HELP ! ga7dxr adaptec aha2940au Hell !

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Guest

Guest
I recently upgraded my old motherboard and hdd to a gigabyte ga7dxr 1.4 athlon and WD 20.0gb hdd and an adaptec 2940au scsi card controlling a scsi dvd drive and scsi cd re writer running windows 2000 pro... the problem is when i try to autorun or read a cd from the dvd or cd re-writer it shows up as corrupted data or just gives an error message that the disk structure is corrupted !
Now,On my old system i also had the scsi card on this system and it ran 2000 pro perfectly well !
i have tried updating ACPI to standard pc, ran service pack 2, changed the slot the card was in, updated the drivers, disabled the onboard raid controller and its still the same !!!!!
for the record i also have a radeon 64mb ddr vivo, sblive platinum and a generic modem
please help me i think im starting to go insane !
 

svol

Champion
There is a great chance that your SBLive! is causing the conflict, you have a Via 686b Southbridge which can give problems in combination with the SBLive! Check out this FAQ about that problem:
<A HREF="http://www.viahardware.com/686bfaq.shtm" target="_new">http://www.viahardware.com/686bfaq.shtm</A>
and maybe the Via Latency Patch can help you:
<A HREF="http://www.networking.tzo.com/net/software/" target="_new">http://www.networking.tzo.com/net/software/</A>

Also you might want to download the latest Via 4-in-1 drivers (4.37) and disabling the SB16 emulation may also help.

My case has so many fans that it hovers above the ground :eek: .
 
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Guest

Guest
i have checked this out and removed the sb live altogether
and downloaded the 4 in 1 drivers
the video card is a normal 64 mb radeon vivo
and its still the same !
 

svol

Champion
You also tried the Via Latency Patch?

Otherwise you might be running out of power, how many Watts is your powersupply?

My case has so many fans that it hovers above the ground :eek: .
 
G

Guest

Guest
Latency Patch ???!!!
My power supply is an enermax 431w... that should be enough... shouldnt it ?
i'll check out the patch
thanks for the tip !
 

jlanka

Splendid
Mar 16, 2001
4,064
0
22,780
Does this happen with any and all CD's (pre-manufactured AND burned) or just a subset? DVD's also? Is there any pattern as to which ones it happens to, or when it happens? Also, did you check the SCSI cable? Is it seated properly, and did you try a different one (if one is available)?

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>
 
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Guest

Guest
this happens with all cd's and dvd's ! there is no real pattern sometimes it will see the table of contents sometimes it just reports that programs should be added through the control panel sometimes it reports tha the disk is corrupted and unreadable !
i did check the scsi cable it SEEMS to be ok although i have tried connecting the short end of the cable between the drive and the card and it has not made a difference
i will try another one though
any other ideas ?
 

jlanka

Splendid
Mar 16, 2001
4,064
0
22,780
another idea: Try one device (CD-RW or DVD) at a time and see if that makes any difference. When you do that try to make it SCSI device 0. Also try to try a different cable, and you can get your hands on one.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>
 
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Guest

Guest
i have tried one drive on its own but i have not tried to change the id's !
currently the dvd and cdr-w are set to id 2 and 3 respectively.
i will try to change one of them to id 0 as you suggested
and i'll try a different cable to see if that makes any difference
any other ideas would be greatly appreciated !
 

jlanka

Splendid
Mar 16, 2001
4,064
0
22,780
and a generic modem
real "grasping at straws" kind of stuff, but have you removed the modem?

Actually what I would be doing now is trying all sort of different things, basically removing as much stuff as I can (both hardware AND software, and after that changing as much of the other stuff (CPU, RAM, Video Cables, Drives, Power Supply, Software) as I can (as long as you can get your hands on other stuff, albeit temporarily), until I hit on a combination that worked. Of course do this methodically, one piece at a time, testing your results after each removal or change. This is how debugging hardware and software works.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>
 
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Guest

Guest
ok to recap !

i recently upgraded my motherboard to a Gigabyte GA7DXR, 1400 Mhz athlon
and 512mb (2x256mb) ddr ram, ... thats the new stuff !

my old stuff which i migrated to the new system includes an adaptec AHA2940au
scsi card to which i have connected a pioneer 10-40 slot loading dvd drive and a yamaha cd-rw 16-10-40 and a 64mb ati radeon VIVO
it is the scsi devices i am having a problem with !

when i installed windows 2000 proffesional (using a standard ide cd rom)
the scsi drives will not read a disk correctly !
when i try to explore a cd it returns error messages like
"unable to read from disk in drive (x): the disk structure is corrupted and unreadable"
it then displays some of the contents of the disk and it is obviously corrupted !
or if i try to autorun a cd it gives errors like
"unable to find insertion point...."
or "setup is not a valid win32 application"

i have completely disabled the jumpers controlling the promise/raid controller
i have updated acpi to "standard pc"
i have checked and re-checked the scsi id's and termination
i have checked the cable
i have tried the card in ALL of the pci slots
i have the adaptor set to IRQ 11 (no conflicts)
the adaptor id is set to 7
i have tried 1 drive on its own set to id 0, 1, 3, and 5 (no change !)
everything looks hunky dory in the device manager no matter what

i have removed all other cards and drives apart from the scsi card and the video card (64 mb radeon VIVO)
data is being read from the hard drive and the ide cd rom (which i also tried removing) with no problem at all
this is also happening with win 2000 server and win xp professional !
although i had this scsi set up on my old system with 98 and 2000. and it all
worked fine !

i found an old scsi hard drive at home and plugged it in it works fine !!!??!?!?
when i connect the dvd drive with it then all hell starts breaking loose again !
i have tried a few differnet configurations of settings in scsi select and parity enable\disable, id's, block size and cant seem to find a happy medium ... maybe a firmware upgrade ??
do you have any idea what could be going wrong ?
Please help i have been a whole month without my pc its driving me nuts !

p.s. could it be that the problem is to do with some sort of incompatibility with the amd 761 chipset the busmaster drivers and/or the adaptec card ?
if so could you recomend a board with no such problems and perhaps a slightly different chipset ... via KT266a ? .... an abit KR7A maybe ?
 
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Guest

Guest
I've lost it with this board !
the GA7DXR SUCKS !!!!
i cant speak for the (+) version though
Im gonna get a abit KR7A instead !
thanks for all your help guys !
much appreciated
NuTjOb