Tech: Motherboard incompatabiliy with disks?

Subject: Tech: Motherboard incompatabiliy with disks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 May 04 - 05:13 PM

I have acquired a neat little HP Brio mini-tower with the quietest PSU I have ever come across. Seems to be a 90W output but appears to be plenty enough for the 550Mhz PIII processor. Anyhow, I decided it would like to live in the study in place of the noisy monsterous 350W psu unit powering the AMD Atlon 2K. I swapped HDDs and did a W2K re-install/fix. All worked fine for a few days - albeit it complained about the HDD for a while but booted anyway! But I have now installed some new digital imaging software and a faster CD. Things went downhill from there.

It still works - I am posting from it now - and it no loger complains about the HDD but get this...

If I want to go into BIOS setup I have to unplug the HDD.

If I try to copy a CD it tries to write the TOC and then complains there is no writable media in (I have gone through 4 blank disks!)

It will not auto detect the disk but if I set the BIOS to manual with LBA enabled it works. However, I do have to set the number of tracks, heads etc before I set it to LBA!

It occasionaly does not load the mouse and keyboard.

I have decided I am going to stick the original 8Gb HDD and 16x CD back in in place of the 40Gb and 50x but does anyone have any other suggestions befor I do?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Tech: Motherboard incompatabiliy with disks?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 May 04 - 07:58 PM

The software shouldn't affect power requirements, but the HD and CD definitely will.

If you're swapping things in and out, a close look will probably show a power, or at least current rating on each of the drives. 90 W doesn't sound like much of a PS. 350W used to be considered plenty big to give yourself lots of "reserve'" but they've been creeping up to where that's about standard or even minimum now.

Many of the newer hard drives are higher rpm, and the multi-X CD drives also run at higher speeds, so they do eat more power than the older ones, just spinning the disks.

You shouldn't get noise from the "power supply" itself, but the fans it needs to keep it from cooking can be pretty noisy sometimes. There are "superquiet" fans around, but I can't say whether they're really less noisy of that's just advertising BS. It does sound like you're dragging the PS output down (low voltage), so you probably need a little more capacity. The question would be whether you can fit a bigger PS into your mini box (and whether you really want to go that route).

If you consider putting a bigger power supply in your mini box, you should be able to find "noise figures" as part of the specs, but you may have to dig a bit - and the box itself can affect whether you actually get what's advertised.

If you want a big Hard Drive, and don't want to put in a larger capacity Power Supply, you could consider an external HD. Most of them have their own transformer/converter, so they don't draw anything but "signal" power from the main computer. You just have to find somewhere to put them, and you have another couple of cords to trip over.

External CD drive/burners are similar, but there are some speed limits that need to be observed with an external one. Most of them connect USB, and if you don't have USB-2 you're limited to 12x or less on the nameplate and probably 4x usable. With USB-2 or Firewire, you can probably get useful 16 or 20x performance. It can be a little harder finding a good location for the external CD too, since you have to get to it to put the CDs in and out.

If you have a use for the quiet mini that doesn't require stuffing other hardware in it, I'd be inclined to talk to my supplier about some quieter fans for the big box - at least as a planning stage.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Motherboard incompatabiliy with disks?
From: Cheap Tracks
Date: 11 May 04 - 10:03 PM

I have two computers with ANTEC 370W power supplies. Both are very quiet. 90W is VERY little power for a PC these days. Power draw for common Maxtor hard disk is on the order of 12W. Older, slower disks draw less power.

Hard disks contribute a lot to the noise in a computer too. My PC cases (Antec Sonata) mount all hard disks with rubber grommets to isolate them from the case.

I have my DAW built into a Sonata case with 4 hard disks. I have a Zalman heatsink on the CPU, a 120mm fan pulling air over the hard disks, a 120mm case fan blowing air out the back, and a 120mm fan blowing on the CPU heatsink. All fans are ANTEC and are controlled with Zalman Fanmates.

It is quiet enough that I record in the same room with the computer. I do use some pads to block what little noise it produces, but for a P4 2.4 it ain't bad. Uncle DaveO's CD was recorded in these conditions. I dare you to find computer noise on his recording ;)

karl
www.cheap-tracks.com

Subject: RE: Tech: Motherboard incompatabiliy with disks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 May 04 - 03:00 AM

I think you could be onto something there guys! I'll defiitely put the disks back the way they were. I believe there is also a BIOS problem but I hadn't thouht of the power issue as well.

