LordBret wrote on 2023-05-05, 22:49:

Hello, I send desperately a message today cause I bought a month ago a motherboard Gigabyte 5aX rev 4.1. Unfortunately I didn’t […]
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Hello,
I send desperately a message today cause I bought a month ago a motherboard Gigabyte 5aX rev 4.1. Unfortunately I didn’t managed to go past the bios post screen. My hard drives and cdrom drives are not recognized by the bios. I tried various things.
- swapping the IDE cables
- moving the jumpers positions on the drives
- using a sata to IDE adapter
- using a PCI Sata drive adapter (with or without firmware on it)
- changing the PSU
- tried in PC case or outside
- even flashing the firmware with the latest version

No matter what I tried. IDE peripherals are not recognized. You understood that the only functional drive is the good old floppy reader. That’s the first time I face this kind of trouble. Even during my glorious days with PC Chips or DFI socket 7 motherboards I never face this situation.

What can I do ? Thank you very much for your help and advices ! Have a nice weekend!

LordBret

Did you try testing with only the cdrom hooked up to see if it reads that? If not, I would try a different one to rule out a possible compatibility issue. If this still doesn't work I would inspect the board closely for any damage. Beyond that it could be a fried controller or a corrupted bios.

Agree ! What Hard drive models and what CDROM models ? It is possible that the Southbridge is damaged and why the IDE ports do not work but need more info.
If you have a real ISA IDE adapter would try that with real IDE drives, I would not expect a SATA drive (even with an adapter) to work due to they are usually way to large/new for the bios to interpret proper.

Did you checked the bios to see if the ide controller and both channels are enabled? Also have you tried with a pci video card to confirm that the pci bus is working fine (you said that you tried a pci sata adapter with no result, by default fddc should be mapped to ISA and idec should be mapped to PCI so if the pci bus is not working correctly, fdd working and ide not, could make sense)?. What kind of drives are you using(model)? Some pictures with the motherboard, post screen and pci device listing could be helpful.

Horun wrote on 2023-05-06, 02:35:

Agree ! What Hard drive models and what CDROM models ? It is possible that the Southbridge is damaged and why the IDE ports do not work but need more info.
If you have a real ISA IDE adapter would try that with real IDE drives, I would not expect a SATA drive (even with an adapter) to work due to they are usually way to large/new for the bios to interpret proper.

hi thank you.
I tried with a western digital wd 200 which have an ide interface and a standard Cdrom drive from Asus (also in IDE).
Unfortunately I don’t have this kind of ISA card with IDE ports.
however for the PCI/ Sata card I tried with a 60GB SSD. Normally this bios can deal with it.

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-05-06, 07:59:

Did you checked the bios to see if the ide controller and both channels are enabled? Also have you tried with a pci video card to confirm that the pci bus is working fine (you said that you tried a pci sata adapter with no result, by default fddc should be mapped to ISA and idec should be mapped to PCI so if the pci bus is not working correctly, fdd working and ide not, could make sense)?. What kind of drives are you using(model)? Some pictures with the motherboard, post screen and pci device listing could be helpful.

Hi thank you for your reply
Absolutely all parameters are set by default so ide channels are enabled.
Yes video cards (PCI and AGP) can display the content on screen.
Unfortunately I don’t have this kind of stuff for ISA port. I use WD200 (20Gb hard drive) and Asus standard IDE drive.
Motherboard looks fine (I mean capacitors and I saw no damage on board) and bios seems not corrupted I flashed it two times. I’ll try to make screen in this afternoon.

Ok I attached the pictures of Post Screen and the peripherals I connected on PCI slot and IDE
I tried to plug an IDE Cdrom alone it wasn’t recognized
I tried to use an Hard Drive again hitachi deskstar of 160Gb it wasn’t recognized
However PCI cards were listed in bios
Unfortunately it seems I have no ISA card at all
Funny thing with IBM 6x86MX 233 motherboard start faster than with K6-2 CPU.

Try with ide ultra ata 66+ cable https://www.agiler.us/product/ultra-ata-66-10 … de-cable-40-80/ ,the wires of the ribbon are thinner then standard ide ata33 cable. The blue connector goes in to the motherboard.

Are those traces exposed between the 2 caps and memory slots?

psybyrd wrote on 2023-05-06, 20:32:

Are those traces exposed between the 2 caps and memory slots?

I see no traces.
Must be a reflect

Switch the older model ide cable with the newer one if you have it, it should work. https://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Cable-Device-Con … h/dp/B000I20AAK https://www.amazon.com/40-Pin-80-Wire-2-Drive … n/dp/B003IDF0JC

I think I remember having some resource conflict issues with this board. I have no idea if that could be causing this problem though.

I would try to remove/disable everything that isn't necessary. Take that PCI card out, disable the serial, parallel, and USB ports in the BIOS. Then I'd enable the "Reset Configuration Data" setting in the BIOS.

Other stuff to check if you run out of ideas:
-Double-check every single jumper and switch on the motherboard
-Try a different stick of RAM
-Try the RAM in a different slot
-Try a different video card, a PCI card if you have one

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-05-06, 20:57:

Switch the older model ide cable with the newer one if you have it, it should work. https://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Cable-Device-Con … h/dp/B000I20AAK https://www.amazon.com/40-Pin-80-Wire-2-Drive … n/dp/B003IDF0JC

Hello thanks for your reply
So I gave it a try and even with the newer model of Ultra IDE (I had a couple of it in stock at my father’s) it changed nothing unfortunately.

danieljm wrote on 2023-05-06, 21:12:

I think I remember having some resource conflict issues with this board. I have no idea if that could be causing this problem th […]
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I think I remember having some resource conflict issues with this board. I have no idea if that could be causing this problem though.

I would try to remove/disable everything that isn't necessary. Take that PCI card out, disable the serial, parallel, and USB ports in the BIOS. Then I'd enable the "Reset Configuration Data" setting in the BIOS.

Other stuff to check if you run out of ideas:
-Double-check every single jumper and switch on the motherboard
-Try a different stick of RAM
-Try the RAM in a different slot
-Try a different video card, a PCI card if you have one

Hey Daniel thank you for the advices so
- as you said I’ve been to bios to deactivate all the useless stuff (usb, parallel… ) even mapping IDE to ISA IRQ and reset configuration data. No result.
- About the jumpers. I moved the one related to VCC It changed nothing.
- Even if I switched my 256 Mb stick of Ram to a 128 PC 133 or put it in different slots it gave no changes
- I already used AGP and PCI VGA cards (kyro and Matrox Mystique) however I tried with S3 Virge in PCI in all the slots.
If you have another advice you are welcome

Have you disabled the onboard cache memory? because is states that there is none at post in both pictures.

What PCI SATA card are you using, and what does it say on POST? Do you even see the card's BIOS screen?

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-05-07, 23:28:

Have you disabled the onboard cache memory? because is states that there is none at post in both pictures.

Yes I disabled it to slow down a bit the CPU for taking pictures of the bios “chart”

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-05-07, 23:43:

What PCI SATA card are you using, and what does it say on POST? Do you even see the card's BIOS screen?

It’s a pci standard VIA card
No firmware message appears at “start” screen although on POST it s recognized as a mass storage and serial bus controller.
However I can’t access to the device 🙁

Any chance you have an ISA soundcard that has an IDE port on it that you could try?

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-05-08, 14:16:

Any chance you have an ISA soundcard that has an IDE port on it that you could try?

Nope. I don’t have ISA stuff