Greetings,

My first time in this group.

I'm encountering a strange problem with gigabyte board & have reached
my wits end troubleshooting it. I will try to describe in detail whats
happening and what I've done so far.

1. The problem.

This board Gigabyte GA-8I915P Duo A with newest bios version F3 (D/L
from gigabytes website will NOT recognize anything I connect to the
IDE2 or IDE3 channels. (However, it will recognize anything I connect
to IDE1 channel)

I have 2 IDE Maxtor drives connected to the IDE1 channel set as
master/slave on the jumpers. The board picks this up fine during boot
and in the BIOS. It also picks up the sony floppy drive I have
connected too.

I have a Samsung cdrom & Nec dvd+rw drive connected to the IDE2
channel set as master/slave on the jumpers. (BTW, I have also tried
jumpers set to cable select which doesn't do anything) which the board
won't pick up during boot nor show in the BIOS. I do have power to the
2 drives since the lites come on and I can open/close the trays.

2. What i've done so far.

I have switched the cdrom + dvd+rw drives to IDE1 channel while also
switching the 2 maxtor IDE drives to IDE2 channel. Then I can not see
the IDE maxtor drives on IDE2 channel.

I have tried setting one IDE drive to IDE1 channel. With the second
IDE drive to the IDE2 channel. And the cdrom + dvd+rw drives to the
IDE3 channel. Result, boot up & bios can only see whats connected to
IDE1 channel.

I have disconnected usb2 ports which were provided with my case as
suggested in the FAQ on gigabytes website.

All drives are set to auto mode in bios. Under advanced bios settings
accessed thru Cntrl + F1.

I have loaded safe mode settings in bios and optimized settings in
bios with no change.

I have verified the power and IDE ribbon cables are good.

I have enabled and disabled the onboard H/W raid setting in bios.

I have enabled and disabled SATA on-chip support.

Under intergrated peripherals for On-chip SATA mode I have tried
enabled, disabled, combined, non-combined, and enhanced. Still no
change.

I have changed the boot sequence.

I have enabled/disabled USB2.0 support in bios.


3. Misc thoughts.

In the bios under intergrated peripherals the first option is

On-chip Primary PCI IDE enabled (I have it set to enabled)

Should there be a On-chip Secondary PCI IDE option in the bios? And I
just cant see it?

I am aware of the advanced bios options on gigabyte boards which can
be accessed by using Cntrl + F1

However, I dont see anything in there that can help me with the IDE
channels.

I have successfully run 2 IDE hard drives on IDE1 and 2 cdrom and/or
burners drives on IDE2 on the same ribbon and power cables on other
systems without any issues. (intel boards) and I dont see why gigabyte
boards would be any different.

I do not have any SATA drives connected and dont want to use RAID.

Every other function on the mobo is working. The bios can see and
correctly reports the specs for CPU memory and fans.

I highly doubt the mobo is bad. (altho that is within the realm of
possibilites).

4. System specs.

Pentium 4 3.4 (1MB cache) with stock intel heatsink & fan.

OCZ DDR2 512MB memory connected on DDR2 dual channel.
(Total memory installed is 1GB)

Dell Geforce MX 420 64MB 4x AGP card connected to AGP riser. (aka
G.E.A.R. slot) (btw I know this card sucks and plan on changing it
once I get this IDE problem figured out)

This board has onboard sound.

If anyone has this board or has encountered a similar problem with
gigabyte boards. I would like to know how you set up your bios.

Note: a pro version of this board also exists. (I am using the non-pro
version)


Regards,

MrGompers