IDE Ribbon Causing Problems?

A

aaronhunt2001

New Member
Hi All,

I am having a very strange issue with my PC...
My computer suddenly stopped powering up correctly a few days ago... I replaced the power supply and bingo the fans etc powered up... but not the CD, DVD or either of my two hard drives. So by a process of elimination I removed all but one stick of memory, removed all cards but the video card and only connected one hard drive... still no power appeared to be getting to the hard drive. So eventually I figured out (by a long process of elimiation) that I can supply power to the hard drive and it will spin up... but as soon as I put the ribbon data cable between the hard drive and the motherboard it fails to spin up... so I'm thinking ok it's the ribbon data cable... I tried 2 old cables and 2 brand new cables - still no spin up... I have checked and double checked that the ribbon cable is plugged in the correct way (and they will only go in one way nowadays because of the cut-out and "pip")...
So I'm thinking ok I'll try a PCI IDE card to see if it does the same - and it does the same.
This does not only apply to hard drives (I tried 4 different ones including a brand new one) but also to CD or DVD drives (where the drives fail to open or show any lights when the ribbon is plugged in)

To me it sounds like the IDE Controller on the motherboard is shot? But then when I add the PCI card I expect that to work and it doesn't...

What worries me is that the power supply failed first... is it possible that the power supply has had (or produced) a surge of power and fried the motherboard? I don't have another P4 motherboard to try the processor in so it's a bit difficult and I don't want to go out and buy a mobo for it to turn out to be the processor.

Any clues from anyone?

Thanks

Aaron
 
have you checked the pins inside the IDE slot? sometimes they can get bent down or even broken and stop the whole thing from working....and its kinda hard to imagine both (or 3 depending on how many you have) IDE slots were fried and nothing else
 
Thanx for your response Maddhatter...

I checked the pins too... just double checked... they all look fine...

I only have 2 IDE channels and I have tried both...

It's a fairly old motherboard (4 years) and so I'm thinking it's just dead...
My next problem is if I get a new mobo, all of my case power switch connectors etc are moulded and not separate which may mean a new case is required too... DOH!

Aaron
 
i had this exact problem with a client's computer a while back and it looked perfectly attached and such but now its working and sure enough there was just one pin not completely in and it shut it all down!
 
what processor do you have, and what kind of ram do you have, how many PCI slots do you need, etc, I'll try to look around and see if I find any good deals for you. It sounds to me like the mobo's shot, one last thing I would try though is, plug the hard drive into the one that the CD Drive is plugged into, if you have more than those 2, try it in every IDE slot, if there still isn't anything, look really close to see if the IDE cable is cut
 
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