New modern MOBO, confused with so many jumpers

[Zetti]

Hi all,

I've bought an ASUS P5WD2 MOBO, as it's been a long time since I don't build a PC, I'm confused with new advanced technolgies,

The MOBO has 3 sockets to receive data cables, I'm confused as generally older MB only had 2 sockets.

It's divided as this:

- Two sockets grouped close to each other, red colored, entitled as PRI_EIDE and SEC_EIDE connectors. The manual says that these 2 sockets are for ULtra ATA 133/100/66 signal cables, and they DON'T support ATAPI devices..

- JUST ONE BLUE IDE socket entitled as PRI_IDE connector, designed to receive Ultra DMA 100/66 signal cables. It says that a cable with blue, black and gray ends should be connected here. I'm pretty sure I must connect my 2 HD's here, one as master and the other as slave, well, usual set. BUT I miss a second connector like this.....

I wonder, what are the red sockets for ? My DVD drives ? Aren't DVD drives ATAPI devices ? Where should I hook them ? What's the difference between Ultra ATA (2 "new" red sockets) and Ultra DMA (just one blue socket) ?

Well, sorry for the probably dumb questions, after 5 years without building a Computer, I'm confused...OK, I know where to hook the floppy, the processor, the power, etc.. :P

Thanks,

Zetti

[Doramius]

You Primary Channel (Probably top Red) should be your HDDs. The Master as your OS drive and the Slave would be your secondary drive. The second Red one should be for storage HDDs & optical drives. You also have an external SATA port, which can be very handy. I don't like the positioning of the Blue one because I've ended up bending pins in the past with sockets off the side like that, or cut my hand up because there wasn't much room to pull the IDE connector out. The Red ports should be ATA 133/100/66 and those are the ones you should use first. I think your board may have a setup to use older styles of drives so that may be why you have the Blue 100/66/33 port. I wouldn't use it for anything other than storage drives. and there should be a black connector above the Blue for your Floppy.

[oldandinthe way]

No manual. Must be a cheap supplier.

You can download a manual on this page

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5WD2%20Premium

[budz]

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5WD2

There's the link for your motherboard manual.

[greymalkin]

ahh you are talking about the sata ports..i was a little confused by your title of "so many jumpers" as it's actually just the oppposite..you'll barely find a jumper on a motherboard nowadays...the old ones were a serious pain to set up.

[Zetti]

Hi all,

Thanks to everybody that replied,

My MOBO came with the manual, I have it, and have read it entirely, that's from where I took the info I wrote, but due to my dumbness, I'm still confused.

No, these aren't SATA ports, there are a lot of them and I know them, I'm confused about the denomination "Ultra IDE" and "Ultra DMA".....

Doramius, by what I've read you DO HAVE this MOBO, right ?

Did you have any problem with the devices connected to the RED sockets ?

Thanks to all,

Zetti

[Doramius]

Hi all,

Thanks to everybody that replied,

My MOBO came with the manual, I have it, and have read it entirely, that's from where I took the info I wrote, but due to my dumbness, I'm still confused.

No, these aren't SATA ports, there are a lot of them and I know them, I'm confused about the denomination "Ultra IDE" and "Ultra DMA".....

Doramius, by what I've read you DO HAVE this MOBO, right ?

Did you have any problem with the devices connected to the RED sockets ?

Thanks to all,

Zetti

I do not have THIS specific motherboard in any of my PCs, but I have built 3 PCs recently with this board in it. WHy they made it this way is beyond me, but my guess is so it can work with older model equipment & drives (only a guess). DMA is the mode, and IDE is the channel. Don't worry so much about the DMA. Just focus more on the 133/100/66 & the 100/66/33 and the term PATA or ATAPI (which are related to the term IDE or EIDE). -Your computer should fupport the proper mode automatically (DMA or UDMA). If you have it running as PIO, we'll clear that up at a later time.-
This term is related to the Red and Blue style connectors on this board. The red ronnectors are the Primary ones your board uses. Normally, Mobo's have Black & Blue and the Blue is the first channel. Often causes confusion with this style of Mobo, as it did for me for the first one I worked on. I tried Using the Blue connector to find out a drive was only running at 100 instead of 133. With the IDE cable (might be called PATA cable) you Mobo came with, It should be the style that supports 2 drives or has 3 connectors on it. 2 closer to each other and the third further apart. The one that's farther away from the other 2 is the one that goes to the motherboard (and I think it says Motherboard right on the connector). I can't remember if the top or the bottom red connector is the Primary, but if you plug the cable in to one of the slots and the cable wants to bend up, the top is Primary, If the cable wants to bend down, the bottom is primary. Again, the Primary is what you want to connect your HDDs too.

