EVGA 680i SLI - BIOS would not detect any IDE/SATA device

I need some desperate help guys...

My computer had been running perfectly all this time. I switched on my computer in the morning and the BIOS started its Memory check in POST. All was ok. Then I see these messages:

Detecting IDE drives....
ps/2 mouse error or no ps/2 mouse present

Press F1 to continue

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It does not detect my IDE cdrom, a hard drive and a SATA hard drive. Nothing comes up in the bios and hence I cannot boot into windows. I had heard of SATA drive corruption with these boards since their release and I updated my BIOS as soon as I got this board and I never experienced any problems.

After checking some cables I switch on my PC again and I hear 3-4 beep sounds and the screen goes blank and the video card blows at full speed. I checked the LED codes on the motherboard and they had to do with the RAM in one way or another. I switched my RAM to another DIMM slots and then it went til the POST bios screen and started its memory check, again I saw the same messages.

I restored default settings by resetting the CMOS jumper and now I can atleast see all the SATA/IDE available connections in the POST check but still no drive is being recognized. And this time there was no mouse error like before.

One of my main concerns is whether my data is safe in the hard drives or not. I haven't had a chance to check it in another computer. Someone please let me know if I have a faulty RAM, is the motherboard acting up or whether my hard drives have been permanently corrupt somehow!!!! Oh and one more thing, my cpu had been running on 3.6ghz stable and the first time I saw the error at POST check up, the cpu was reset to its stock clock speeds.

Sounds like your board may have reset itself before you did the CMOS reset. Not sure what that means yet.

What was the code on the little LED on-board display reading when the RAM issue came up? Is there a different code showing up now?

Chances are your HDD is ok. This sounds like a motherboard issue which means your hard drive hasn't even had a chance for anything to do a read/write that would do any damage yet. If it infact is a mobo issue, the good news is you have an EVGA board, and their customer service usually rocks.

Also, do you happen to have a power supply checker? Or a multimeter you could check your voltages w/?

This sounds like some sort of core hardware issue (Power supply or motherboard). It could be your southbridge has gone bad(what runs your SATA/IDE controllers). Who knows at this point.

Either way, I'd bet your hard drive is ok at this point, based on what you've told us. You haven't heard any clicking noises, or otherwise odd sounds from your HDD's right? If you get a chance, hook it up to another machine as a secondary (So don't boot off of it, boot the other machine's usual OS) just to see if you can still see everything on it.

First off, I really appreciate your response.

I think I might have figured out SOME of the problems. I looked up the manual for the codes and since it goes through really fast I only remember some of them. Basically there was a code '52' at which point my screen was blank and nothing would come up (even before getting into the POST messages). The manual says it is, "Memory Test Test all memory of memory above 1MB using Virtual
8086 mode, page mode and clear the memory"

Don't know exactly what it means, but the memory seems fine to me. I thought maybe the DIMM slots had gone bad. I took out my Wireless adapter from the PCI slot though, and it booted up without any problems. But the hard drives were still not being recognized. So I used a new SATA cable and it worked perfectly!!! Seems like I need a new casing and some IDE and SATA cables.

So far the computer is running great and you were right, the hard disks are functioning too. But it still has problems booting now when I insert the Wiresless Card. I dont know if the PCI slot is faulty or not, but I definitely need a bigger case for this board and my hardware. All the cable clutter and the cards not being seated properly might have to do with the constant boot failures.

FOr the time being I have taken out extra piece of hardware like the Wireless card and my sound card. And the last CODE I remember reading was '7F: POST error check Check POST error and display them and ask for user
intervention', which changes after a while to something else.

I do not have a power supply checker but am certain that it is working fine. Although I'd like to have one to check how much my computer contributes to the electricity bills :S

I am having an extremely similar problem. No HHD I connect to my IDE works. I dont have any SATA HHDs to test. My computer will boot via Bios, but the first thing it does is a memory test and now its EXTREMELY slow. once that is done, it tried to boot the HHD and get windows going. This, obviously fails. it says "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT BOOT DISK" yada yada...My computer is (mostly) a gaming computer and when I got this Mobo it was NOT cheap. I definitely cannot afford to buy a new one at this time.

