Flakey IDE Channel, Maybe?

My new AM2+ board is working great with one exception.

When I first installed everything I had no problems. My HD is SATAII which by default is run in legacy IDE mode. My DVD drive is IDE (it works great so I'm not going to upgrade until it dies).

Naturally, I do some tweaking in the BIOS for overclocking and such. Eventually, I notice that in POST, the DVD drive is no longer detected. I swap it out for a known good IDE HD and that isn't detected either. I return the BIOS to fail-safe defaults and suddenly it is recognized. So I start putting my BIOS back to how I had it set except I do one option at a time and reboot to see what is causing the problem. Eventually, I reboot and the drive isn't there. I go into the BIOS and change the last setting back and reboot...but the drive STILL isn't there. So I work backward, resetting the BIOS to stock one option at time. I can't get any consistent results beside resetting to fail-safe defaults. Once I do that, it comes back.

I'm stumped, any suggestions?

You on the latest BIOS yet? Sounds like a BIOS bug if you were really diligent about going one option at a time.

Yeah, using F11, most recent, and last update Gigabyte made.

Your meticulous troubleshooting should have told you which option that did it...

That said, there should be an option in the bios to have that IDE enabled and in which mode. I would look there first, as well as BIOS updates as stated above.

I would try to go one by one again through BIOS, paying special attention to anything related to IO controllers on the board. It could be a bug, but I feel like its more likely that there is a setting you are missing or mistakenly changing without realizing it effects IDE.

If you were really careful, then I'm just wrong. There's just several settings that can cause a drive to no longer be detected.

Could it have something to with having to switch the BIOS to "hybrid" in order to unlock the 4th core? I'm thinking maybe.

Also, I'm running my HD in AHCI.

Its possible. Try disabling it....

If your drive doesnt support AHCI, then that may be the issue there. I have to run some older sata drives in IDE or I BSOD.

Ok, this just keeps getting weirder. I went through each option again. It seems when I disable the onboard audio controller is when the IDE channel decides to stop working. If I disable it and then reboot, the drives don't show up. I can go back into CMOS and enable it, but the drives won't come back until I power down. Huuuuuh?

WONKY. Make a call/email/chat to support and see what they say. Do you have any other IDE devices to test? IDE 'ribbons'?

I have a few IDE HDs which I am using to test this issue as well, now. Same results. I'm gonna see what Gigabyte has to say.