Motherboard, RAM & Card readers...

[pen2paper]

Hi All,

Am having some real trouble with my new setup - any/all help greatly appreciated.

I have a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H board with two SATA harddisks and a third IDE hooked up, plus an internal blu ray player and DVD burner, also both on SATA.

For some reason, despite the fact that I have three sticks of 2GB DDR2 RAM installed - only 3GB RAM is registering on XP.

Furthermore, if I try to hook up a regular internal floppy drive, the system won't even turn on, let alone boot.

Also, I have an internal iApp 6-in-1 card reader that features four very fiddly connectors that I can't seem to get working, no matter what I try. The device worked just fine on my old system, but even though I can get the USB port working on my new setup, now, none of the actual card sockets will work...

I'm not entirely sure of the orientation of these connectors, or even which pins they should be hooked up to, despite reading both manuals. On my old setup, they attached in series on the USB1 and USB2 pins on the MB. On my new MB, I have four USB connections.

The card reader itself has an audio connector, and two almost identical cables, each with two seperate connectors:

USB1 VCC
USB1 D0-
USB1 D0+

USB1 GND

&

USB2 VCC
USB2 D1-
USB2 D1+

USB2 GND


Thanks in advance!

 

[chriscalvert]

Hi All,

Am having some real trouble with my new setup - any/all help greatly appreciated.

I have a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H board with two SATA harddisks and a third IDE hooked up, plus an internal blu ray player and DVD burner, also both on SATA.

For some reason, despite the fact that I have three sticks of 2GB DDR2 RAM installed - only 3GB RAM is registering on XP.

Furthermore, if I try to hook up a regular internal floppy drive, the system won't even turn on, let alone boot.

Also, I have an internal iApp 6-in-1 card reader that features four very fiddly connectors that I can't seem to get working, no matter what I try. The device worked just fine on my old system, but even though I can get the USB port working on my new setup, now, none of the actual card sockets will work...

I suspect that you are only running a 32 bit version of XP. This will only address 4GB less a certain amount taken up by I/O space and extra taken by video card. A 512Mb video card plus the I/O space will typically only allow you to address about 3.2GB.
If you were running 64 bit then the address space plus allowance for video card memory is way up there and you can then address all 6GB. 6GB with 32 bits is a waste.

Not sure why the FDD isn't working but I would certainly check that the data cable is correctly inserted. Going back a few years now for me I think you might find that a backwards data cable actually shorts out some power rails and therefore the power supply won't turn on because it is seeing a short. What you are seeing sounds like this.

I cannot imagine what you have been trying to do with the card reader pins and your description isn't clear. A guess might be that if the card reader has an audio connector on it that one of the cables might need to go to the onboard audio connector ?
Normally card readers have a single plug on them which goes to an onboard USB connector (the correct way around of course). The description of 2 almost identical cables, each with two connectors makes me wonder the following -
1. Are the 4 cables as follows 1st cable USB1's, 2nd cable USB1 Gnd, 3rd cable USB2's, 4th cable USB2 Gnd. If this is all the cables then you shouldn't have 2 ALMOST identical cables BUT should have 2 IDENTICAL cables.
2. Leaving aside the USB maybe the difference between the 2 almost identical cables is that one is audio and the other is USB ?

Normally USB cables are all in a 2x5 block with an end pin missing. This will wire up 2 USB ports in a single socket using the cable descriptions you indicate above. The audio plug is usually the same 2x5 pin block but with a pin missing one pin away from the end. Because of the missing pins you cannot insert the wrong plug into the socket.

If you are unlucky and the ends of your cables all have individual pins on them labelled as above then they are all USB pins and need to be plugged into a USB socket in the correct order. Motherboard manuals usually show the pin assignments.

Best of luck.

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi there,

I agree with Chris in all points.

The internal USB connectors each have 2 USB connections on them, so the 2 cables are good for 4 individual USB devices (the 6 in 1 card reader) may actually have 4 slots, or possibly there is a USB port on the front mounted card reader taking using one port connection.

Don't forget that you have to "enable" the internal USB ports and also the Floppy MB controller separately in the BIOS, or they won't work.

Finally be very careful you don't plug one of your USB internal connectors into a IEEE 1394 motherboard connector or it will short out the power lead and possibly ruin the MB.