Floppy drive controller on an amptron 9100

[rosmini]

I purchased an amptron 9100 socket 7 motherboard to put together for a friend after installing it powering up I recieved an error "error reading from drive a" I then went about the usual troubleshooting swapping cables triplechecking the bios settings looking for an overlooked jumper, resource conflicts. I could find nothing with the setup and nothing was visibly damaged traces looked ok. So I figured it has to be the drive. I had not checked it to see if it worked so assuming since everything was checked out I bought a new floppy drive and got the same error. I then did all the stuff above again with no result even tried setting it up as drive b. Here is a description of what happens
power on the see the memory test then then hard drive is mounted and the floppy drive light is seen and the error message appears with the options abort retry fail after reading that it might be the +12 voltage I inserted a floppy with a corner exposed to see if the disk was turning it was not now i have this thing which of course i cannot return (don't ever buy from absolute computing menaul/washington alb nm) any thing you could suggest would be appreciated I also thaught about getting a drive controller board but I don't know if this would cause the on board controllers to conflict I don't how you disable it.

heres the config
amptron 9100 w onboard sound & vid(disabled)
cyrix pr200
1.7 gig fugitsu hd
32 meg ram
s3virge pci vid card
cirrus logic 288 modem
ps2 mouse
pc keyboard
inside of a older case(modified)

no hurry already bought a different board and all is well even the old floppy

ps the +12 voltage to the drive was ok

[ANTONIO E GUERRA]

Hi, rosmini! It may sound simple but...check the pin 1 in both ends (floppy controller interface and the floppy). They differ from manufacturer to manufacturer.

[rosmini]

Well how different when the cables were backwards the drive light would just stay on but that is what is always what happens "lucky for me" The drive light goes on but the spindle motor does not turn the disk the voltages going to drive check out I was hoping somebody might know of a conflict between the driuve controller and the cyrix processor or maybe the s3virge (michaelangelo)I did try lowering the bus speed to 66. I think it is almost certainly the floppy drive controller I could use some info on using a drive controller card iis it possible in a system that has onboard controller?

[MR COMPUTER]

Yes a lot of things are possible with that board. First ,clear your bios (cmos jumper). Next,go into setup and reset date/time/etc. Set your drives to "auto" and "on". Make sure that fd 1.44 A drive is selected at the bottom. Next bios screen-Enable boot up floppy seek-Disable floppy drive swap. Save settings and exit. I have never seen one of these boards with a bad onboard fd controller. Check board version next to keyboard,(3.2 or 7) and the bios date on boot up should be at least 12/98. All else fails-re-enable the onboard video-hook up the monitor cable,and try it. If the controller is bad-RMA the board..

[This message has been edited by MR COMPUTER (edited 05-13-99).]

[ANTONIO E GUERRA]

I have never problems with Amptron motherboards. Only a few suggestions:
(1) check the power cable that goes to the floppy;
(2) replace the floppy cable connectors;
(3) make sure that there is not any piece of metal causing short between the motherboard and the case. It could be under the floppy controller (like one of the separators).
(4) check the pins in the floppy controller. One of them might be bend.
Good luck!

[This message has been edited by ANTONIO E GUERRA (edited 05-13-99).]