Is my motherboard dying?

[SilentSteps]

The dvd drive (IDE cable) that I've had for a while (5 years) was working fine up until one point, where it stopped reading DVDs. After a little while longer, it stopped reading CDs as well. I tried replacing it with a DVD-burner, (which uses a SATA cable?) but then the system just began to hang at the message "scanning for IDE..." or something like that. Would this be a sign that the computer is dying? Strangely enough, the Sony vaio that I've owned since 2001 is still running strong.

 

[Computer Head]

Two options mate....

1. Get an IDE drive ... they still make them.

2. Go into the BIOS and disable the IDE channel that was previously used.

 

[Atomic Rooster]

I'm thinking that you might want to do an diagnosis on your hard drive. It may be going bad and the system is having troubles detecting it. You can grab the utility from the drive manufacturer's website.

 

[J03]

Try disabling the IDE channel in your BIOS.

 

[Computer Head]

I'm thinking that you might want to do an diagnosis on your hard drive. It may be going bad and the system is having troubles detecting it. You can grab the utility from the drive manufacturer's website.

I don't think it's the hard drive because most likely the hard drive is SATA and even if it was IDE, it's on separate channels. Most likely the secondary IDE channel is still enabled and it's looking for an optical IDE drive that isn't there and keeps hanging because it can't find it. Like J03 and I have said, go into your BIOS, most likely under Secondary Master and Secondary Slave, it's set to Auto. Make sure to set those to either Disabled or Off, depending on your options. That should take care of things.

 

[SilentSteps]

I tried disabling the secondary IDE channel, and it stays stuck in "Scanning IDE drives...

Strangely enough, not connecting the SATA cable for the DVD burner results in a normal bootup.

 

[Computer Head]

Try clearing out the CMOS by taking the little round battery out of your motherboard (with the computer unplugged) and let it sit for an hour or so. It also would help to clear the capacitors if you just push the power button a couple times to drain the residual energy out of those capacitors. Try that, and if that doesn't work, things are looking grim.

 

[J03]

Could be the jumpers on the hard drive.. maybe?

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Good catch J03. Make sure the HDD is set master on it's own channel. Also check the jumpers on the DVD drive to see if it's set as master.

Stupid question of the day: Is the power cord connected to the DVD drive?

 

[SilentSteps]

Alright, I've took out the CMOS battery for a while... I'll make sure that the drives are set as master. Also, where exactly should the cable for SATA be put in? I see PRI SATA SEC SATA and SATA 1 & SATA 2.

And yes, the power is connected