Sorry for the lengthy lesson, but reading back over it helps me remember how I did it. :/

[Zetti]

Hi all,

Thanks to everybody that replied,

My MOBO came with the manual, I have it, and have read it entirely, that's from where I took the info I wrote, but due to my dumbness, I'm still confused.

No, these aren't SATA ports, there are a lot of them and I know them, I'm confused about the denomination "Ultra IDE" and "Ultra DMA".....

Doramius, by what I've read you DO HAVE this MOBO, right ?

Did you have any problem with the devices connected to the RED sockets ?

Thanks to all,

Zetti

Just focus more on the 133/100/66 & the 100/66/33 and the term PATA or ATAPI (which are related to the term IDE or EIDE). -Your computer should fupport the proper mode automatically (DMA or UDMA). If you have it running as PIO, we'll clear that up at a later time.-
This term is related to the Red and Blue style connectors on this board. The red ronnectors are the Primary ones your board uses. Normally, Mobo's have Black & Blue and the Blue is the first channel. Often causes confusion with this style of Mobo, as it did for me for the first one I worked on. I tried Using the Blue connector to find out a drive was only running at 100 instead of 133. With the IDE cable (might be called PATA cable) you Mobo came with, It should be the style that supports 2 drives or has 3 connectors on it. 2 closer to each other and the third further apart. The one that's farther away from the other 2 is the one that goes to the motherboard (and I think it says Motherboard right on the connector). I can't remember if the top or the bottom red connector is the Primary, but if you plug the cable in to one of the slots and the cable wants to bend up, the top is Primary, If the cable wants to bend down, the bottom is primary. Again, the Primary is what you want to connect your HDDs too.

Sorry for the lengthy lesson, but reading back over it helps me remember how I did it. :/

Thanks again for your advice, well, I'm pretty familiar with the cable :P

OK, I'll try it on this weekend, running the two HD's on the Primary channel, the 2 optical drives on the secondary channel, and forget the blue connector for a while, OK ?

Thanks so much,

Zetti

[SingSing]

If you have the newer ata100 or ata133 drive, then you don't want to use the gray cable, because the MOBO will most likely decide to run the drive at lower speed.

For ata100 or ata133 drive, you want to use the blue cables come with the MOBO.

[chesterfield]

unless i missed something, y'all are wrong....the primary IDE is BLUE and is the only thing the MOBO will recognize without drivers. th remaning two red IDE channels require RAID drivers as well as all the SATA ports. also, the two RED IDE channels WILL NOT SUPPORT ANY ATAPI DEVICES...no CD ROM's, DVD burners etc.......only hard drives.....i had to order a PCI express SATA card so I could have four CD/DVD drives as well as adapters to convert IDE on my optical drives to sats for the add on card.........enough said.......

[Zetti]

unless i missed something, y'all are wrong....the primary IDE is BLUE and is the only thing the MOBO will recognize without drivers. th remaning two red IDE channels require RAID drivers as well as all the SATA ports. also, the two RED IDE channels WILL NOT SUPPORT ANY ATAPI DEVICES...no CD ROM's, DVD burners etc.......only hard drives.....i had to order a PCI express SATA card so I could have four CD/DVD drives as well as adapters to convert IDE on my optical drives to sats for the add on card.........enough said.......

I spent the entire day searching for info and I'm afraid you're right....

But.....as far as I've read, I'll have to install XP on the SATA drive, after that, if I install the apropriate drivers from the bundled in CD, the RED connectors will see my two PATA HD's and I'll be able to use them for data storage.....

The problem is that the CPU has been going over 100C, any insight ? The room is very cold, I bought a boxed P830 processor, the CPU fan is working, cabinet is open, ventilator on towards the CPU, etc, etc...any guess ?

Thanks to all that replied,

Zetti

[chesterfield]

100 degrees celcius??????????????????? do you even have a heatsink/fan???? if so, is it attached???

you can attach ide devives like hard drives on the red connectors, but you will still need an F6 floppy w/RAID drivers....

[budz]

The problem is that the CPU has been going over 100C, any insight ? The room is very cold, I bought a boxed P830 processor, the CPU fan is working, cabinet is open, ventilator on towards the CPU, etc, etc...any guess ?

100c is a bit high for the cpu temp. Do you have thermal paste on the cpu? If you do did you take off the thermal pad before applying the thermal paste? This is on the assumption that the intel cpu has a stock thermal pad attached to it. I know I've had the hardest time installing a heatsink fan on a cpu. It took me awhile to get the hang of it. Check to make sure the heatsink is on securely and correctly.

