Computer suggestions?

[Edmond Dantes]

I mentioned in the "Little Things That Annoy You" thread that I just bought the parts and built a replacement Oldskool Gaming PC, and I now can't get it to work.

To elaborate on my computer woes...

I ordered this motherboard, this power supply and this case. All three claim to be ATX, which I took to mean they were all compatible with each other.

The first thing was I couldn't quite figure out where the Power Supply plugged into the Mobo. Of all the connectors dangling off of it, only one fit the mobo anywhere... it fit in the dead center of that white rectangular space just to the left of the green thing that says "Epox." But that plug that fit is only four pins, that white thing is like 20 or so. But I plugged it in anyway, hoping I wasn't killing the Mobo.

Also, the connectors for the LEDs and power switch. Now, the Mobo and the case conveniently label everything, so I knew where things plug in. What I don't know is whether the labeled side of the actual cord should face toward the front or toward the back (I plugged them all face-front, because that seemed to make more sense).

Then I put in my sound card (Soundblaster 16, a holdover from my older comp) and my video card (Voodoo 3, also a holdover), and hooked up my hard drive. Then I plugged everything up, and...

Nothing, nothing at all.

No movement, no sound. No beeps, no fans blowing. No sign that power was going through the thing. Absolutely NOTHING AT ALL happened.

Currently, my best guesses are:

A. The power supply is crap and isn't actually designed for mobos like mine.

B. I plugged something in wrong (I had another computer that refused to work just because something wasn't plugged in right, but when I fixed that it worked just fine).

C. (And I dread this possibility)... the PSU or the Mobo or both may simply be DOA. I have no idea how to test this.

So guys... what are your suggestions?

(Gah, this is why I hate PC gaming)

[Fudoh]

Of course you have supply power using the COMPLETE 20-pin connector in the middle, not just some pins of it. Your power supply has this connector. If it only has a 24-pin connector instead, you can usually clip away a 4-pin connector on the side.

For the small connectors (LEDs, power, reset etc) you have to pay attention to the polarity. The cables are usually color coded (e.g. red for signal, black for ground) and you can check the mobo's manual to see which pins are + and which are ground.

[Edmond Dantes]

Okay, I figured out what I was missing. As you said, four of the pins were detachable so the 24-pin connector could fit in a 20-pin outlet.

So now Power runs to the thing.

So I boot it up, and it shows the BIOS for my video card (not the computer's--the video card's) and... it doesn't move on from there. It just stays at that screen.

*Sigh* Time to hit the ol' internet again...

Just to clarify, the comp DOESN'T EVEN GO TO THE POWER ON SELF TEST. I feel like I'm either missing something or I did something wrong.

[ED-057]

There should be a jumper for clearing the CMOS memory. Try setting that, power on, power off, remove the jumper, then try to boot again. Sometimes when things won't POST for no apparent reason, the BIOS settings just need to be cleared out.

[Edmond Dantes]

Just a heads-up.

I'm past the POST issue now--turned out it was just one of the PCI slots was bad.

Okay, now the computer ALMOST works. Here's the rub though...

I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 98SE on it, and it seemed to all be going fine... but then, at the last leg (the second time it reboots the comp, IE the part where you get to actually use Windows 98)... the moment the OS loads up it gives me a Blue Screen saying "Unable to write to Drive C: Files or Folders may be lost."

... Wut.

I was literally copying files on and off my hard drive earlier, on this buiild, using a boot floppy. I was exploring it and copying things off CD-ROMs unperturbed. In fact the fact that it even got this far should say that yes, it can indeed write to the hard disk.

So why the FUCK is it saying it can't?

I KNOW THE HARD DRIVE IS NOT BAD. I Scandisked it, including doing a surface scan, and it worked fine in my older PC. Apparently this comp just doesn't like it for some reason.

... There is something that may be related.