Cheers

:D

Subject: RE: Tech: Motherboard incompatabiliy with disks?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 May 04 - 04:25 AM

Maximum Hard Drive size in HP Brio indcates that nearly all Brio models will boot with hard drives up to 135 GB, but the BIOS in most limits usable size to 8 GB in a lot of them. A few models appear able to run up to a 135GB HD, but the majority are limited in BIOS. There's a link on the page to an "accessories" page that may give you some clues about what you can do, although my "quick look" there didn't show anything.

I haven't found anything that says what a Brio is or what it's intended to do, except in Chinese, Thai, Korean, French, Russian, or German. It doesn't appear to be currently sold for US or UK markets(?). Has the chassis serial number been scraped off??????

A site search at HP gives no result for Brio, but suggests checking at a Support site. The only thing I find at the support site is a link to the same "Accessories" site noted above, and that site only shows printers, scanners, and cameras. You might find something with a site search at the HP site using a specific model number.

One blog inicates the Brio line was introduced in 1999, and there are a couple of blog reviews in year 2000 for models with a lot more capability than the earlier ones, although they don't really tell you what they were in either case. All the marketing quotes refer to "scalability" but I think in this context it means adding more machines to a simple network rather than to improving individual machines. I don't think the blog reviewers understood the difference (suckered by adspeak again). It was apparently intended for small businesses without a network server, with an emphasis on internet "connectivity" and basic PC function.

HP has merged with Compaq, and the line is probably no longer sold(?). eBay appears to put them in the "vintage PC" category.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Motherboard incompatabiliy with disks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 May 04 - 08:00 AM

They are the old HP desktop range, John. I worked for HP for some years and still work for a partner/re-seller of Mid to High end Unix systems. HP did indeed stop making them along with the HP Netserver range and they have been replaced with the Compaq (badged HP) Evo's and Proliants. One of the benefits of the merge should have been to free up HP to concentrate on their mid to high HPUX systems. They don't seem to have done it very well though and is only now that seem to have got their road map back in order!

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Tech: Motherboard incompatabiliy with disks?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 12 May 04 - 11:53 AM

As far as I am concerned Brio is Lego for littlies, with bigger bricks. I tried to make a computer for the twins from some, but it didn't do much...
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: Motherboard incompatabiliy with disks?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 May 04 - 08:58 PM

I haven't used many HP computers, and haven't owned one; but they seem to be one of those vendors where everything associated with a discontinued model simply disappears from their website. Usually you can dig up some info, but you almost have to have a specific model number to get into "legacy" machines.

The appearance, from what I did find, was that it's a "selection" of options and software that made one of their desktops into a "Brio." There seem to have been "Brio" versions of at least 3 Machine "lines."

All academic though, ... it does appear that many Brio versions used a BIOS that can't address more than 8 or 8.4 GB on a hard drive (the usable on a "10 GB" drive, depending on setup) and if you really have only a 90W power supply you may not be able to "spin" many disks of newer kinds, or add many extras that need power from the machine.

There seem to be a lot of "retailers" offering RAM upgrades for Brio, which probably indicates a lot of people found out they want more than the 64MB that came in the early ones. I'm not sure I'd trust some of the retail sources to get the right one for "my model" but a check with one of the memory makers should identify what you'd want if that looks helpful. At least some, probably later Brio offerings, came with WinXP, and 64MB is NOT enough to run WinXP except as a "cripple." In a "bare bones" machine like the Brio, you may find a BIOS limit on RAM size, but (IMO) 256 MB is about the minimum to make WinXP "useful." I run 1 GB.

The "white paper" linked previously indicates HP had no intention of issuing BIOS updates for any of the versions with low HD capability, but curiously, I saw one - apparently HP - paper on "How to Clear Brio BIOS, that wouldn't seem to be applicable unless you had a BIOS update to install. There may be an update available if you go direct to the motherboard maker, but you'll likely need specific info on your board and BIOS version to research it.

John