Motherboard question?

[BLACK KNIGHT]

I just upgraded to an Asus M3A78-EM motherboard...it's an AM2+ board using the 780G/SB700 chipset. I popped a A64 x2 3800+ CPU on it. My only problem is when this thing boots up. After it detects the USB devices and the memory it then takes about 30 seconds ( I timed it) to auto detect my hard drive and DVD rom. Now my hard drive and DVD-rom are both IDE and I'm wondering if that's the problem or what? I know everyone's moved to SATA but I'm upgrading my PC in stages and the mobo/CPU was the first stage. It just seems it shouldn't take 30 seconds to autodetect this stuff. Is there a setting in the BIOS I'm missing?

[cauzomb]

For the DVD-rom, set it to master (via the jumper on the DVD) then connect it by itself on it's own IDE cable/channel usually IDE1 or 2 "secondary IDE". If you are using a two drive connector cable, use the first connector inline with the motherboard, most cables have a long section, the one on the end of the long section is for the motherboard, the next plug I use for "master" then the last plug is for "slave"
Then set the secondary IDE channel in the bios config to "disabled/disabled" rather than "auto/auto", windows should auto-detect the dvd-rom this way and the bios won't take forever looking for your DVD-rom....

Set your hard drive to master, on IDE 0 or 1, and the bios for IDE 0 or 1 to auto/auto. If you are doing a fresh install, set your boot order to first boot
"dvd-rom" or "cdrom", second boot "floppy", third boot "IDE" or "HDD" this might show up as the actual drive model number...

You can always change your boot order to first floppy or first hdd, whatever you need to boot first etc..

[BLACK KNIGHT]

Ahh, I bet that's my problem. These new stupid mobo's don't have 2 IDE channels. I've always put my main hard drive on a cable by itself for performance...but I had to put the hard drive and DVD-rom on the same cable since I only have 1 IDE port on the mobo. I have the HDD setup as Master and the DVD-rom set as Slave...but I might have had to install the IDE cable backwards because of the distance between the HDD and DVD-rom. I have the very end of the IDE cable plugged into the mobo and then the middle of the cable is plugged into the HDD and then the long end of the cable has to reach all the way up the case to my DVD-rom. So technically I think I have that cable installed upside down. Hmmm, will that hurt anything being like that? I think I'm gonna try and get a SATA HDD for cheap soon.

[cauzomb]

It's basically 180 degree's off. With a straight through cable that has all the conductors/pins active, it would work but some cables have one pin that is disconnected. I've read that some DVD-roms like to be set to master but since you are using one IDE channel, set the hard drive to master and dvd to slave, then go into the bios and set the IDE primary master to "auto" and IDE primary slave to "disabled" or "none".