NF7-S bios failure? Help Please

I have an Abit NF7-S mothboard and everything was going smooth after I installed everything. I booted up and went into the bios and then fiddled with some settings. I then saved them and rebooted. The bios was saved ok and the motherboard detected my IDE devices and then started to ask for a boot disk to load windows. Seeing as I have no Operating system I shutoff my computer with the power switch. I then rebooted and my bois just hung at detecting IDE devices, it detects my 512mb ram but never gets past that. It won't get any further and I can't get into my bios by pressing del. I tried resetting my cmos and that doesn't work at all. Is there anything else you guys would recommend in order to reawaken my mother board or does it sound like I need to RMA it? Could there be another possible problem?

P.S. I think I installed everything correctly, heatsink, connections etc. I checked my temps when my bios was working and they were running around 38C which I think is pretty good.

One other question. If my processor fried (which I think is doubtful) is there any physical signs on the processor itself that would indicate it was damaged due to not installing a heatsink right?

U could always order a BIOS chip from ABIT. it will proberaly be quicker than RAMing the board. (at least at the shop i buy)
U could take out the battery for 10min, or put in another cpu (that sometimes has helped me)...
http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?threadid=7157

Thanks so much, this helped a lot. I will try the things you stated. But I already ordered a new bios survival kit from excaliberpc.com for about 27$ with 3 day shipping included. GOD I HOPE THIS WORKS.

I had this problem last night i think. I am running at 200x10.5 and was playing in the BIOS alot as i was testing how far i could push my memory before i got problems. then the next thing my pc would not boot at 200fsb, so i dropped it too 180x12 and still i could not boot up.. i ended booting up at 133x15.. I really thought i had damadged my mobo. But after 1hr of playing in the BIOS i was able to slowly bring the fsb up again.. At the momnet i am running 205x10.5.. I am alittle scrared to play with it any more, in case i get the same problem... at the moment i am happy, so will leave it for awhile.

PS: using the latest BIOS 1.6

I thought 1.6 was supposed to fix this.

Fingolfin269 said:

I thought 1.6 was supposed to fix this.

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where did you hear this? I just saw that it prevents you from powering down while updating bios

Well it was a rumor while the BIOS was in beta (when I was researching my mobo options) and yah I read the revision notes on Abit's site and sure enough... well, at least no one can turn off their cpu while updating the bios now

This kind of sucks. I bought this board hoping that Abit would get this junk fixed before I had to worry about it.

I've posted this in the other thread:

This probably won't help you at all, but it may bring some issues up:

When I first got this mobo, I tried using 2 hdds. No go. It kept hanging at the ide detection.

Even worse though, I tried to use only 1 hdd. Now my 3 year old pioneer dvd drive did not get detected, it was some jarbled crap, like predator language

Now I crapped my pants and started to pull stuff out. Managed to rip off a jumper of the dvd drive, though it was was only fine there for 3 years. It still didn't detect. Switched the ide channels (prim + secondary round). Then it booted. But the cables were all wonky etc. SO that still sucked.

I now tried 2 hdds. Still froze. Crap I think. SO I go and whip out the serial ATA and connect the adapter to the second hdd. It actually works!

Now my computer boots. About 4 days later I get ****ed off and take out the adapter, and lo and behold, both drives work now on the ide channel. Next I switch back the channels. Is stil lworks.

Bascially, I have had VERY weird problems, I don't know what caused it, but it just solved itself....

The thing is, the hdds work, even though the jumpers aren't in the right position...??!!

Just keep trying.

Fingolfin269 said:

Well it was a rumor while the BIOS was in beta (when I was researching my mobo options) and yah I read the revision notes on Abit's site and sure enough... well, at least no one can turn off their cpu while updating the bios now

This kind of sucks. I bought this board hoping that Abit would get this junk fixed before I had to worry about it.

Click to expand...

Dont get me wrong, this board is the best i have ever had. Point out one board that at some time or other has not had any issues. It is very stable at high fsb and apart from the One BIOS issue i have had i am really, really impressed with the NF7-s.
But i do agree, that these issues be dealt with ASAP.

Cheng, I think this is the same trouble I am having. I ordered the bios recovery chip and that is on the way, but I too have 2 hard drives and 2 cd roms (1 is CDRW) and the bios hangs at detecting IDE connections. Its the same exact thing. I tried unplugging one of the hard drives but that didn't work and me being a newbie just gave up and thought it was a damn bios freeze. Tonight I am going to fiddle around some more and try the SATA to ATA converter thingy and see if it works for me as well. I am crossing my fingers. Thank you soo much for the help I am going to try this out tonight.

OK I fiddled around and found that one of the hard drives died , this sucks so much. I am going to RMA the hard drive. But l did get the bios working because the other hard drives works. I guess I will have to wait on using the software raid till I get the other hard drive back.