DVD burner causes freezing boot in SATA/PATA mixed system

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nubc
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DVD burner causes freezing boot in SATA/PATA mixed system

#1 Post by nubc »

Does anyone have experience with this troublesome Dell Dimension 4700? It seems a common problem that freezing of some sort eventually takes this model computer out of service. In my case, there is a SATA hdd and a PATA dvd burner. In the fora, there is mention of a compatibility mode selectable in BIOS. Turns out the only pertinent setting is in "SATA Performance" where the two possibilities are Normal and Combination, where Combination is for OS's that are too old for SATA support. Windows XP Home SP3 is the OS in question. The system freezes when the Windows screen is showing the blue progress bar during boot. Windows sees the dvd burner and freezes. Removing or disabling the dvd burner, I can boot into Safe Mode, and boot all the way to Desktop with no freezing, all of which indicates a driver or software problem. The dvd burner works in other systems, and I tried another dvd burner with same failure. I also changed the IDE ribbon to 80 conductor version, with no joy. Also deleted the optical drive in Device Manager, with no joy when Windows reinstalled it (with accompanying freeze/crash, of course). I ran Wary 5.1.2 as a live CD, and accessed the dvd drive without a hitch.
Possible solutions:
1. Windows must be reinstalled with the Combination setting in effect. There is risk of wasted time, because it was reported in forum that reinstalling did not resolve the issue. In fact, nothing was reported to resolve the freezing, and when the computer was returned, Dell tech support said it was failed hardware (mobo, hdd). Dubious.
2. Last ditch: Give up on Windows, install Wary 5.1.2 instead. This would be a full install, and I don't know whether the issue would occur in Wary.
Anyone have experience with the Dimension 4700, WinXP SP3, 3.0 GHz P4 w HT, 2 GB ddr ram, 80 GB sata hdd, pata dvd burner?

cthisbear
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#2 Post by cthisbear »

http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshoo ... sdt1/Index

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... /index.htm


http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4700
/sm/index.htm

"""

You have an IDE connector so no problem.
I would change the rear pin of the DVD to >>> Master

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... #wp1052362

"""""""

" Make sure the Hard drive is set for compatable mode.

XP cannot use AHCI drivers at boot.

There is a Legacy or compatable mode for SATA operation.


Entering System Setup

Turn on (or restart) your computer.

When the blue DELL™ logo appears, press <F2> immediately.

If you wait too long and the operating system logo appears, continue to wait until you see the Microsoft® Windows® desktop.

SATA Operation

Configures the operation mode of the integrated hard-drive controller.

Normal — The hard-drive controller is configured for native mode. This mode provides the highest drive performance and most flexibility.

Combination — The hard-drive controller is configured for combination mode. This mode enables compatibility with some older operating systems that do not support SATA drives.

The factory default setting is Normal.

NOTE: Changing this setting affects the order in which drives are listed. However, system setup does not reflect these changes until after a reboot."

http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... 10805.aspx

Chris.

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nubc
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#3 Post by nubc »

Another solution is to replace the IDE/pata dvd burner with a sata dvd burner. Then the system wouldn't be a mix of SATA and PATA, rather all SATA. I believe the mix of drives confuses Windows.

cthisbear
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#4 Post by cthisbear »

i have a customer who wanted a new machine years ago.

The sata dvd in it clashed with the other hardware.
My local PC shop tried 2 different brands.
Still they clashed.

We ended up popping in an IDE dvd drive....
and never a problem.

I forgot about it until a few months ago when her dvd died.

This time....years on....no hardware clashes...
it runs fine.

:::::::

Chris.

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nubc
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#5 Post by nubc »

Must be that the secondary SATA slot is only for another hard drive, as there doesn't seem to be a power terminal available for a SATA optical drive. Maybe I'll try a CDROM instead of a burner, see if I can put a new OS on this machine.

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Karl Godt
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#6 Post by Karl Godt »

nubc : do you have a driver cd for the hardware ?

I would try to copy the drivers from the cd using a linux live cd to the folder where the drivers usually are located in windows , which i cannot remember for now and try to boot .

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nubc
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#7 Post by nubc »

I did a clean install of Windows, upgraded to WinXP Pro SP3, but the Windows boot screen froze as usual. So I set up a dual boot with Wary 5.2.2 full install. (Just have to disable the DVD drive before I boot to WinXP.) Grub lists Windows first, and I need to change the OS boot order. Don't recall how, except to rearrange things in menu.lst. [Done] I set the boot flag on the ext2 partition, sda2. The burner works fine in Linux, although there are reports of bad audio from this drive.

