Do I need a new mobo?

[Timoi]

Ok I know this isn't a computer tech forum but I thought that since most of you guys have costom built computers, you might have had something similar happen to you.

I have a Gigabyte GA-8IPE775-G motherboard and I recently tried to upgrade my ram. This caused two problems since the original RAM I had was some no-name brand and I tried to add some kingston to it. The first problem was system instability. This was solved when I removed the old ram and kept just the kingston. The second problem is that my computer stopped detecting anything on my IDE1 (both my CD-RW and my DVD+/-RW). This problem is still there. As far as I can tell it is the BIOS which can't detect them (they are not on my list of drives when I boot or in my CMOS setup). The cables are plugged in correctly and the drives both have power as they open and close normally with the light flashing a few seconds after they close (normal). I firstly tried to clear my CMOS but I still had no drives. I then thought my BIOS might be slightly corrupted (is this possible?) and tried to update the BIOS using the tools and BIOSses on Gigabyte's website to see if this might fix the problem. The update failed (something about a missing file?). I also tried to set my CMOS to manually detect drives on my IDE1 (or force it to detect the IDE1) without any positive results. The only difference that this last attempt did was that my IDE1 now shows in my boot sequence but it says 'none' for drives as master and slave.:dead:

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas? I REALLY don't like the idea of buying a new motherboard because that would mean I would have to upgrade almost the whole computer... And I don't really like the idea of leaving my GForce 6600 GT AGP behind (it is also a Gigabyte card) or my recent RAM 'upgrade' (I still have the same amount of RAM but a better brand)...

[jdbnsn]

I would disconnect everything, clear CMOS again (pull the battery too), put the old RAM back in and start from the minimum required components and add one at a time to see if anything changes. Otherwise, I'm not sure about that. I had a similar problem once when a HD would not be found (set to slave on secondary IDE) and it came back when I reinstalled windows.

[simon275]

I know this is a stupid question but have you installed the drivers the came with the drives not just the auto dectet install windows ones.

[Timoi]

Well, first of all, I bought one OEM and the other did not have drivers included and said to use the generic Windows drivers in the instructions...

And don't drivers run 'in' your OS anyways? which would mean that for your OS to know that the drive is even there to run the driver, it would need to have the drive detected by the bios at least...

Sadly re-installing Windows is not an option here... What would I be installing Windwos from? Oh and one more thing, due to the setup in my case I am not able to plug a hard drive and... hey wait a minute... I 'could' use the IDE0 to run my cd rom devices if I had my OS on a SATA drive... That was actually on my list of things to buy... (180GB total now full and I can't burn it because I have no optical devices :think: )

Ty for getting me thinking in the right direction! Now all I got to do is dig up Ghost, which I have somewhere... Ghost my HDD to a new SATA drive and plug my cd-rw and dvd-rw in my IDE1... This just might work!

TY SO MUCH GUYS!!! I will give this a try as soon as I get a chance...

[Crimson Sky]

To determine if your hardware is truly the root of your woes, a sucessful bios flashing is required. How many times did you try to flash it? Did you set up the diskette properly witht the corrcect flash program and files? I'd tripple check this before trying a more costly solution.

IDE drivers in some bios's out there do not play well with certain chipsets.

Could be as simple as a bad cable. Try it all, this is good troubleshooting practice for building future systems.

[Timoi]

Thank you. I just successfully updated my BIOS using @BIOS (Gigabyte's bios update Windows utility) and nothing happened (about the results we are looking for) but I lost my HT capability (which I had to disable to update the bios) :down: . Good thing I had a made a backup.

[CanaBalistic]

I would actually be weary of flashing the bios. If its not done correctly, you could have an expencive paper weight. My bios has settings for manual detect and auto detect of IDE devices. You should load the default bios settings and go from there.

I had the same ram problem. Dual channel mem configs like to have matched pairs of ram. I had to get 2Gb of matching ram and get rid of the 1Gb value ram that i originally had. Some new boards dont have this restriction.

[edit]
The HT is an option in the bios, you can turn that back on quite easily.

[Timoi]

I have tried both, auto detect and manual without success... I also have a third setting which lets me manually input the amount of clusters, cilynders, etc... but that is obiously hard drive only.

You say you ended up losing drives due to non-matching sticks of RAM? Do you remember EXACTLY what you did to remedy this problem?

Also what I meant about losing HT capabilities is that it no longer was in the CMOS setup... and since I know of no other way to access my BIOS I could no longer turn it on again...

[isunktheship]

Your problem was that you bought an OEM mobo... from Newegg probably?

One of the things I always tell my friends is, "don't buy OEM products." There is a chance that the product had a problem, and it might not have been fixed. I'm always suspicious of returned products.

You are in a tricky position, I did the SAME thing a while back, I overclocked my computer and fried the mobo. I then had the choice to either buy a new mobo, or buy a new mobo, vid card, cpu, memory. I chose to just quick-fix it, by just getting a new mobo. (BAD CHOICE)

In the long run, I upgraded my computer, and wasted about 100 bucks on the old mobo.

If possible, return the OEM board, sell your video card on the forums, and buy new stuff. If this isn't possible you can buy a new mobo, but get the best out of it; wait a while before a full computer upgrade.

[Timoi]

Where did I mention that the mobo was OEM? Actually it wasn't... It's the retail version, bought locally in store. What I said was OEM is one of my drives which my computer no longer detects. Anyways, as (I think) I have mentionned I was due for a HDD upgrade so I already went for that. Plus a new HDD can always be usefull for a future computer. So I already went to the store and got a new HDD (SATA so I can free my ATA plug and put my CD-Roms on the newly freed and working ATA connector). Though I do have the new drive, I have not yet gotten the chance to ghost my C: drive to it.

Actually something VERY similar happened to one of my friends recently. Note that this guy is a computer tech. He determined that the connector for the hard drive (it was the hard drive in this case) had received a surge and died. All date on the drive had been corupted but the drive was still working fine (In another laptop) once everything was re-installed on it. He said that with the system instability due to a hardware incompatibility that I had it is highly probable that this is exactly what happened to me too. And that I'm just lucky that it's not the connector to my hard drives.