Help: nerd w/o computer GA-K8N-SLI

rebelcommander

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Sep 7, 2006
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Here's my problem, I was gaming and my computer froze, it completely stopped responding to ctrl+alt+del everything, yet no BSOD. So I waited a few seconds to see if it would do anything and nothing, so it got the old reboot. Upon bootup it said CMOS checksum failure and asked me to check the settings of my SATA drives. So I popped into the BIOS to see if everything was ok, the settings were the same as they were before the crash so I exited and restarted. The sytem would then only detect my secondary PATA drive not my main SATA drive.
Troubleshooting:
I tested the SATA drive in another computer, it worked
I tested another SATA drive in my computer, it failed
I tried disableing and re-inabeling SATA in the BIOS, no change
I did all of these tests with the PATA drive unplugged and plugged in

I don't have a PATA drive with windows installed on it so i can't try booting from it, but my theory is that it would work as the mobo has no problem detecting the PATA drive

My first thought is that the SATA controller is toast on the mobo, but I read on some forum that very similar symptoms came from a fried CPU (which i don't think is the case as I haven't overclocked mine and I have SUPERB cooling, 7 case fans and a beast of a CPU fan/heatsink)

My specs are as follows
Mobo: GA-K8N-SLI
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3700+
RAM: 512x2 DDR 400, 256x2 DDR 400
HDD: 1 250gb Seagate SATA, 1 160gb Seagate PATA

Thanks in advance for your help!
 

mkaibear

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Sep 5, 2006
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>tried drive, worked
>tried other drive, failed

OK, you've eliminated the drive as the problem.

All you've got left is the cables and the controller.

Try different power cable. Try different data cable (both with old and new drive, if you can). If they don't work, the controller is goosed :(
 

rebelcommander

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Sep 7, 2006
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I tried using a differnet cable, it failed. Thank god I bought it off Newegg, their RMA turnaround is a lot better than the month I'd expcet from Gigabyte. So I sent it off today, now I just have to wait the week for it to get back... :(