Somewhat OT--hdw: ECS motherboard & SBM

[stu]

On Thursday 29 June 2006 23:17, Craig White wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-06-29 at 19:09 -0400, A LeDonne wrote:
> > On 6/29/06, Mark Jarvis <mark.jarvis at pvmail.maricopa.edu> wrote:
> > > Some time ago, in a moment of ill-advised penny pinching I bought one
> > > of Fry's ECS motherboard & AMD cpu specials. (I prefer AMD cpus, it's
> > > the cheapo mobo that has caused me the problems I've had.) I like to
> > > have a Smart Boot Manager (SBM) diskette around as an "insurance
> > > policy" way to boot into the various operating systems on my box. After
> > > installing the new motherboard, I found that although it would boot
> > > from an old DOS diskette, it wouldn't boot from an SBM diskette. I
> > > cussed mildly & accepted it. Then Tuesday, for some reason I tried
> > > again--whaddaya know--it worked! I figured that I must have just had a
> > > couple of bum diskettes when I tried before. Then I tried last night
> > > with four (4) known good SBM diskettes--including the one that had
> > > worked on Tuesday. No dice. I even burned a couple of new diskettes
> > > using the SBM on the Ubuntu CD. Still no dice. If that stupid board had
> > > NEVER booted from an SBM diskette, I'd just live with it, but the fact
> > > that it did boot correctly ONE TIME has me baffled.
> > >
> > > Anyone got any ideas?
> > >
> > > -mj-
> >
> > You did say diskette... wiht intermittent floppy failure I would
> > replace the drive and the cable. My time is worth the $20 to replace
> > first as a highly invasive troubleshooting technique.
>
> ----
> given the reliability factor of both floppy disks and floppy disk
> drives, that's reasonably sage advice except for the one other bit
> advice - don't do floppies.
>
> Craig
>
	I avoid using floppys myself if it's at all possible. When I absolutely have 
to use one, I always run a floppy drive cleaner disk through the drive first 
to clean out the dust.
	FWIW, I've run several different AMD/ECS combos (ECS makes PC Chips also) and 
have had very few problems with them. 
	
	Stu