computer headaches

[Tanya]

ok, let me give some background for those who don't already know.

My 2004 HP 819n PC got left behind in Washington when I departed in August. My ex finally shipped the damn thing to me in October, but it wouldn't turn on. Blah blah, broken, blah blah.

A friend from SF helped me out and bought me a new motherboard, unfortunately it was the "wrong" one. My computer used the PTGD1-LA (Goldfish) model... the new mobo is a PTGD1-LA (PUFFER). The only major difference you could see between the two boards is that the PUFFER does not have a monitor output! WTF... So I installed the PUFFER anyway, and a new video card was bought, with the VGA output. I put everything together and the pc still gave me issues not wanting to turn on. I left it alone for like a week.

Anyway, I finally got the thing to fire up and I thought everything was good. Everything came back like it had not been turned off (or so I thought), my desktop, my settings, my passwords, forms, cookies, etc.


Well today I go to burn a CD and I can't even get the CD thing to pop open. I press the button and the "thinking" light blinks on for a second, but otherwise does nothing.

So I investigate, and under "My Computer" neither my normal CD drive or my DVD/CD drive is listed, but YET I have a FLOPPY drive listed (which this pc has NEVER had)

Any ideas on what I need to do to fix this??

 

[Doward]

AWESOME! I've replaced so many capacitors on those damn mobos. You think that's bad? There's Grouper, Puffer, Goldfish, and variations of those - ALL listed as PTGD1-LA!

That said, go into your BIOS, and set your 3.5" Floppy as 'Disabled'. Also disable (if you can, I can't recall offhand) the Floppy Controller altogether.

 

[Tanya]

Haha yeah, two caps were blown on my original Goldfish board.


I can do the BIOS thing, but how about getting my CD drives back??

 

[Doward]

Verify your CD drives are present and accounted for while in the BIOS.

I'm pretty sure the optical drives are IDE based on your setup

 

[GrimJack]

More than likely IDE. *Could* be SATA, but I won't hold my breath. You may need to break open the case and check that the ribbon cables are plugged into the CD / DVD drives AND the mainboard.

 

[flight doc89]

jumpers on CD drives?

 

[GrimJack]

jumpers on CD drives?

Unlikely... they replaced the mainboard, so they might have mixed up the cable, or left it unplugged, but most people leave the jumpers on the drives alone when changing something else.

 

[Doward]

Not only that, OEMs generally set all the jumpers to 'cable select'

 

[Tanya]

IDE? wth is that?


Um, cables are not unplugged. I triple checked everything before I started this thing.

 

[KicknAsphlt]

If all your cables are plugged in, and the jumpers are set, it could be that XP is wigging out with the Mobo change. I'd recommend either backing up your documents, pics, etc. and reinstalling XP, or go into your Device Manager and delete your CD/DVD, Hard Drive, and IDE Controller drivers, then reboot your machine...XP will detect them on start-up, but may or may not reinstall them (they'd be generic if it did)....I'd recommend going to HP's website and downloading the driver packages for that new mobo. Remember not to use your machine as a reference when searching for drivers, it used a different motherboard in it (unless that replacement board you have was an option for your computer model). After you download the drivers and reboot your machine (after deleting the old drivers before rebooting), run the executable to install the new driver packages and reboot again. It's a less tedious way to do things, but not necessarily 'simpler'....plus, you always run the risk of something else bugging on you down the road.

 

[GrimJack]

Ok, one thing to rule out then.

Click Start, right click on My Computer and choose Properties. Click the Hardware tab on the top, then click the Device Manager button. Screenshot that and post it.

 

[Tanya]

On startup, and shut down, I get a black screen with a bunch of computer info, at the bottom it says A:/ Error (well no shit, I dont HAVE a fucking floppy drive)
and I have to press F1 for setup or F2 to continue

screenshot of device manager

 

[GrimJack]

Are there any more devices on the bottom part of that screen shot marked with the yellow exclamation?

To 'fix' the floppy, when turning on your computer, press the DEL key until the BIOS menu shows up. Disable the floppy drive in the BIOS. This is a reasonably simple text based screen that displays before windows starts to load.

 

[Tanya]

Are there any more devices on the bottom part of that screen shot marked with the yellow exclamation?

Only a USB port, which I assume is the one in front that has given me problems for some months now (something about reached its power limit, I dunno)

 

[kingofyo1]

well the usb is probably fried on it, at least that port. go to hp's site, redownload drivers, reinstall, reboot. def disable the floppy in bios as well. dont worry about the usb right now, not your main concern. also, i see that your video card, and hp deskjet printer are screwed up. try downloading the drivers for that video card from the manufacturer's website, and then install them to get rid of that problem. im looking at that device manager screen, but there IS NO dvd/cd rom device driver section... weird. try the steps ive provided and let us know how it turns out

 

[Tanya]

U,m, well the video card is new... due to the fact the new motherboard didnt have a vga output. I have CD for the card, but I can't use it without my damn CD drives

 

[Jaguar_5]

Ooh the irony

You're probably better off downloading new graphics drivers anyways even if you had a working cd drive

 

[kingofyo1]

yeah just download all your drivers for your vga, and your cd drives ONLINE itll def help, tanya OH and i love those pics of you on the other thread, especially the one of you in your engine bay

 

[Who]

You have got to boot your computer and enter into the bios. If your bios sees your cdrom than you have a OS or xp glitch. You mentioned you changed motherboards. If the chipset is different, XP has to rescan or reinstall the chipset drivers. You will have to go to HP and find your computer or the computer that the motherboard came from and download the chipset drivers. Bottom line if your bios sees your cdrom than it is not a hardware problem. If your bios does not see your cdrom let us know.

 

[Tanya]

OK

I went into BIOS and disabled the floppy, but it does not see the CD ROMS. I tried setting the devices from AUTO to CDROM, but then I got this screen

So I set everything back to AUTO