Hardware problems inside. Turn back all ye who lack courage.

[-=KA=- Fry]

I recently installed a DVD-ROM drive on my computer and since then have been experiencing some rather unique system failures. I first noticed it playing DoD when my monitor simply stopped displaying anything and my speakers started playing a loop of the last half-second or so of sound they had outputted. I have since disconnected an older CD-ROM drive, reseated all my components, and switched the DVD-ROM drive from master on a separate IDE to slave on the same IDE as my hard drive. Now it works, but only when i physically turn the tower on its side and lay it on the ground, otherwise I experience the same problems almost instantly after starting the computer. I have looked all over the computer searching for a loose wire or something that may be affected adversely by gravity and cause my system to shut down, but can't seem to find the culprit. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jethro]

Do you have 2 IDE connectors on your mobo?

i.e. 1 for hard drives and 1 for CD/DVD drives? If so check the pins in the connector that the DVD-ROM was originally plugged into. I've seen a loose/bent pin cause similar problems in the past.

Also......I hate master/slave settings...I wish everything would default to cable select...if the pins check out on that mobo part try setting both CD/DVD drives to cable select b/c it's possible that the bios is seeing the master/slave settings coming across the 2 different IDE channels and is getting confused and looping out (I've seen stranger believe me)

Just my $0.02 worth and may not even be the issue at all, but it's a place to start.

 

[GreenMonkey]

I cant say I have seen a motherboard that didnt have two EIDE connectors.

Fry - help a brother out - let me see if I understand this correctly. You had a tower with some sort of CD or DVD drive installed. You decided to upgrade / add another DVD drive. you turn off the computer - install the new DVD drive......

where was the original CD drive on the cable - the end connector or middle? Did you replace or just add the new DVD drive. Where did you have the new DVD drive on the cable? Did you properly set the DVD drive jumpers on the back to corespond to the IDE cable position?

By the way No conceivable problem I can think of could be solved by physically moving the case orientation unless, like you said, loose power cables.

When you said "almost instantly" do you mean once windows starts or in your POST test?

Also on a side note, when you replaced the DVD drive did you also replace the IDE cable itself? Some newer optical drives only work proporly with 80 wire IDE cables instead of the older traditional 40 wire cables.