Help!! mobo failing on me??

[spp]

Hey guys:
I need your opinion on this because I want to make sure that it is a mobo problem before I go out and get me another one.

The problem is that sometimes the hd is not detected, especially after I reboot using ctrl-alt-del or the restart button(sometimes it works fine for a long time, but as soon as I restart the computer it happens....and usually if I turn it off and reboot it it comes back up). Also, sometimes after I reboot, there is nothing on the screen but a blinking light. I have tried reformating the hd a few times, but the same problem persist (and sometimes when I boot with floppy starup disk, it tells me that the partition on the hd is wrong....)

Now, I have tried swapping with another video card, another hd, another ps, and I have pulled up all other things except for the video card. The problem still persists........and the temp using mbm5 is ok.... should I just give up and get me another motherboard? (the ram should be fine since it does run without problem sometimes)

THe spec:
Abit 8k7a+
AMD 900 athlon
ibm 60gig
ATI AIW 128 pro
sparkle 300w

Thanks for all the help!!

 

[Larvae]

try replacing the watch battery on the motherboard, when i had a similar problem that turned out to be the cause

 

[spp]

replace it?? do you mean take it out and put it back in or just get a new one? (i have no idea where to get those.... are they pretty common?)
thanks for the input though.

 

[cr4pz0r]

When someone says "replace the watch battery that provides backup power for the CMOS," he/she means "go out and buy a new one." If you live in the U.S., that shouldn't be much of a problem; most recent motherboards use a CR2032 lithium watch battery, which is fairly common even at drugstore chains. You should be able to buy one for $2 to $3.

 

[spp]

could it be the ide controller?? it seems that hd and cdrom are having problem, and the hd is constanly corrupted (the partition and stuff..)

 

[yakko]

Have you tried a new IDE cable? I had one fail on me recently and it was doing pretty much the same thing yours is except that it was my CD-rom.

 

[kursplat]

check out these sugestions but just one at a time. you need to test and make sure that what you change is helping or not.
good luck

 

[spp]

I tried the IDE cable ...... and this time, the drive gets recognized pretty regularly......... but the system file on the drive is messed up still (incidentally... it worked for a while, but right after i put the modem in the motherboard and boot up, the system file is messed up again and i couldn't boot the computer...)

 

[fronic2]

Try moving your modem in another slot <asuming it's IDE >
Sounds like a bad connecter.

 

[spp]

i tried that as well............ still the same../.. thanks for the input though'

 

[DragonWizard]

Are you letting the bios auto detect the cd-rom and the hard drive? If not let it auto detect, if so then setup your drive perameters in the bios.

Do you have the cd-rom on the same ide cable as the hard drive? If so move it to the secondary ide controller. If the cd-rom is detected every time it could be the primary ide controller has a problem.

Are you using an Ide ata100/133 cable or an older cable? If it is an older cable the hard drive may have data transfer problems. If it is a newer ata100/133 cable the cd-rom drive may have data transfer problems or not work at all.

Is the hard drive jumper set to cable select or is it master? make sure it is on master and definately not slave.

If you know anyone with a ata100 pci controller card or even buy one for about $20.00US you could test your cables and your drives without relying on the motherboards ide controller.

I don't know if any of this will help but it may be worth a try before you give up.