wont detect floppy or save bios

[howieforbes]

I have a chaintech 7AJA2 motherboard. The motherboard has not detected the floppy since i built the computer. I then tried setting the bios for no floppy and then same to cmos but when I power the computer off the bios retuns to default. I checked to make sure board jumper not set to clear bios and I checked the battery and it is good at 1.3volts. ( i think its good) Chaintech recommended i flash the bios but I have to have a floppy to do so. I guess my question is does it sound like the board is bad or is there something else that would keep the bios from saving.

 

[~Candy~]

Hi and welcome. Are you sure you are saving the changes coming out of the bios? When you say the motherboard has never detected the floppy drive, what happens? Is it getting power, does the light come on, then go off upon startup? Anything?

 

[howieforbes]

On exiting i hit f10 and select save and exit. the floppy did power up but during the post test it was not detected. It could be a bad cable. I havent tried the new drive and cable I just bought.

 

[~Candy~]

Well, I'd give both those ideas a try

When you say the floppy did power up, did the drive light stay lit per chance?

 

[howieforbes]

i dont believe so. doesnt that mean the power in hooked up wrong?

 

[~Candy~]

The gray cable. Be sure it's connected 'after the twist' too.

 

[howieforbes]

I did not check that I wll make sure when I try the new floppy. If I can get it to see the floppy I wont need to worry about the bios.

 

[Future]

You need also to make sure that pin one on the data cable.(gray cable) goes to pin one on the mother board and the floppy drive.......If the cable is not connected correctly, then the floppy drive light will remain on, and sometimes the motor will stay spinning.

The connection to the motherboard may have a key like connector so that it can only fit in the motherboard one way.....this prevents incorrect connection to the motherboard.....However, the floppy drive connector may not have it. To identify pin one, you should look at the ribbon cable for a colored line.....usually red, but can be any color. This denotes pin one. And should be connected to pin one on the floppy drive. Always make any hardware modifications with the computer powered down.....eg.......OFF

 

[howieforbes]

Thanks future I did not check that. I dont believe the floppy stayed running but its been a while. Thanks for all the help everyone. Hopefully this thing passes the post and then im done.

 

[kilowatt1]

Replace the CMOS battery. 1.3V simply will not suffice. The voltage on a good battery should be around 3.5V, no less than 3.0V.

Good luck.

Kilowatt

 

[~Candy~]

But still, the changes should hold until the computer is turned off, correct KW?

 

[kilowatt1]

Hello Candy,

Yep, on most boards the settings should stay as long as the board is powered up. The 1.3V just jumped out at me. As far as the floppy goes, my guess is that even though the floppy is showing in the BIOS, it is either not enabled or it is set to something other than 1.44MB. Of course I might be wrong which wouldn't be unusual.

 

[Future]

You are both correct. The BIOS will hold all information that is saved to it, as long as there is power to it. So, even if the battery wasn't in the machine as long as it is powered up, the BIOS would save.

Check in the BIOS, standard information, or something like that, and it will show all hard drivers, cd/dvd etc...and then the floppy drive....this should be set to 1.44 and with the letter A by or near it. Yep, some still do use two drivers..A and B

When this has been saved, the BIOS will do a scan for all hardware, if the floppy is having problems, then an error 40 may show up. This means the controller cannot find the floppy drive. If this is the case, then, cabling should be checked, and the PSU connector to the FD should be checked as well. It is possible that the PSU connector is faulty......unlikey, but possible.

 

[howieforbes]

I installed the new floppy and checked the bios to see if selected to drive A. Yep its selected and nope the board wont see the drive.(CRAP) Chieftech is going to RMA the motherboard. Thanks for all the help. This site is great.