not working until the second power on.

They are all on 1 molex cable with an extension.
I have disconnected the cd, now everything works.

Maybe the PSU is weak?

idan182 wrote on 2022-09-09, 11:37:

They are all on 1 molex cable with an extension.
I have disconnected the cd, now everything works.
Maybe the PSU is weak?

Everything can be the culprit.
The cdrom might be problematic, the psu might be problematic or weak, the load on one cable with extensions might be too much (have you tried removing the slave hdd instead of the cdrom?)
We can't guess any further, you'll have to start eliminating possibilities. Try another psu, measure the psu, try the cdrom on another computer, remove the extension and use different cables as much as possible...

idan182 wrote on 2022-09-09, 11:37:

CF adapter is Primary master. […]
Show full quote

CF adapter is Primary master.

Cd is secondary master which is not recognized.
Mechanical HD is secondary slave.

I just notice that if I turn the computer on, either the mechanical HD, CD or Fan of the cpu is not working until the second power on.

They are all on 1 molex cable with an extension.
I have disconnected the cd, now everything works.

Maybe the PSU is weak?

It could be weak PSU, as you think. So on this IDE cable you have CD drive on one end (set as MASTER) and HDD on middle (set as SLAVE), cable is connected to IDE1 port, right? If so, then try set both CD and HDD to MASTER and try each one separately, if it works and recognized good.

Maybe the problem could be the CD is master and HDD is slave and expects an active ATA master.

Could you set the HDD to master and to the end of the cable, the CD to slave in the middle of the cable?

All this caused by this molex extension !!
I could see that the fan is not starting unless I play with the 2 wires from the connector.

Replaced it to a fresh one and everything works again!

Good job!

I was going to guess maybe your drive firmware had gone bad but looks like you figured it out! 😀

Your motherboard probably should not be susceptible to a bad molex connection to the fan. I would still be concerned about that power supply.

i have ran into that same odd character issue on my ASUS P2B, it was due to a bad IDE cable

idan182 wrote on 2022-09-09, 17:01:

All this caused by this molex extension !! I could see that the fan is not starting unless I play with the 2 wires from the conn […]
Show full quote

All this caused by this molex extension !!
I could see that the fan is not starting unless I play with the 2 wires from the connector.

Replaced it to a fresh one and everything works again!

20220909_195727.jpg

20220909_193645.jpg

Ups, now it is clear - loose contact. You have to push the molex all the way, even if it's hard to do. Look at the gap between this and yours.