On 10 Sep 99, at 14:44, Valued Customer (Jim Phillips) wrote:

> I have just upgraded my old 486 DX-33 to an MMX-200Mhz. The new
> CPU is mounted to a VA-503+ Motherboard from 1st Mainboard. My
> problem now is that I cannot recognize my CD-ROM as either Primary
> slave or Secondary Master. System hangs once the screen shows BIOS
> manufacturer and version (award).
>
> If I remove the CD-ROM, system will boot. I suspected Sound card
> at first, but system boots with all cards in place!

  The fact that you suspected the sound card, along with your "fails
to boot" symptom, makes me wonder whether this is in fact an
EIDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive.  There used to be 3 or 4 other common CD-ROM
drive interfaces, all using the same 40-pin ribbon cables and
connectors, supported by various sound cards.
  I know from personal experience that, for at least some of these,
plugging the non-EIDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive into an EIDE controller port
results in a boot failure very much as you describe.

  If you can determine the make and model of the drive (not always
easy...), it shouldn't be too hard to determine if this is the case.
[If you used to plug the drive into the sound card, then knowing the
model of the sound card could help, too -- and hooking it up that way
now is likely to fix the problem....]

> I changed CD unit with a known good one...same problem!

  Same type?

> Could the problem be with the motherboard? Is there a jumper
> setting to enable the secondary IDE?

  No, I believe this is done through the CMOS setup.

> Board shipped jumpered to the ATX format and I changed power and
> CPU voltage to the appropriate jumper settings. Maybe problem is
> with the power supply?

  I did once encounter a drive-detect failure that turned out to be
because power was not connected to the drive, but that shouldn't stop
a boot.  There's no difference at the drive power leads between AT
and ATX, so I don't think the power supply can be the culprit.

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