Help me convince my new machine it is my old machine?

X64, yes.
When I do that, it fails to see the ssd or the optical drive.

Sounds like some of the sata ports might be turned off in BIOS. Try clearing CMOS and even removing the battery for a few minutes.

New problems! OS loaded, drivers installed, sees my ssd and hdd...but some of the memory slots were bad (wouldn't see any ram in any of those slots). All the ones on the right of the heatsink. So I wanted to make sure it wasn't a grounding problem; pulled out the board and stuck it on a bench, and suddenly the slots on the left of the heatsink don't work either. Error 53; invalid memory type or incompatible memory speed.

Are you sure the memory is in the proper slots (with 4 sticks they should be in the grey slots)? Which ram sticks again please?

Yup, they're aligned like it shows in the manual, with 4 sticks in the grey slots. Also they no longer work in a configuration they used to work in (4 sticks in the grey slots). They are Corsair Vengeance LPX, 4X4 Gb.

Does it work with 1,2, or 3 sticks in any slots at this time?

Try installing one stick in the grey slot closest to the I/O area, then boot. If it sees that module ok, then shut down and install the next module in the grey slot closest to the first module you installed. If it boots and sees those two modules, then shut down and install the next module in the grey slot closest to the CPU on the other side of the socket. Boot up and check again. If all is good so far then install the last module.

If none of this works then I can almost guarantee there are bent pins in the CPU socket.

Tried that. It doesn't see that first one closest to the I/O area anymore, though it did several hours ago before I pulled the motherboard out of the case. The instant I pulled it out of the case it stopped recognizing any slots including that one, and now it won't recognize that slot (or any slot) in the case or otherwise. You think it's the CPU pins not the ram slots?


@EarthDog: Nope.

Pull the CPU and check

No bent pins. Asus tech support said RMA. Then, to make the story stranger, a friend dropped by after work, stuck a stick of ram in slot D1 (which never worked), and it booted and saw the ram stick. So she stuck them all in there and it now saw only the right side of the board. (Before it started giving error 53 it would see only the left side). Then she put them all in A1, B1, C1, and D1, which is the configuration I had it in the first time (when it would only see the left side of the board), and it suddenly saw all of the ram. All's well that ends well? Except it has a consistently bad SATA port, and stubbornly refuses to install SATA drivers, complaining "Device type not supported."

At least there's now a chance that it will work long enough for the RMA process.

EarthDog said:

Sysprep will delete all the drivers for you. Can't say I've done that or deleted any drivers before I make this change, but that would be a lot cleaner, and likely preferred over mybmethod.

Click to expand...

You sir, are fantastic. I've actually been looking for something like this, who woulda thunk it was embedded in windows the whole time...