Need help with possible motherboard failure
 

My PC has a Gigabyte H55M-ud2h
Boot drive is a Crucial CT128 SSD
CPU is an i3 530

Was overclocked a little to 4Ghz and has been for over a year

Turned PC on yesterday and got DISK BOOT FAILURE, PRESS KEY TO CONTINUE

No alterations were made since last boot.

I thought the SSD had failed but tried it in another PC and it appears fine.

Fiddled around with the BIOS and finally got the PC to boot to Win7.

Onboard LAN is Enabled. Have turned it on and off and booted with no difference.

Win7 is saying that no network adaptor can be found.

Looked in device manager and theres no entry for Network Adaptor.

Have tried to re-install Realtek LAN driver but get the same No Network Adaptor detected.

Looking at the back of the motherboard, there aren't the usual little lights flashing above the network port.

If you could have look on Knoppix which is Linux boot CD and there have look if your can be detected or just if you could connect to internet.


Jura

Strange. I had an Asus board do the same. I ended up dumping in a PCI LAN card until I replaced the motherboard.

Realtek LAN chip too, I wonder if the Realtek chips are bit more sensitive to voltage spikes...which considering that the board's voltages are fiddled with, it could pose a durability issue.

Now I remember why I bought a mac......

LOL, that was useful :)

Ali-B - I'm not sure if I did increase the voltage over stock. Can't remember settings of the top of my head.


Will try Knoppix. I've got an Ultimate Boot CD which has some kind of Linux based HDD diagnostic tool (it loads a Linux GUI) and that has a network option so I think that should make an attempt to detect the network port.

Really do think it's the Motherboard.

A further question - if I replace the motherboard would I have to make a fresh install of Win7? Would it complain having the board changed?

A like for like board you might just get away with it. using a different board I am afraid its a fresh Win 7 install. too many chipsets, too many different drivers to expect it boot up with out complaint.

...becauuuuuuuuse you have more money than sense?:D
What internals are in a Mac these days?

not a firmware issue on the SSD is it?

Id be resetting the BIOS first to be honest, and boot with a live cd of sorts as mentioned above.

You know you said you disabled the onboard LAN - you DID re-enable it didn't you? :)

:) Yes it was re-enabled.

It was enabled anyway and is in the failsafe BIOS settings.

Would that cause the motherboard network port to stop working?

It's odd that the PC gave a DISK BOOT FAILURE notice without anything in the BIOS being changed. Unless it was as a result of something failing on the Motherboard.

Ugg! Thought so. Can get a like for like board from OCUK but they only have B Grade stock. If it's going to bitch either way may as well get a new new one.

The board is still under warranty so will send it back - they might fix it but as it's been clocked maybe not. Personally I don't think it's related but they might use it as an excuse not to repair.

Don't you know? Diamonds and gold and built by Captain Scarlet. It's why they are so expensive and indestructable.

I've done a motherboard swap on Vista x64 from Asus to a Gigbyte with different chipset and different RAID 0 controllers and it worked fine, booted straight up, I just had to wait a while whilst it detected and installed the new drivers.

I did eventually do a full reinstall though, as really thats the proper way of doing it.

Product key registration may get rejected if its an OEM version. But just phone up micorsoft and tell teh nice Indian lady that the board failed and its no longer available so had to be replaced with a different model.

Hoperfully Gigabyte's warranty is better than Asus's. Asus gave me the run around on mine. :(

Didn't have much luck with that Knoppix thing.

I've got this Ultimate Boot CD thingy and that has a Linux based HDD diagnostic tool which also has a network connection option. Could not get it to recognise the network port on the motherboard so I'm sure the port is dead.

Got an Gigabyte RMA number so it's off for repair or "tough poop you OC'd it and it's all your fault". :)

Bought replacement gubbins anyway - i5, Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 board and 8GB Kingston RAM.

Might seem a bit extreme but our little office PC is housed in this ugly old silverstone HTPC case and I want to junk it for a little Shuttle case.

shuttle? pahh get one of these babies n do it right man

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...901_161918.jpg

I would watercool that with a rather unoriginal Borg theme. :)

Another question - I've never actually done a full backup of a Windows 7 drive. I just dump all the photos and games onto a 2nd drive.

I've got an SSD running the OS and a few other bits and a 1TB drive with all the games on. I've moved photos, drivers and save games onto the other drive so am ready to reinstall if I have to.

Can I make a copy of the Win7 drive onto the 1TB drive and then put it back onto the SSD once I've replaced the board,CPU and RAM?

It's just I've got my PC just so (you know what I mean, Videobox just a click away, that kind of thing :D ) and it's a PITA getting it "just so" again.

you will need to clone the SSD. if you could ghost the Win7 drive you could do a restore when you have the new board in. I personally don't hold out much hope. when i do a new board i reinstall from scratch, much cleaner. yes a major PITA getting the OS the way you like it again. try it an see you might be ok and if it goes tits up you can always reformat the ssd and re install windows again.

you can use one of the many pc cloning packages if you know where to get them. i have only ever used norton ghost and i have to say that was with limited success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...oning_software

Hugely impressed by the service from Gigabyte repairing my board.

Got the RMA on Tuesday and posted it to them special next day. Arrived back in the office today by courier all repaired and FOC.

Lan port had indeed failed (failed with all the LAN ports on my router too) so something must have happened while we were away.

That is pretty great service. :thumb:

Did you tell them about the OCing?

Didn't mention it. I assume they could have look at the BIOS and seen the saved OC settings. Would seem a bit of a blag though if they had refused the fix and blamed the OC. Considering both the board and router went at the same time while we were on holiday, it had to be some sort of power surge.

Gigabyte FTW then. Good to see they weren't fussed about the overclock. Up and running yet?

Hmm maybe a lightning strike

More likely a dodgy power supply in a switch/router. Seeing that they are often £1.99 wall-warts. Or the router/switch itself. Seeing both of tehse are the cheapest (in terms of component cost) and nastiest components found on the average home network.


IMO OC'ing the board should not pose a threat to the board's own components. If the board was designed to be over-clockable with minimal risk - otherwise why on earth would they supply the "Easytune" software which actually encourages it? ;) More basic boards wgich have no overclocking software and less BIOS options/flexibilty when it comes to timings and voltages so I guess they could be more fussy on warranty.

But, nice to know Gigabyte are good to their word with the warranty though, unlike Asus.

aha I was right then, glad u got it sorted.