Okay, Karl, I'll look for the driver. Obviously, Windows can't see the drive (disabled in BIOS for WinXP), and I don't believe that Wary's Hard Info reports optical drives. So I am stuck with a manual identification. It's a generic ATAPI drive with model number DH-16W1P, which is further identified as DH-16W1P161C. This may be a BenQ product. [Philips & BenQ Digital Storage]

The following thread gives several tips, including a link to Microsoft KB regarding corrupted/conflicting drivers for atapi drive:
http://club.myce.com/f61/how-do-i-reins ... er-228330/
Last edited by nubc on Sun 15 Jul 2012, 03:03, edited 1 time in total.

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nubc
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#8 Post by nubc »

Short of swapping the dvd burner for a sata dvd burner, which would require a SATA converter on one of the power supply terminals, I have these options:
1. upgrade the firmware on the PATA burner
2. hack the registry to delete the UpperFilters and LowerFilters values, here:

Code: Select all

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
However, deleting UpperFilters and LowerFilters values is a response to encountering certain error messages, but there are no error messages in this situation.
I just substituted a combo drive for the DVD burner, and the computer still froze, so I am more inclined to believe that the problem is the mix of PATA and SATA, rather than some particular PATA drive needing firmware. Microsoft offers a "Fix it" service to automatically correct the problem, but of course I can't use this because the optical drive must be disabled in order to boot into Windows.
EDIT: There are no UpperFilters and LowerFilters values in the above registry key, probably for the simple reason that the drive isn't present (disabled).

Can someone locate the firmware for BenQ DH-16W1P?

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nubc
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#9 Post by nubc »

Booted into Safe Mode, with the PATA optical drive enabled, and found two entries under the category of "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" in Device Manager. The two items are
1 Intel 82801FB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2651
2 Primary IDE Channel

I tried deleting these and letting Windows reinstall the drivers, but there was no improvement. Perhaps there are better drivers available that will solve the boot freezing.

I was advised that Windows considers all drives designated with a "0" to be hard drives, so therefore I should get the PATA DVD burner, currently configured on 'PATA 0,' to show on some other channel. So I set the burner to Slave, and enabled 'PATA 1.' This had the desired result, but the computer still froze during boot, same problem. Very disappointing.
Last edited by nubc on Mon 16 Jul 2012, 11:45, edited 2 times in total.

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nubc
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#10 Post by nubc »

Something is fundamentally deficient in this computer, so I am looking at upgrading the BIOS. Here is a summary of BIOS versions since A05 (11/23/04), the BIOS version on my Dimension 4700. Most recent BIOS version is A10. Suggestions welcome.
http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... x#18023086

I upgraded the BIOS from version A05 to A10, but the computer still freezes. When I chose version A10 I assumed that versions A06 to A09 were included in A10. Is this correct? In particular, I believe that version A06 was most likely to contain the improvement I need (eg, updated ATA/ATAPI drive detection code). Would there be any benefit to flashing to version A06 at this point? The successive versions of BIOS are cumulative, are they not?

I'm not having a good time with the Wary 5.2.2 full install on sda2 either. Although a music CD will play in ttuuxxx's VLC package, a movie DVD will not play and causes unretrievable system freeze in VLC, Ogle, and Mplayer. All these front button shutdowns are borking my system! Moreover, after a file check and reboot, the pinboard gets overwritten and I get a blank desktop.

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nubc
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#11 Post by nubc »

There is no physical evidence (eg, bulging caps) that the chipset on this computer is defective. However, other evidence indicates that the chipset may be defective, in particular, the channel controllers. A possible solution is to install a 2-port PCI IDE Controller Adapter card (ATA133) and connect the optical drive to it. When I installed Dell Desktop System Software, something addtional showed up in Device Manager under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers", a phantom Secondary IDE Channel. I describe this new device as "phantom" because there is no physical Secondary IDE terminal on the motherboard, only a single Primary IDE terminal. Hopefully, an optical drive connected to a PCI IDE Controller Adapter card would be seen on the Secondary IDE (Master) in Device Manager. Assuming that motherboard channel controllers are defective, would an optical drive thus connected to a PCI IDE controller card work around this problem? Would its operation be independent of the normal channel of control?