[redwudz]

That is probably 100F or 37C. 100C would cause the CPU to self destruct. 37C should probably be a reasonable temp.

You might want to do a Google search for that motherboard. I would search for 'ASUS P5WD2 reviews' and you may find some good info from people that have worked with that MB.

[mike1061]

This may seem like a dumb idea, but perhaps the CPU fan is not plugged in, or in all the way, or into the wrong place.

You used the paste that came with it, right? You put a thin coating on the whole serface where the CPU and fan touch.

I know those are basics, but that's what comes to mind.
Thanks Mike

[Zetti]

100 degrees celcius??????????????????? do you even have a heatsink/fan???? if so, is it attached???

you can attach ide devives like hard drives on the red connectors, but you will still need an F6 floppy w/RAID drivers....

Yes, heatsink is attached...and it's well fixed and ON....I bought a Box processor, fan is Intel's original.

Chesterfiled, I've read at the ASUS forum people talking about this so called "F6 procedure", but I have to admitt I have never heard about it and I am very confused....

On the bundled CD there's a function entitled "make disc" and I think I have to use it, right ?
But please, how do I build this floppy with the RAID drivers ? I don't wanna any RAID, I just wanna the BIOS to see my HD's at the Red connectors.....would you mind writing quickly an idiot-proof guide please ?
A person told me to download from the ASUS web site the latest "Marvel driver", I looked at the site, found nothing......isn't the driver already at the bundled in CD, and so I'd already have everything I need to build this F6 floppy disc ?

Thank you very much,

Zetti

[Zetti]

100c is a bit high for the cpu temp. Do you have thermal paste on the cpu? If you do did you take off the thermal pad before applying the thermal paste? .

Thanks budz, it's 100C, not 100F, the computer turns off automatically to protect the processor.

I lowered the CPU voltage following instructions, but now it's stucked at 91C, no big deal, the function in BIOS to allow throttling is enabled.

Well, I haven't applied a thermalpaste cause I bought a Boxed CPU, in fact I haven't removed anything from the heatsink, there was already a paste above it and so I just attached it over the CPU.....

Should I apply a thermal paste anyway ?

Thank you very much,

Zetti

[Zetti]

This may seem like a dumb idea, but perhaps the CPU fan is not plugged in, or in all the way, or into the wrong place.

You used the paste that came with it, right? You put a thin coating on the whole serface where the CPU and fan touch.

I know those are basics, but that's what comes to mind.
Thanks Mike

thanks Mike, I haven't added a thermal paste cause I bought a boxed CPU,

Thanks, Zetti

[Silvas]

[quote="Zetti"]

Well, I haven't applied a thermalpaste cause I bought a Boxed CPU, in fact I haven't removed anything from the heatsink, there was already a paste above it and so I just attached it over the CPU.....
Zetti

Did you not remove the plastic protective covering that was over the thermal pad on the heatsink? If not, it's probably already melted and you're gonna have to scrape everything off and use some thermalpaste to correct the issue.


silvas

[Zetti]

[quote="Silvas"]

Well, I haven't applied a thermalpaste cause I bought a Boxed CPU, in fact I haven't removed anything from the heatsink, there was already a paste above it and so I just attached it over the CPU.....
Zetti

Did you not remove the plastic protective covering that was over the thermal pad on the heatsink? If not, it's probably already melted and you're gonna have to scrape everything off and use some thermalpaste to correct the issue.


silvas

Thanks Silva, but there was no plastic, just the paste already above the heatsink....I'm afraid i have tobuy another bigger cooler,

Zetti

[TBoneit]

The intel heatsink and fan should be fine. I'm suspecting that the heatsink isn't properly attached and is sitting unenven on the CPU.

Try this procedure: With the heatsink still attached pull the motherboard and turn it over. Where the four attachments come through the motherboard the puch through pin should be even. IOW the two parts that spread and the pin that comes through to spread them should all be of the same height over the motherboard.

Another thing to check make sure you pressed the four puch pins down tight to the motherboard. The bottom of them should be tight to the motherboard. When properly installed the mnotherboard should be flexed. That bend in the motherboard is part of what maintains the proper pressure between the CPU and the Heatsink.

You need to get that temperature down if it is running that idling you will never be able to do video work.

Next issue once you get that fixed is installing windows.

If you plan on using a IDE hard drive for a boot drive then the easiest way is to use the blue ide connector. Put the Optical drive to install from as the middle device (slave) and put the hard drive on the end (Master)

Install windows, then install all the drivers and after installing all the motherboard drivers you can move the boot drive to the Red PRI_EIDE connector. Thbis will mean you don't need to use teh F6 and floppy disk method to install.

