What is wrong with my p4c800e-dlx?

My mobo has been running fine at stock speed for months now; havent OC'ed it for awhile. Lately, it has started acting funny. A few weeks back, I moved to a new place; when I plugged the system back in, the BIOS had completely reverted to the stock settings. Everything worked ok after that. Just today, it wouldnt boot to windows. I got a BIOS message that said something to the extent of insert the boot disc or select the right boot device. When I looked in the BIOS setup, the two sata devices (CD and HDD) were not listed. I swapped their inputs on the mobo and it booted fine. when I tried to reboot after that, the devices dissapeared. I tried using a new cable for the HDD but that didnt help. I tried plugging the HDD into the other sata inputs(the Promise ones?), but that didnt work and the device name showed up as something really weird like "~`~~`~`". after i rebooted and swapped ports a bunch of times, it finally went through to windows. I am running whatever bios came with it (dated 2003, i think. too scared to reboot and check). Could I have a bad battery? I had thought it might be the HDD but the CD drive was not showing up either.

and another thing. just looked in the device manager. instead of showing my Plextor SATA dvd burner, it shows "AXV CD/DVD-ROM SCSI cdrom device." I dont have any scsi devices....

Your help is greatly appreciated.
THanks !

and yet another thing. lately, the Plextor drive has been acting weird; it will randomly spin up to full speed; even if I am not accessing the drive.

Hi,

Can you tell us what BIOS version you are running?

I think some of this problem may be solved with a BIOS update, well, the part about the boot order, anyway. check out the Asus web site for BIOS details.

If you update your BIOS, and something goes wrong, it's not my fault......OK
As flashing your BIOS chip is risky. IE if the power goes out half way, or you dont flash it right.

Also, is you boot order being saved again now, or is it still being forgoten each time you switch off?

it shows "AXV CD/DVD-ROM SCSI cdrom device." I dont have any scsi devices....

Click to expand...

Thats Alcohol's virtual drive.

so the plot thickens. I was able to update the bios to 1023. ran sfc scannow to make sure windows was ok. Now, I was able to reboot once or twice. a day later, I tried to reboot, got through the bios, got the windows logo, then got a windows message that said "please wait." Next, the screen became garbled, a bunch of horizontal lines, then the screen went blank. this happened a few times. I tried to reboot with the last known config, same issue. I ran safe mode, and it stopped on agp1044 or something like that. thne, I rebooted again, and got a blue screen, said something was wrong with NV4 (i think).


any ideas?
thanks

bigspice said:

so the plot thickens. I was able to update the bios to 1023. ran sfc scannow to make sure windows was ok. Now, I was able to reboot once or twice. a day later, I tried to reboot, got through the bios, got the windows logo, then got a windows message that said "please wait." Next, the screen became garbled, a bunch of horizontal lines, then the screen went blank. this happened a few times. I tried to reboot with the last known config, same issue. I ran safe mode, and it stopped on agp1044 or something like that. thne, I rebooted again, and got a blue screen, said something was wrong with NV4 (i think).


any ideas?
thanks

Click to expand...

Hi,
Have you tried to reformat your hard drive,and re-install Windows?
I would try this, just to see if it's a software or hardware problem.
If you can re-install Windows, then your problem is software.

If you cant, IE it stops half way, when trying to install Windows, then it's a hardware problem.

Good Luck

eventually i was able to get it to recognize the hard drive but windows was completely screwed so I had to do a fresh install. Asus tech support is sending me another board so that should resolve it if it is indeed a mobo prob.
thanks again