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nubc
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#12 Post by nubc »

I installed a Silicon Image 680 PCI IDE Controller card, and the DVD burner is now working good. The card came with a CD full of drivers, but of course these drivers were unavailable because the optical drive was disabled in BIOS. No problem: Windows went out on the internet and picked up the drivers. Curiously, after installing the card, a new device showed up under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" in Device Manage, which was Intel 82801FB/FBM Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 266F. I tried connecting the burner to the Primary IDE terminal on the motherboard another time to see if this new device made a difference, but Windows still froze like before. So now the burner is connected to the PCI IDE controller card, and I consider this to be a completely satisfactory solution to the problem, at a cost under 15 USD including shipping.

I was obliged to reinstall Windows during this repair, and doing so erased Grub. So I will have to reinstall Grub in order to boot Puppy. There are two sets of SII 0680 drivers on the CD, one of them is for RAID. In the RAID drivers folder there is a note about Linux, that it's impossible to boot from RAID 0 or RAID 5 in Linux, and suggests a workaround from Red Hat. I can't boot Puppy from CD in the new configuration. The card/drive is not really represented in BIOS. I tried pressing F12 to change the boot order without going into BIOS, but only the SATA hdd and FDD were listed. Then, after fooling around a bit, "ATAPI" showed up in the F12 boot list, but when I selected it to boot, Puppy was not found. When I fool around with settings like this, a mysterious Network boot failure recurs, which necessitates starting all over to get anywhere. I went into the setup for the card, where there is an option to delete the RAID. I'm confused. In Device Manage, the card is listed under "SCSI and RAID controllers" as "Silicon Image SiI 0680 ATA-133 Medley Raid controller." The truth is, I don't really want a RAID, I just want a supplementary IDE channel. I have zero experience with RAID setups. Can someone advise how to proceed. Should I delete the RAID?

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nubc
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#13 Post by nubc »

After some reading I have come to the conclusion that this computer is not going to play well with Linux as long as the PCI controller card is RAID, not IDE. So I will need to learn how to change it from RAID to IDE, non-destructively w.r.t data. I don't find much coherent information about making that transition, especially since the reverse direction (IDE to RAID) is more desirable. I gather that the card is set up to do RAID by default because it's easier to configure, a single-device RAID works, and RAID is the more likely ultimate usage. I would be willing to flash this card with an IDE BIOS if that action achieved my aims, but it seems things are more complicated than that.

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Karl Godt
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#14 Post by Karl Godt »

Hi, nubc ! Have also to learn about RAID .

Got myself

http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/product/9746 ... -PCI-KARTE

and it worked well adding a newer SATA HDD to an IDE board .

The added SATA HDD was selected before IDE0 by the Bios and booted nicely with Grub legacy .

Btw are you running the Puppy-2.6.31.14-IDE kernel ?

For what i can tell Dell seems to a robust brand, but now one board started to trouble me with loose fan power connection and gone acpi sleep capatibility .

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nubc
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#15 Post by nubc »

It's a little late to discover, but I noticed two jumpers on the Silicon Image board, and found documentation that Jumper 1 selects RAID and IDE modes. It's a soldered hardwire jumper, so I removed it to select IDE mode.

1. I could not update the SCSI RAID driver with the provided SI IDE driver
2. The SCSI device name remains the same in Device Manager, Silicon Image SiI 0680 ATA-133 Medley Raid Controller
3. Computer will not boot a Puppy CD
4. BIOS shows an ATAPI device in the boot order, but sometimes when I get a Boot Menu from pressing F12 the device is listed as Unknown, or not present at all
5. With ATAPI first in BIOS Boot Order and nothing in the burner tray, boot will not proceed past recognition of "Drive 0: ATAPI" in dos-like print

I would consider flashing the BIOS of the card, but I don't recall ever flashing the BIOS since it was first installed. If the card is hardwired for RAID mode maybe it has originally been flashed as a RAID card (?)

Firmware from Silicon Image website
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/sea ... at=15&os=0
Forum discussion
http://club.myce.com/f61/new-silicon-im ... rs-192683/

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nubc
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#16 Post by nubc »

I parked this Dell computer for a month. When I finally booted it up again, the PCI card decided to detect as an IDE controller, rather than a RAID controller. Silicon Image device drivers installed smoothly. BUT, now that the DVD burner is on an IDE controller, albeit a PCI device, Windows won't complete the boot, freezing at the boot screen with blue progress bar. Back to Square One.