Processor: Intel core 2 Quad 2.4G CPU with MTEC cool-it Liquid Cooler
Motherboard: eVGA 680i SLI (Bios V 2.053.76)
RAM: 4x1GB DDR2 1066MHz PC-8500
Graphics: EVGA eGeForce 8800GTS
Storage: Seagate 250GB IDE
Operating System: Windows XP SP3 Pro 32-bit

blickquickly said:

I am having an extremely similar problem. No HHD I connect to my IDE works. I dont have any SATA HHDs to test. My computer will boot via Bios, but the first thing it does is a memory test and now its EXTREMELY slow. once that is done, it tried to boot the HHD and get windows going. This, obviously fails. it says "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT BOOT DISK" yada yada...My computer is (mostly) a gaming computer and when I got this Mobo it was NOT cheap. I definitely cannot afford to buy a new one at this time.

Click to expand...

Is "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT BOOT DISK" the exact wording of the error you're currently getting w/ the hard drive plugged in?

Next, what happens if you leave the disc completely unplugged and start it up. What is the exact wording of the error do you get (I can't remember)?

Third, try doing as the OP did: Unplug everything that isn't necessary for windows to boot. So any extra PCI cards (just leave video card), any DVD/CD drives, and secondary HDD's, and extra USB devices (just leave mouse and keyboard if they're USB). Then boot and see what happens. Any changes when you do that?

And as for the memory test being slow... just how slow is it? About how many seconds?

Write back with answers to all of the underlined/italicized questions and we'll go from there.

necrokiller said:

FOr the time being I have taken out extra piece of hardware like the Wireless card and my sound card. And the last CODE I remember reading was '7F: POST error check Check POST error and display them and ask for user
intervention', which changes after a while to something else.

Click to expand...

Can you post the exact codes that display on the motherboard's display?

necrokiller said:

I do not have a power supply checker but am certain that it is working fine. Although I'd like to have one to check how much my computer contributes to the electricity bills :S

Click to expand...

A power supply checker doesn't tell you how much wattage(power) you're using. It tells you if your power supply is putting out the proper voltages on all of the rails. There's a bunch of different voltages that are used... Like a +12v, -12v, +5v, +3.3V... I can't remember them all. Anyway, a power supply tester makes sure all the voltages are within a certain range of the desired voltages.

To see how much power you're using, you'd want something like this: Kill-A-Watt. I have two, one that's always got my computer hooked up, and another I use just to test random appliances I use. It does help to show how much you're using up. My computer uses 700-800 watts at load, around 350-400 idle, and maybe 250 when montiors cut off. My eee701 only uses a whopping 11 watts I think

ShaggyTDawg said:

Is "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT BOOT DISK" the exact wording of the error you're currently getting w/ the hard drive plugged in?

Click to expand...

Yep.

Next, what happens if you leave the disc completely unplugged and start it up. What is the exact wording of the error do you get (I can't remember)?

Click to expand...

Same thing.

Third, try doing as the OP did: Unplug everything that isn't necessary for windows to boot. So any extra PCI cards (just leave video card), any DVD/CD drives, and secondary HDD's, and extra USB devices (just leave mouse and keyboard if they're USB). Then boot and see what happens. Any changes when you do that?

Click to expand...

Actually, this box has nothing but a HHD and the video card attached. No need to run stuff I really dont use. If I need something I can get it on a flash drive via USB or if I really have to, reconnect my CD-RW.

And as for the memory test being slow... just how slow is it? About how many seconds?

Click to expand...

Easily 30-60 sec to count up to 4Gb.

Write back with answers to all of the underlined/italicized questions and we'll go from there.

Click to expand...

NOW....I have good news and bad news.

The good news is: ITS WORKING AGAIN. WOO-HOO!
The bad news is: ITS WORKING AGAIN FOR NO REASON.

I hate when this stuff happens. So heres how it went down. The problem occured. I reseated the cables, and power cycled the box, reset my bios defaults, and all that standard easy to do stuff. no go. I called eVGA after going through my manual. they recommended I update my BIOS and had no other advice at that time. ok...seems easy enough, but I needed to find a floppy and drive (found some at Office Despot). DL'd the new version and tried using the floppy drive from my old rig to no avail. The FFD just wouldnt work on this box for some reason I cant say why (wouldnt even light up)...Probably connected to why my HHD wasnt being recognized as well, maybe? Well, I got angry, counted to ten (or more life fifty! I made some grilled cheese sammys while i thought about it, came back), and reset my bios back to the defaults (again) and for no good reason, everything came up normal this time.

Anyone have any ideas why it may have worked? I guess Im just glad it did and now I definitely will be keeping the old box! Thanks for letting me vent a bit as well. Computer problems tend to get me wound up.

blickquickly said:

The FFD just wouldnt work on this box for some reason I cant say why (wouldnt even light up)...Probably connected to why my HHD wasnt being recognized as well, maybe?

