Okay, I just have to make one more suggestion and then I'll shut up. As
batboy suggested earlier, try flashing your BIOS with a newer version and see if you still have the same problem. If you do it properly you'll be able to save your existing BIOS and reflash to it if need be.
As far as versions, you can try one of the Abit beta versions located here:
http://fae.abit.com.tw/download/beta/th7-ii/
I used the
"th7h7c01.zip" BIOS for my friend's system and had no problems. You could also try whatever the latest BIOS is from Mr. Natural located here:
http://www.n3dt.com/drivers/bios/abit/th7ii/
You'll have to sift through the last few pages of the sticky thread
"Updated Abit BD7-Raid and TH7II-Raid Bios. Get them here!", located here:
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78800
to determine what is his latest version because I'm not sure the "last modified" dates on his download page necessarily tell you the true story. Personally, I have a little trouble following that sticky thread so maybe somebody can just tell you what the latest version is. People seem to be using his BIOSes with success, though.
I know you said you were reluctant to flash your BIOS so that you didn't end up with a system failure, but as you scan these forums you'll find people flashing their BIOSes all the time without incident. If you follow the steps below, you shouldn't have any problems either.
To flash your BIOS, make yourself a boot floppy using
drdos, found here:
http://www.polarhome.com/service/bootdisk/DOS/Dr-DOS/drdflash.exe
Once you've made that boot floppy, transfer
awdflash.exe flashing utility to it, found here:
http://fae.abit.com.tw/download/utilities/awdflash.exe
as well as the file for whatever newer BIOS you plan to try. For our example, lets say it's
"th7h_7c.b01" from the
th7h7c01.zip file found at the Abit beta BIOS url listed above. Then, boot to that floppy and execute awdflash as follows:
awdflash th7h_7c.b01 /py/sy oldbios.bin /Wb/cd/cp/cc/LD
This will flash your BIOS with the new version as well as saving your old BIOS to
"oldbios.bin" on the floppy. The only thing I can't answer is, if you wanted to flash back to your existing BIOS, which switches you should use in the command line. That is, whether you use these:
awdflash oldbios.bin /py/sy
or use the long list of switches shown in the Abit manual as follows:
awdflash oldbios.bin /cc /cd /cp /py /sn /cks /r
Perhaps someone else can fill in this last blank for you.
Hopefully this will solve your problem.
Good luck,
Eggroll