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[cfinchy]

Hi I've been having a problem with an incredibly slow rig. Tried asking the ASUS site to no avail. I have pasted the details below. Any thoughts?

Have had this mobo for 18 months with no issues. 2 weeks ago the machine took 8 minutes to boot and a drive failed. I switched out the drive and copied the data back from backup. I checked all the other drives and found that the MFT was corrupted on the windows drive. I decided not to take any chances and copied all the data on the windows drive to another drive. I replaced the windows drive as well. I then rebooted, but found the PC gets stuck on the pre BIOS splash screen. I cannot enter BIOS or use EZ flash etc. After 20 minutes or so, the American Megatrends screen appears, it finds the keyboard, mouse, etc, but gets stuck on "auto detecting SATA 1..." No further progress. I have removed all but one stick of RAM, reset CMOS, etc. Never get further than described above.


Posted:1/16/2012 2:05:00 PM # 2
Check your boot order, boot devices, boot priority in bios settings. I had same problem, it was a setting that changed when I replaced defective DVD writer. You should be able to get into bios eventually, sounds like it is running very slow. Unplug all the sata cables except the windows booting drive.


Posted:1/17/2012 2:30:00 AM # 3
I have got into BIOS after much patience. The BIOS is very slow itself. Tabbing around in the BIOS has 10 second delays.


Posted:1/18/2012 11:58:00 AM # 4
So I managed some progress yesterday after i got into the BIOS. Set boot order. Set AHCI instead of IDE. Booted to Windows 7 disk. Installed. Rebooted. Updated Windows 7. Then copied old settings to the new HDD. Went out while it worked. Came back to find it stuck on the ASUS splash screen. Left for 2 hours. No progress. Tried various iterations. Reset CMOS. Tried to get into BIOS. Screen has been stuck while drawing the American Megatrends screen for the last 30 minutes. May eventually get to BIOS. May not.



Posted:1/19/2012 7:33:00 AM # 5
Left machine overnight, and it is now at the BIOS screen. Unfortunately the BIOS is unresponsive. Clock does not move. Should I try flash the BIOS on reboot?


Posted:1/19/2012 10:32:00 AM # 6
I left the BIOS screen running and after 3 hours it is now responding very slowly (press a key and 10 minutes later the machine will respond). It seems the machine will respond if there is only 1 stick of ram and only the DVD drive attached. Otherwise won't get pat splash screen. Has taken three days to come to this conclusion because it is so slow. Is the Mobo fried? Any response would be kinda cool.

 

[clutchc]

Have you tried breadboarding the motherboard? It would be best to remove the board from the case and place it on an isulated surface, but you may not have to remove it if you don't want to. Install the RAM (1 stick for now), the processor/HSF, and (if no integrated video) the graphics card. Connect the monitor. No drives. See if you can boot to BIOS and if the delay inside the BIOS is still present. If so, I would suspect a faulty board problem...

 

[cfinchy]

So. Followed your instructions and got it to post and boot a windows disk with no hdd attached. Going to try now with one sata drive attached...

 

[clutchc]

So. Followed your instructions and got it to post and boot a windows disk with no hdd attached. Going to try now with one sata drive attached...

Were you able to move around in the BIOS without the delay you mentioned previously?

 

[cfinchy]

Getting to the BIOS is still slow. When it loads the BIOS is unresponsive for several minutes. Then it works OK with occasional 30 second delays. It is not ideal but workable. I just managed to get windows 7 installed. Do you think it is going to eventually die on me and I should be talking to ASUS? It's taken 3 weeks to get to this point and I am concerned that I am going to deal with a total failure at some point.

 

[clutchc]

If you breadboarded the motherboard with no drives attached, just keyboard, monitor, CPU/HSF, memeory... and the BIOS was still slow to respond or unresponsive, I would think the board is defective. There's always the possiblility of a faulty CPU, but that seems to be rarer than board issues. And it's highly unlikely you can come up with a 'borrowed' LGA 1366 CPU to test that possibility. I can't think of any scenerio where the PSU would cause the slow response, either. I can't predict if or when it will 'die' but a slow, unresponsive machine is as good as dead.
It's probably too late to RMA the board to the retailer, but maybe Asus will issue you a repair/replacement RMA. I don't envy you trying to deal with them, but that's all I can think of doing.

 

[cfinchy]

Thanks for your help.

 

[cfinchy]

Best answer selected by cfinchy.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr