**- Official Asus P5K Thread -**

Yep, its a "B Grade" mobo, although I have no idea what that means.

All case headers are plugged in correctly, yep. Brass standoffs are all in place correctly.

I'm leaving the USB and FW header connections on the mobo disconnected for the moment.

To be honest, I would not purchase "B Grade" boards again from here. Too much hassle to be honest, despite the saving of beer tokens.

If this thing doesn't start behaving itself in the next few days, I'll be returning it. Even if its a "B Grade" it should work straight out of the package, I should not have to have jumped through as many hoops as I have done already, really.

Miffed to say the least.
 
Draeger said:
Miffed to say the least.
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Heh I don't blame you, that all seems like quite a pain in the backside!

Anyhow good to know its a B-Grade, not that it means the board is to blame for your woes but it does make it more likely.

No matter you should still be able to return the board if you exhaust all possibilities and still don't get everything working as expected.

If we assume for the moment the board *isn't* faulty and you don't have the USB header from the case connected is there anything shorting against the case, any random flakes of metal knocking about?

So you have the two power cables connected (24-pin and 4/8-pin) the case power-on, reset, HDD cables, what else is connected to the motherboard?

Hang in there, its normally a great feeling if and when you manage to work out what is going wrong and put it right but at some point it may have to be RMA time, anyway back to the trouble-shooting.
 
Sorry to hear that you are having some issues with your board Draeger, the problems you describe do seem a little similar to what I have read about on the net. I am not sure if you have mentioned it yet or not but are your bits in the case at the moment or are you working with it as just parts?

Edit: Just noticed you said it was in the case a few posts back, the problems seem to suggest to me that either something is shorting as Wayne said above. But then if you are running without a backplate the chances are much reduced as thats normally the prime suspect for me. The other thing is maybe when you were in bios you switched something off to do with the usb.

I would clear the cmos and try booting upfrom there. After a clear of my cmos everything is on how I need it anyway for the system when its not overclocked. The other thing is on my Asus CD there were some USB2 drivers, I didnt need to install them as XP already did but maybe Vista is different :confused:

By the way mate, feel free to add me to MSN if you want to chat about some possible troubleshooting.
 
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Sorted.

I feel like a dummy.

I had the USB header cable plugged into the connector near the middle of the motherboard near the PCI_E slot.

Didn't notice the other two USB headers at the bottom left of the board. :rolleyes:

Plugged the cable in there to the one nearest the edge of the board and front USB now works fine.

Also, I finally found a *fix* for the USB headset problem after a good amount of Googling.

Go here:-

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933262/

Then on that page, have MS send the hotfix out to you via email.

Fix works for Vista 32 & 64bit
Fix is for: Logitech USB Headset, Logitech USB 250 Headset, Logitech USB 350 Headset (maybe more)

They send you a link to a zip file which is password protected and not publically available either ( very strange?!! ).

Just tried it and it works fine.

So the only issue I'm having now is the PATA IDE hard drive not allowing Vista to boot up. Tried again this morning still doing the same as described a few posts up. If I have one IDE PATA hard drive connected to the board, I take it the jumper should be set to "Master"?.

Also in the BIOS, if you are trying to use a mixture of SATA and PATA IDE drives, what should the controller be set to in there, AHCI or IDE?.

Ah well, two problems sorted only this one to go!!!
 
Well done on sorting out your problems, when you are booting up with the ide I take you have sata drives as boot and the ide is just a data?

Have you tried not pressing anything when the Jmicron screen comes up and just let it boot off the master sata? The Jmicron screen comes up on mine to let me know the ide dvd drive is on the controller.

As far as I know the master thing is only to do with whats on a single cable and nothing else, just to know which drive takes priority I think, with one drive I would just leave it on master.
 
The SATA mode in the bios will have no relation to the IDE port when using a mixture, leave it set on IDE. I dont think there is anything else to set in the bios for the IDE port except to enable the JMicron controller. After post the JMicron controller's bios should pop up and detect the IDE drive.
 
Yep, after the post the JMicron screen comes up and detects the PATA IDE hard drive. It says "Press any key" but I've tried booting and pressing a key as well as not pressing a key.

So in the BIOS, I should have the controller setting set to "IDE" rather than AHCI?. It was sat at "AHCI" at stock so I assumed it was meant to be that rather than IDE.

The JMicron is actually detecting the PATA IDE drive and booting to the black Windows Vista loading screen, but you can tell straight away that its not going to fully boot as the little green bar going from left to right doesn't do so smoothly, it moves really slowly and kind of "jerks" rather than glides if you know what I mean?. It just sits there and does that forever, never getting to the desktop.

Shut down, reboot back into BIOS, disable JMicron controller and restart and the PC boots instantly and at a very quick speed.

Totally baffled.

I've taken the PATA IDE drive out and stuck it in a 3.5" enclosure for now. Backing up some important data from it to the PC. Takes a while to transfer via USB though so ideally I would like to find a solution to get the PATA HD working on the single connector on the board along with my main SATA HD and SATA DVDR writer.
 
Draeger - you have to set it to "IDE" (i think), just built my new system with this motherboard.

Tis strange - i am wondering whether i can disble this once i have installed windows - because it does boot a lot faster with it disabled. (I am using it for an ide optical drive)
 
Draeger said:
Totally baffled
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Haha you love it! :)

Your gonna be a master trouble-shooter by the time you get this all sorted can't say I envy you but I been there many many times before. . .

Anyhow I am trying to build up a picture of what going on in DraegerVille, seems like you just have a hard disk problem now right or?

Couple of things, firstly if the board is *B-Grade* it may be worth resetting the BIOS to make sure its in a default state, could be the last user or whoever changed some settings. It may not help at all but as its such an easy process I would encourage you to try. In the BIOS on the last page where 'Save and Exit' is you will see an entry called 'Load BIOS Default' (or similar) select that then select 'Save and Exit'. When the computer restarts go straight back into BIOS and sort your memory out again, just like you did before, once thats done 'Save and Exit' once more.

You now have a factory default BIOS.

Now remind me of what data devices you have attached again please, one SATA hard disk and one SATA Optical drive right? and that works fine but when you attach your old IDE drive the PC will switch on but not load windows? is that right?

There is another option in BIOS on the page where you select the boot device, if you have multiple disks installed you have to make sure the correct drive is at the top of the list, if you look in the option for the hard disk boot device you should be able to see both your SATA Disk and your IDE disk, make sure the SATA disk is at the top of the list.
 
Reset the BIOS, as suggested.:cool:


Big.Wayne said:
Now remind me of what data devices you have attached again please, one SATA hard disk and one SATA Optical drive right? and that works fine but when you attach your old IDE drive the PC will switch on but not load windows? is that right?.
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Yep, thats almost right. SATA HD is connected to the red SATA_1 connector on the motherboard, ASUS SATA DVDRW drive is connected to SATA_2. JMicron controller is enabled in BIOS and its set to IDE rather than AHCI.

With the other PATA IDE HD connected to the IDE connector on the motherboard, the POST detects both drives. It detects that my boot drive is the SATA one.

Then the JMIcron controller screen comes up and detects my PATA IDE hard drive. Says "Press Any Key". If I press a key, it POSTS again and goes to the Windows loading screen where the little green loading bar does as described a few posts above and Windows fails to load, just sits there moving slowly from left to right in that "jerky" way I mentioned. If I don't press any keys, it tries to go straight to the Windows loading screen where it does the same as described above.

If I switch off, go into BIOS - disabled JMicron controller - Save and Exit, the PC POSTS, detects the SATA IDE as boot drive and goes to Windows loading screen. A few seconds later, the desktop appears ( its lightning quick booting up ).:)



Big.Wayne said:
There is another option in BIOS on the page where you select the boot device, if you have multiple disks installed you have to make sure the correct drive is at the top of the list, if you look in the option for the hard disk boot device you should be able to see both your SATA Disk and your IDE disk, make sure the SATA disk is at the top of the list.
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Yep, checked that, the SATA drive is detected in the BIOS and the boot order is set to boot from it - not the PATA IDE HD.

After Googling this at length and trawling through a load of posts on many sites and forums, it would seem this problem is rather common.

Only thing is - there's not a 100% proper "fix". Loads of folk say "this works" or "that cures it" but there are loads of suggestions out there regarding this.

If I'm honest ( and as I said - this is the first "complex" mobo I have had and my first venture away from PATA to SATA ) I *think* I'm doing everything correctly as far as setting up, BIOS settings etc.

Which is why I'm stumped as to why it wont work as it appears it should. :confused:
 
Have you tried moving the Sata HDD onto another Sata port? When I was checking up on if people were having any problems with IDE dvd drives there seemed to be a lot of people saying to try all the Sata ports.

I know it shouldn't make any difference but trying all the Sata slots is definitely something I would try just to eliminate it from the equation. I remember a couple people saying adding a PCI Sata card sorted all boot problems which leads me to believe some Sata controllers must be a bit picky during the boot process.
 
I'll give that a go m8, yes.

I'm also going to try a completely different reformatted and empty PATA drive attached to the IDE slot, re-enable JMicron and see if it boots with that fitted. Don't think it will make much difference as the PATA backup drive that I am trying to get working is fine in it's external enclosure and works perfectly but as you say - eliminates another possibility.

Would like to see what WJA96 has to say on this issue.

Come on Walt, hope you read this thread!!!. :D
 
Draeger said:
I'll give that a go m8, yes.

I'm also going to try a completely different reformatted and empty PATA drive attached to the IDE slot, re-enable JMicron and see if it boots with that fitted. Don't think it will make much difference as the PATA backup drive that I am trying to get working is fine in it's external enclosure and works perfectly but as you say - eliminates another possibility.

Would like to see what WJA96 has to say on this issue.

Come on Walt, hope you read this thread!!!. :D
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You rang M'lord?
 
What's on the other HDD? I've had nightmares with HDD that have had operating systems installed on them co-existing in the same system as a Vista disk, especially a Vista disk that was upgraded from XP. Microsoft seem to have decided that they can write freely into the bootsectors of HDD and stop perfectly legitimate use of equipment.

If the worst comes to the worst, try errasing the IDE HDD with dban as that solved my problem.
 
Hi.

The other PATA HD was the backup disk on my old system. It didn't have an OS installed on it.

Before I reformatted the SATA disc from my old system and put it in this one with Vista on it rather than XP, I moved all my data I wanted to keep onto the PATA drive.

Usual stuff, pics, movies, web design stuff, email/favorites backup etc.

It's a 120Gb Maxtor Diamondmax and it was about 70% full of backup.

Just about to stick a freshly reformatted 80Gb PATA drive in there and go through the motions again and see what happens.
 
So its gotta be a low-level format/scrub job then?. Deleting all partitions in Partition Magic 8 doesn't get rid fully?.

I am 99% sure that both the drive I am having hassles with and this 80Gb one I'm about to try have never had an OS installed on them - think they have always been just archive/backup drives.
 
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