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How did you connect your floppy drive to your computer? USB? IDE?

My general thoughts and guess on the whole thing is... some how or another... even after reseating... you still had a bad/loose connection somewhere. It could be that your IDE cables are going bad. I think this is part of the reason we transitioned away from IDE cables b/c of their reliability, not to mention their a pain to work w/.

I suppose it is possible that both my IDE cables are going out, but honestly seems unlikely. But they do suck to work with. My floppy has its own IDE-looking cable and connection (it has less pins). Should I upgrade to a 9 pin USB on-board floppy? They're like what...$30 for the really nice ones that have the newer memory card capabilities? Seems like maybe that would be a better way to go than to have to rely on an IDE that is spotty.

blickquickly said:

I suppose it is possible that both my IDE cables are going out, but honestly seems unlikely.

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If you think about it... an IDE cable has 40 (or 39) female connection pins on each side. Each of those female connections essentially has to squeeze, or grip, its associated pin in order to make a connection. (this is sounding dirty) After time though, the female connection in the wire can lose its springiness that causes it to grip the pin. This can cause a faulty or no connection, which can result in the entire drive's connectivity going to the crapper.

Now take into account that in order for the cable to work... all 80 of the pins must nut have had the wear and tear on them that would cause faulty connections... and you can conclude that IDE cables going bad isn't too uncommon. The fact that there's so many points of failure in the one cable can only lead to having it as a "usual suspect" in IDE drive issues.

I can try posting the error codes again if you like... but since the process is rather quick I dont remember all of them.

You can definitely update your BIOS through a USB. There are various methods available on EVGA's website. I have done it before and if you say EVGA suggests a BIOS update, I might as well do it again since my motherboards sometimes still gives me problems after a bad restart...and the only way to get it to work is by resetting to the default settings in the BIOS...

but otherwise my PCI slot is working fine coz Im using a TV Tuner in that slot, so it has to be my old wireless or sound card that caused the problems before.

I would also suggest getting a new SATA hard drive and a new cable. Maybe get an enclosure for the IDE drives to use as external for storage or back up?

necrokiller said:

I can try posting the error codes again if you like... but since the process is rather quick I dont remember all of them.

Click to expand...

Only when your computer gets stuck booting or posting at some point does the code matter. The ones it flips through as it's booting up don't matter as that's normal. So if it hangs up, write down the code that it stops on. If it's not hanging up anymore, don't worry about it.

necrokiller said:

but otherwise my PCI slot is working fine coz Im using a TV Tuner in that slot, so it has to be my old wireless or sound card that caused the problems before.

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So it only has trouble booting when the wireless and/or sound card are in? This is when it has trouble detecting the hard drives? Or has trouble posting? Or is it something like windows blue screens?

necrokiller said:

I would also suggest getting a new SATA hard drive and a new cable. Maybe get an enclosure for the IDE drives to use as external for storage or back up?

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blickquickly:I agree with necro here. It'd be a good idea to consider swapping over to a SATA drive. Your motherboard probably came w/ SATA cables (at least I know my EVGA 780i board did). The connectors on SATA have clipping locks(sorta) to help hold the connector in place.

ShaggyTDawg said:

Only when your computer gets stuck booting or posting at some point does the code matter. The ones it flips through as it's booting up don't matter as that's normal. So if it hangs up, write down the code that it stops on. If it's not hanging up anymore, don't worry about it.

Click to expand...

Yep, thats what I meant, if it happens again.

ShaggyTDawg said:

So it only has trouble booting when the wireless and/or sound card are in? This is when it has trouble detecting the hard drives? Or has trouble posting? Or is it something like windows blue screens?

Click to expand...

No blue screens. Previously it was working perfectly with both the cards in (sound n wireless), then this started happening randomly. Even now sometimes if I dont shutdown the PC properly or do a restart in between a process, then it doesn't detect the hard drive, but once I load the default settings in the BIOS, things go back to normal again. So Im thinking its definitely just a motherboard problem, maybe update the BIOS again?

ShaggyTDawg said:

blickquickly:I agree with necro here. It'd be a good idea to consider swapping over to a SATA drive. Your motherboard probably came w/ SATA cables (at least I know my EVGA 780i board did). The connectors on SATA have clipping locks(sorta) to help hold the connector in place.

Click to expand...

Plus, IDE is slower, has more cable clutter and I don't think you can connect more than 2 IDE drives by default.