IDE detection with a K7S5A ECS motherboard

[Philip]

I have just upgraded my motherboard to an ECS K7S5A board. I having a problem with the BIOS recognising anything on the second IDE channel. It picks up the CD drives about 50% of the time, I have to keep re-setting until it detects them, it seems totally random. I have tried, removing/swapping CD drives/HDD's in all possible combinations. Swapped IDE cables - tried new cables etc. No Joy! Setup is AMD Athlon 1.333 Mhz K7S5a ECS motherboard 128MB SDRAM - 100 Mhz HP CD drive / re writer Another CD drive (unsure of make) Fujitsu - 6 GB HDD Samsung 40 GB - HDD Case/PSU - former Advent P3 system case (3 yrs old) I have heard power supplies can be an issue, could this be the cause ?

[matth1j]

Can't give a definitive answer I'm afraid, but when I upgraded to a K7S5A, I initially only had a 250W PSU. It was fine without the modem card, but totally dead with it. Got a new case with 300W PSU- no more problems. I would suggest removing non-essential power-consuming kit, but it looks like you've tried that. Presumably you've used the BIOS's auto-detect function?