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#17 Post by starhawk »

Most modern computers (not sure how Dell qualifies here :lol: ) cannot boot from PCI. There are exceptions, but I haven't heard of many.

My guess (could be wrong here) is that rather than Windows being picky about hardware config -- this is actually a pretty rare thing, Windows will try to run on a lot of stuff that it shouldn't -- you've got a failing drive controller on the motherboard.

That controller would be inside a chip called a "Southbridge" -- the way that's put on the board, there's really not much hope other than replacing the board -- you need what's called a 'waveflow soldering machine' which can only be had in a PCB factory. That said, if you're in the US, you can get a new board for about $40 or so, courtesy of eBay.

...actually, that board looks to be a fairly standard MicroATX-sized board. I've seen some very weird stuff with the Dell label on it, but this one looks almost standard! If you've access to spare hardware, you might see if another board of that size (not more than 9.6" by 9.6", smaller is generally OK) would fit in the case. If it can, that opens up some rather nice possibilities for an upgrade!

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nubc
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#18 Post by nubc »

I parked this computer for a while, and now I have a new approach. I located a IDE-to-SATA power converter adapter so that I can install a SATA optical drive (DVD writer). At first, things looked rosy, but shortly the computer would start freezing, and refusing to boot, stopping on a black screen with a blinking cursor. Doing hard shutdowns from the front button, the computer finally gave a checkpoint error [Ithr], and quit. I thought this was a temporary condition and initially ignored it. I tried to run chkdsk from installation disk, but the keyboard kept freezing, so I connected a USB keyboard in tandem with the other. I ran chkdsk /p, chkdsk /r, and chkdsk /p to finish, but the computer refused to boot. The [Ithr] checkpoint is a thermal issue, ie. overheating. I felt the heatsink on the socket 775 3.0GHz processor, it was plenty hot. I decided to downgrade the processor, but did not have anything slower. I removed the heatsink anyway, noticed the paste was crusty and had spaces, so I cleaned the processor and heatsink, then applied Arctic Silver, and re-installed the parts. Voila, things started working right. Installed Motherboard Monitor 5, but still need to configure it to monitor temperature. If overheating is the primary problem here, I will have to backtrack and see if other configurations might work with the thermal issue fixed. Still working fine, long enough to type this report.

EDIT: Meh, it's still overheating. What a sorry design. It's got a case fan doubling as processor fan. The heatsink is tall, but the upper structure is comprised of very thin fins, so you can't attach a fan to it. Of course, the 775 socket is funky, and unaccommodating to any other heatsink/fan arrangement, plus there's a big green plastic hood over the heatsink & processor, interfering with any add-on fan.

Bruce B

#19 Post by Bruce B »

nubc wrote:I parked this computer for a while, and now I have a new approach. I located a IDE-to-SATA power converter adapter so that I can install a SATA optical drive (DVD writer).
Troubleshooting questions:

* Did it work before?

* If so what changed?

I'm very sorry that I don't recall details, but I think I learned not to do the IDE - SATA conversion you made. The best DVD writer would be an IDE.

Can you pull it out of the loop and see if it works right?

Question: How do you know it overheats, more details on this is needed by helpers. I mean by design it souldn't overheat. Why is it overheating? Slow fan? Something changed we don't know about?

~

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#20 Post by starhawk »

It overheats because Dell is a grand pile of technological idiocy.

Their thermal design is nearly universal amongst anything that bears their name. The cases have all of two fans. One in the power supply, pushing air out, and one that is a combination processor and case fan, pushing more air out. The air can only come in through cracks in the (usually dust-laden) case, and the fan that cools the processor as well as vents the case is appallingly underpowered at best for the task at hand -- as would anything less capable than the sort you find at Wal*Mart with the name "Galaxy" on the side of the box.

nubc, I would recommend, if you can, drilling a hole in the top of the case and adding a fan there. 80mm on a side (an extraordinarily standard size) should be enough. This should be an exhaust fan. Also, if you can cut up the front somehow and add another fan (120mm, intake) that would help even more.

Heck, a bunch of small holes (drill press not required unless you require it to look nice) in the top, and the 120mm intake fan in the front, would be quite sufficient.

Also, I didn't catch your location, but if you're in the States, and you want a few free fans for this thing, PM me and I can do that for you.

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