I had to plug my hard drive into the "Secondary" IDE channel on the motherboard. For some reason, when its plugged into the Primary, it fails. I have my CD-ROM drive plugged into that now, and it apparently works just fine. So yes, my CD-ROM is my Primary IDE and my Hard Disk is my Secondary IDE. Could that be the problem?

[trap15]

Sounds like your motherboard is just generally falling apart. Find a different one.

[Edmond Dantes]

Man, if it turns out that the *motherboard* (which I just bought) is faulty, then I'm gonna say fuck it and just give up on PC gaming altogether.

[AntiFritz]

Man, if it turns out that the *motherboard* (which I just bought) is faulty, then I'm gonna say fuck it and just give up on PC gaming altogether.

Would you give up on console gaming if you bought a console and it was doa?

Also why are you using ide at all anyway.

[Edmond Dantes]

Man, if it turns out that the *motherboard* (which I just bought) is faulty, then I'm gonna say fuck it and just give up on PC gaming altogether.

Would you give up on console gaming if you bought a console and it was doa?

If I bought two of the same console, and both consoles failed or had huge problems that interrupted gameplay, then I might give up on that particular console.

Also why are you using ide at all anyway.

...Because... that's what there is? Are you suggesting there's another way to hook a hard drive up to a motherboard?

EDIT: I'm guessing you mean SATA. Someone on another board suggested I should buy a PCI SATA card and just use that, and it's a tempting thought, but I'm gonna see if I can't make it work without spending more money first.

[Ed Oscuro]

I don't know how easy it is to find NOS IDE hard drives but I would look around. There might even be some new ones on Newegg still (there were within the last few years). Edit: There still are, mostly "refurbished" units. 80-250GB capacities, almost all under $20 and one under $10 (the 80GB). That's only looking at ATA133 drives; there's also some ATA100 drives and some of them seem to be versions of new drives - expensive (~$75 for a few) but with potentially better capacities and newer technology. Not exactly what I was expecting to find given that ATA133 is the newer iteration of the ATA interface but there you go. Do check that your motherboard (whatever you finally use) can support the ATA133 standard if possible, but if not there's some good choices for hard drives still. You may have some trouble getting full capacity though: teh wiki

I don't really like the looks of that no-brand motherboard but they were around in 2001 if 'net postings are accurate...I don't know so much about the state of enthusiast motherboards of that era so no idea how good they are, but they are no longer supported and relevant drivers / BIOS upgrades may be impossible to find. If you were set on AMD CPUs for 3DNow! then there are plenty of well-known motherboard choices though. At worst one could always get a prebuilt PC like an old Dell or Compaq. They actually weren't too badly built in that era and sometimes even had nice styling. Not as nice as the case you bought though, and most are very cramped for upgrades, but for most gaming purposes most of those systems can be configured perfectly well.

I wouldn't bet that the power supply is at fault; the maker is reasonably well respected. If the power connectors are all the right type then they will provide the spec power via MOLEX connectors, no surprises there.

[Edmond Dantes]

I don't really like the looks of that no-brand motherboard

It's not No-Brand... its an Epox. They were apparently quite respectable.

Actually when I went hunting for parts I pretty much had three main concerns:

1. Everything would be able to run under Windows 98SE.
2. It had to have at least one ISA slot(see footnote A)
3. I was very concerned about heat, thus why I went for a case designed with temperature in mind (see footnote B)

Other than those three points, I didn't really care, as long as it all worked.

Footnote A - Since I planned to sometimes boot this up in MS-DOS, I decided to use an ISA sound card (it helped that I already had one on hand that worked well). ISA sound cards will work in DOS with a minimal of fuss. A PCI sound card apparently takes some work.

Footnote B - My older computer used to have a problem of overheating all the damn time, which I think was because its case didn't have proper ventillation, and this probably caused most of the bad experiences I had with it. I hoped to avoid those altogether with this new rig.

[BPzeBanshee]

Perhaps it might not be so much the hard drive itself but the cable? I once had a setup where the final phase of Windows wasn't really cutting it like you described, and it was actually the cable causing me the grief.