If you are going to use the SATA as a boot drive then make sure you use one of the ones from the intel chipset controller.

Hope this helps, please post back what happens.

[mike1061]

Yes, heatsink is attached...and it's well fixed and ON....I bought a Box processor, fan is Intel's original.

Chesterfiled, I've read at the ASUS forum people talking about this so called "F6 procedure", but I have to admitt I have never heard about it and I am very confused....

On the bundled CD there's a function entitled "make disc" and I think I have to use it, right ?
But please, how do I build this floppy with the RAID drivers ? I don't wanna any RAID, I just wanna the BIOS to see my HD's at the Red connectors.....would you mind writing quickly an idiot-proof guide please ?
A person told me to download from the ASUS web site the latest "Marvel driver", I looked at the site, found nothing......isn't the driver already at the bundled in CD, and so I'd already have everything I need to build this F6 floppy disc ?

Thank you very much,

Zetti

"isn't the driver already at the bundled in CD"
Yes
They were just talking about upgrading to the newest version. The original driver should get things running.

Thanks Mike

[Zetti]

The intel heatsink and fan should be fine. I'm suspecting that the heatsink isn't properly attached and is sitting unenven on the CPU.

Try this procedure: With the heatsink still attached pull the motherboard and turn it over. Where the four attachments come through the motherboard the puch through pin should be even. IOW the two parts that spread and the pin that comes through to spread them should all be of the same height over the motherboard.

Another thing to check make sure you pressed the four puch pins down tight to the motherboard. The bottom of them should be tight to the motherboard. When properly installed the mnotherboard should be flexed. That bend in the motherboard is part of what maintains the proper pressure between the CPU and the Heatsink.

You need to get that temperature down if it is running that idling you will never be able to do video work.

Next issue once you get that fixed is installing windows.

If you plan on using a IDE hard drive for a boot drive then the easiest way is to use the blue ide connector. Put the Optical drive to install from as the middle device (slave) and put the hard drive on the end (Master)

Install windows, then install all the drivers and after installing all the motherboard drivers you can move the boot drive to the Red PRI_EIDE connector. Thbis will mean you don't need to use teh F6 and floppy disk method to install.

If you are going to use the SATA as a boot drive then make sure you use one of the ones from the intel chipset controller.

Hope this helps, please post back what happens.

Thanks TBoneit, at this point I have already oprdered a Zalman cooler, I live in Rio, it's a very hot city and I'm afraid I'll have problems, so better to prevent now,

The current cooler has been well fixed, thanks, I doubled-triple checked even before turning on the computer, what I DO think is that the original heatsink came with very few paste, maybe I should had added more paste by myself, well, I'll have to be careful now when mounting in the new cooler - it'll take say 10 days until I receive it.

Thanks for the tip about the drivers, I think now I know what I'll have to do when installing Windows,

I'll return to this thread when I receive the new cooler,

MANY THANKS TO EVERYBODY THAT REPLIED,

Zetti

[Nelson37]

Zetti, if you are Certain that temperature is Centigrade, that is WAY too freaking high and something is very, very wrong. You are going to cook your chip and destroy the most expensive single component in your new rig. Get this part right or you will really screw yourself.

Either the fan is not running correctly or the heatsink is not seated right, I don't think you'd get that hot if you omitted the thermal paste altogether.

Guess - the original thermal pad has a small plastic cover sheet, meant to be removed. If this remained, and has melted into a blob, creating a small airspace between the chip and the heatsink and also preventing spread of the thermal paste.

On the connectors - if getting new drives, get SATA. For now, the red ones are faster but may not run until a driver is loaded. Install on the blue set, install drivers, move to the red set, blue for CD and/or DVD. If possible, keep hard drives on seperate channels, by themselves.

[Zetti]

Zetti, if you are Certain that temperature is Centigrade, that is WAY too freaking high and something is very, very wrong. You are going to cook your chip and destroy the most expensive single component in your new rig. Get this part right or you will really screw yourself.

Either the fan is not running correctly or the heatsink is not seated right, I don't think you'd get that hot if you omitted the thermal paste altogether.

Guess - the original thermal pad has a small plastic cover sheet, meant to be removed. If this remained, and has melted into a blob, creating a small airspace between the chip and the heatsink and also preventing spread of the thermal paste.

On the connectors - if getting new drives, get SATA. For now, the red ones are faster but may not run until a driver is loaded. Install on the blue set, install drivers, move to the red set, blue for CD and/or DVD. If possible, keep hard drives on seperate channels, by themselves.

Hi Nelson,

Thanks, I got a new cooler, Zalman 9500 and now temperature is around 47C, sounds OK; thanks !

Thanks to all that replied,

Zetti