Help. Blue Screens and then the bios loses the harddrive

[autoboy]

My office PC is acting up. 

The computer will blue screen.  When I restart the machine, the bios has lost the harddrive and the PC will not start because there is no drive.

To fix it temporarily, I simply switch the SATA port to a different port on the motherboard, the PC starts normally, and works for another 2 weeks or so.

I can tell it will fail soon because the PC starts to become completely unresponsive which it thrashes the harddrive for no apparent reason and under very light load.  I can move my mouse, and perform OS stuff, but anything that hits the harddrive is out for about 30 seconds to a minute while the harddrive thrashes away.  A few hours or days later, the PC bluescreens and it starts all over again. 

I’ve replaced the harddrive with 2 different models and I’ve updated the bios (there was a fix that apparently fixed a blue screen problem with USB harddrives but it didn’t fix my problem). 

This is one of the strangest problems I’ve encountered.  Any suggestions?

Motherboard: Asus M3N78-VM Nvidia 8300
CPU:  AMD Athlon II tricore
Harddrive, WD 750GB blue
4GB of DDR2
Windows 7 64bit
AHCI mode on the HD.

[Mike Garcen]

i think you already know what i’m gonna say…but i have to say it out loud. It sounds like a motherboard problem. very small bit of me thinks it could be the PSU, but it really sounds like a mobo issue (since you switch sata ports and same issue, yes?)

[autoboy]

So you are saying what I am dreading then.  The only solution is to buy a new motherboard…

That’s what I am thinking but I certainly don’t want to have to buy a new board.  It can’t be PSU.

Has anyone tried going to a new chipset on an existing Windows 7 install?  If I DO have to buy a new motherboard, I’ll probably get one with the AMD chipset so I can at least try to unlock another core.  At least I’ll get something out the deal right?

[Mike Garcen]

judging by your description, it sure sounds like it has to be the mobo. There’s really nothing else since you ruled out the hard drive (which woulda been my other guess. Can’t see the PSU doing anything like this).

you don’t need me to advise against doing a motherboard install with a different motherboard but same chipset with an existing installation…right? 🙂

From articles i’ve read about doing so (since even i yes have wanted to avoid reinstalling) make sure you uninstall all the chipset drivers from device manager before doing so, and cross your fingers. still, if you *can* a reinstall is definitely the best way to go.

[Andrew Van Til]

Since you already replaced the HD, I’m going to have to agree w/ Mike.  Before committing to a new board I’d try pulling the RAM out one at a time just in case.

As far as replacing the board with another chipset w/o reinstalling Windows it works sometimes, but I wouldn’t do it.

[robinhoody]

I’ve replaced a motherboard a few times like this…..its hit or miss.  I’ve actually done a windows repair too and have had luck with that.  Ofcourse this was with XP and not windows 7.

[autoboy]

Windows XP was way different than Windows 7.  I’ve heard that windows 7 was designed to be able to replace the harddrive controller.

Naylia had a good idea.  Instead of replacing the motherboard, I’m gonna try a pci-e SATA card I have laying around. 

[Meester.Rip]

If you have a fan on your chip-set make sure it is running properly. I’ve seen a pc act flaky when he didn’t keep up with blowing out the dust from the north bridge and when I replaced the heat sink with a heat sink and fan unit it worked a quite a while longer.

[autoboy]

The system is always under very light load.  It has happened only a few minutes after recovering from sleep.

The system is also stable under load from the occasional video game.

I don’t think it can be heat related.

[Ugadata]

A couple of simple thoughts…….

Check the CMOS battery (I don’t think the battery is the issue but..) and you could try EBay for an identical mobo to help ease the non-reinstall issues.

[autoboy]

A couple updates. 

I tried a SATA card I had laying around, and could not get it to boot from it.

There are 3 SATA modes.  AHCI, SATA, and RAID.

I had been running on AHCI since that is what I thought we were supposed to run under.  RAID mode got to the boot but blue screened shortly after.  SATA mode booted and I’m typing this on it right now.  I guess I won’t know if it really worked for a few more days / weeks.

I’ve never seen both AHCI mode and SATA mode since I thought they would be the same.  Maybe SATA mode really means legacy IDE mode?

[phoneguyinpgh]

Could it be the actual HDD and not the controller hardware??

[autoboy]

As you’ll see from the first post I’ve replaced the harddrive with 2 different models.  The first time I replaced it with an identical 80GB harddrive (I have a ton of these laying around from Dell servers.  It is cheaper to buy harddrives online than from Dell) and then, thinking it just might not like that type of harddrive, I got a new 2TB drive for my server and yanked the old 750 for this machine.  The 750 has the same problems except now I’ve got a ton of extra space I’ll never use on it. 

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