I assume you're sticking with Windows 98SE so you can run older DOS games and the like. Regardless you should be able to benefit from WUPG or similar unofficial service pack that provides various security fixes, USB support, etc. If all else fails there, then there's Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs and DOSBox (what I currently use on mine).

As for SATA, I think AntiFritz missed the part where this isn't a 'modern' gaming computer but a legacy PC, I highly doubt Windows 98 will make much of a benefit from it, and what I'm seeing with Google Search tells me it can lead to even more headaches, especially considering you don't have it working at all yet.
I'd advise sticking with IDE, especially if spare parts are more available in your area.

[AntiFritz]

As for SATA, I think AntiFritz missed the part where this isn't a 'modern' gaming computer but a legacy PC, I highly doubt Windows 98 will make much of a benefit from it, and what I'm seeing with Google Search tells me it can lead to even more headaches, especially considering you don't have it working at all yet.
I'd advise sticking with IDE, especially if spare parts are more available in your area.

Yeah I did. haha

[Edmond Dantes]

Where can I get this "WUPG" thing, or any other "unofficial service packs"?

Oh man... if I'm having this much trouble with a legacy machine, I don't want to think of what a modern machine would put me through!

"Just think! Once you get the drivers for your ATI GEFORGE 90,000,000 configured properly and set Windows Over9000 up to not suck, you get to be arbitrarily connected to the internet so the DRM will let you lease this tame first-person shooter where all the enemies are armed with paintballs while you have a rocket launcher and so they have no chance of actually killing you! Have fun!"

This legacy machine is a pain in the ass, but when its done at least Hexen II and Heretic II will run far more smoothly and hopefully it won't have the weird problems my older PC did.

[BPzeBanshee]

http://www.bpa23.host.sk/wupg.html

I vaguely remember a similar one that was more newer being available but I can't find it anywhere and this has never really let me down, so *once you get Win98 working to begin with* and only then, I recommend giving this a go. Looks scary when it's installing but the result is pretty sweet.

Modern machines, ironically, would give you less strife for initial setup (not sure about heating on your frame though), I did a barebones replacement last July for around $400-500 and so far it's still serving me well for emulation, it's just a matter of then trying to play DOS games. DOSBox might not cut the mustard compared to the real thing but I find it handles my DOS games fine and it's compatibility is pretty good.

[Edmond Dantes]

Well, I have some good news to report.... I think I got it working.

Full story here, but the short version is that when I had both the CD and HDD on the same Primary IDE channel then it worked like a charm. I have no idea why that would happen (you'd think that if the HDD doesn't work by itself, then putting it with another device wouldn't help matters), but computers have never been accused of making sense.

The only thing left is a minor sound issue, but that could just be my sound card or a wiring issue and probably isn't anything worth worrying about.

Well, I'm off to game!

[Fudoh]

it's a jumper issue. Once you jumper both drives to "single", they work on their own. Right now you've got the HDD jumpered to master and the optical drive to slave.

[brentsg]

Why the headaches with the old hardware?

If it's to play legacy games, why not a virtual machine with DOS and Win98?

[ED-057]

when I had both the CD and HDD on the same Primary IDE channel then it worked like a charm.

willing to bet that it is because having the CD drive on the channel forces it to use a lower performance transfer mode, whereas before it was defaulting to a mode that the drive or ribbon cable couldn't handle reliably.

[Edmond Dantes]

Why the headaches with the old hardware?

If it's to play legacy games, why not a virtual machine with DOS and Win98?

Because, as awesome as those are (and I do use Dosbox sometimes) there are some games that simply won't play well in an emulated environment. With a lot of Windows 98 games for example, virtualizers force you to use software rendering because they don't support Direct3D or OpenGL (and nobody is ever gonna support Glide, ever).

It's essentially the same as the problem with any other emulator... there's always That One Game that will only play with a real Famicom, Mega Drive, Supergun etc...

That, and I genuinely like Windows 98 for a lot of things.