Two 'arcane' questions

Reachable · Post by **Reachable** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 4:58 pm

Question 1 concerns what might be called "contact component failure". In other words: Can a bad motherboard ruin a power supply? Can a bad motherboard ruin a CPU or a memory module. Can a power supply ruin a motherboard? Can a CPU or a memory module, etc., ruin a motherboard?

Question 2 concerns the little cable that runs from the back of an optical drive to the sound card or integrated audio. Motherboard manuals I have looked at state that it enables CDs to be played through the computer's sound system. Frankly, though, I've come to question whether this humble object actually serves any real purpose. I seem to recall having had two optical drives and they both played CDs through the system fine. Once I installed a sound card and neglected to move the plug from the mobo to the card, and I'm virtually certain I played both CDs and DVDs and they were expressed through the card (because the integrated sound was faulty.) So I'm wondering whether the sound data just goes through the IDE or system bus and the cable is just a vestige.

Of course I may not have been paying attention. In which case I know I stand a better chance of a respectful reply here, as well as a knowledgeable one.

tehfire · Post by **tehfire** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:41 pm

Question 1: Yes, certain faulty components can hurt other components. This hasn't happened to me in a very long time (happened on my 486 system...66MHz FTW!!!) but it's a possibility. A very unlikely possibility, though.

Question 2: I stopped putting those audio cables from the optical drive to the sound card a long time ago. Back in the day CDROM drives used to have stop/play/next track buttons directly on the CD drive along with the eject button. With these drives, it was possible to play music from your CDROM drive completely independently of your computer or a program running on your computer. Nowadays, however, everything runs through the IDE drive and you don't have to put the audio cable.

Haha, I love 'arcane' questions. It's been years since I've even thought about these things and although I'm young, it's nice to know that I was around computers during the 'wild' days - before configurable BIOS's and all. Remember when all settings (CPU, cache settings, FSB, etc.) had to be done via an ocean of jumpers? Now all that we have left are those damn front panel connectors...

Davinator · Post by **Davinator** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:49 pm

I can answer the second question. The CD audio cable was used for CD drives that did not support digital sound through the IDE cable. It wasn't long before optical drives were able to do that, so the cable became un-necessary. You can check by disconnecting the cable from your board or card and trying to play a CD through your audio output (card or integrated). If you get sound, you can take the cable out.

Then again, the problem was old. My drives from 1999 and 2000 played music without it, so you must need to have an old CD-ROM drive with that IDE restriction to still need one. And as it's IDE-related, SATA optical drives won't need the cable. The SATA DVD drive I bought this past summer didn't even ship with one.

I would think for your first question that damage to one component is possible from another. If something shorts on your motherboard due to a failure, it's conceivable that that short - if it were on a power line - could cause damage to the power supply. But the other half of my head argues that the short circuit protection should kick in and save the supply.

You know, the more I think about it the more I find thoughts it could happen dubious, except for extreme cases such as a video card that starts a flame. That'd likely get you some damage to the motherboard.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:01 am

It wasn't just drives, though. Win9x DAE support ranged from spotty to non-existent. Adaptec's ASPI layer helped, but that brought it up to, "spotty." As of Win2k, it was rock solid all around, and has been ever since.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 1:37 pm

Question 1, is best answered as: Can an item damage another inside a computer, I will list the items, item on the left doing the damage, item on the right being damaged, and the answer.

Motherboard <> PSU == Very rare, but possible.
Mobo <> CPU == Yes, rare (well under a 50/1 ratio of a motherboard dying that will affect a CPU).
Mobo <> RAM == Rarer than a CPU being fried.
PSU <> Mobo == Commonish, ~20% chance.
CPU <> Mobo == Rarer than Very Rare but possible if the CPU has already been damaged by a motherboard.
RAM <> Mobo == Never seen it or even heard of it, RAM dies very infrequently nowdays.

Question 2 has already been answered, I have not used a single one since the W2K era.

Andy

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:16 pm

i recently had a faulty motherboard render my PSU useless. almost 100% sure it was because of the dead mobo.