CD Rom, 3.5" Drive and something strange.

[caliphe]

I am trying to get a Pentium 2 400Mhz system running for my children. I have 2 hard drives (used), cd rom, 3.5" floppy, and something that looks like a 8 track player. The model is a hp colorado T1000. I don't know what that is. I have a 250 watt power supply in this a.t. system. When the cd rom is not connected to the board it opens and closes fine and everything. When it's on the board it stays lit or if I move the ribbon around it doesn't come on. The 3.5" floppy either stays on or doesn't. That thing wont do right for nothing. The 8 track looking thing does absolutely nothing. I have a voodoo 3 graphics card, sound blaster 16, and voice, data, fax modem. The board is fine. I bought it already put together complete and it was tested before I bought it. Can anyone help me???!!!

P.S. I'm getting no video. And this was suppose to have been a working card. And the motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-6BA REV 2.9. I'm trying to hook up all of these devices at once with a 250 watt power supply.

[jmichna]

It's a Colorado tape deck, for backing up files. Really doubt you will need it for what you are doing. You can remove it completey from your system.. or if you don't want to leave a hole in the front of your system ;) just disconnect -- from within the case -- the power cable to the tape drive and remove the connecting cables from the device. Look within the installed software for a program like "Backup Exce" or something similar. Since you won't be using the device, you can uninstall the software.

Regarding the 3.5" floppy drive, there are four ways possible connect a floppy drive, three are wrong. The cable itself has a section of wire with a twist in it and this twisted section is closer to one end of the cable. That twisted end is attached to the floppy drive. The red line of the ribbon cable is wire #1 which needs to align with pin 1 on the drive connection... usually positioned toward the interior of the drive. Make sure you haven't bent any pins. You'll have to carefully straighten them if you have.

Not sure what the problem is with the CD-ROM... fix the other two things and let's see what happens (maybe bad cable?). Try re-seating the ribbon cables, at both ends. Double-check all power connectors, make sure they are seated completely.

Good luck,
jmichna

Didn't see the mention re video at first. Do you see anything at all? Any POST info on the monitor when you first boot up? There is usually a small light on the front of monitors... glows amber when they are turned on but not getting a video signal, turns green when they get a video signal. What do you get? Do you get any error beeps during bootup? One long, followed by three short beeps indicates a video failure for many mother boards.

[caliphe]

From what I can see it's connected right. The red side of the cable is on the left position of the cd rom. then I have the colorado backup linked to the same ribbon and then connected to the motherboard. When I bought it it came with 128 on the board of pc100 memory. I also added some memory that I had here in the other two slots of this Gigabyte board. There is a slite difference in the squares on this memory. The square blocks are bigger but it fits the board. Could this be the problem? There are no beeps at all from the system. The hard drives where just added and there is no operating system on them. I will have to add that once I get the devices to function.

[G Ray88]

Try installing just the memory that came with the computer, see if that helps. Good Luck:t
For more help check here http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/how-to-guides/924_1.html

[caliphe]

It was the power supply. I'm exchanging it tomorrow. I connected every thing correctly. It was the power supply all along. Thanks fellas, you guys are the greatest.

[jmichna]

Caliphe...
Glad you got your problem solved... you had too many really strange, bizarre things going wrong... amazing what a bum power supply can cause to happen :p
jmichna